Debates of Oct. 20th, 2022

Opposition Motion—Tax Exemption on Home Heating Fuel

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, each and every country in the G7 has lowered taxes, except the Canadian government. Shame on them.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind the hon. member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill that she had an opportunity to ask a question. She does not have an opportunity to do a rebuttal, unless it is through questions and comments.

The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank our colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent for his speech. I know that he is also the environment critic, so I would like to ask him a rather simple question.

If there is one price that keeps going up and down, it is the price of fossil fuels. If there is one thing that is always changing, that is chronically unstable, it is the price of fossil fuels. Does my colleague agree that we must reduce our dependency on fossil fuels?

I fully realize that a transition will not take place overnight, so not everyone is going to lose their jobs, but we need a plan to reduce our dependency, and the sooner the better.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot for his question. Of course we are in favour of that. The entire world agrees that climate change is real and that we need an energy transition. We have been saying that for years too. However, we need to find the right approach.

As a Canadian, I will never understand why we are sending hundreds of millions of dollars to other countries when we have that traditional energy here at home. In Quebec, where I am proud to live and pay my taxes, we see that, year after year, 35%, 40% or 45% of the oil we use comes from Texas. I am uncomfortable with that as a Canadian.

Perhaps it does not bother some people to send hundreds of millions of dollars to Texas, and that is their call. I, for one, would rather keep that money here in Quebec. I do not support the Bloc Québécois, but I certainly do not support Texas.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague, the environment critic on the Conservative bench.

I want to frame this question with a very important context. When we are taking a solution from one emergency, which is the climate emergency, to try to address another emergency, my recommendation to the member is that we can actually do both.

The New Democratic Party has tabled an amendment to the Conservative motion that would take GST off home heating, something the New Democrats have fought for for a long time. If the member truly wants to ensure that a lower cost of living for Canadians is achieved and we actually get a result for Canadians, would he accept our amendment to ensure we get GST off home heating?

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am very proud to be the environment and climate change critic, or shadow cabinet minister. I am very confident in the mandate that my leader gave to me. As a Canadian and Québécois, I am so proud to address this issue.

For years we have been asking the government to lower taxes. We could not believe it when we realized a few months that the government was still keeping the plan to raise taxes not once, not twice but three times, tripling the Liberal carbon tax on April 1. If the government is serious about helping all Canadian families, it will scrap the target to triple the Liberal carbon tax.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to today's opposition motion put forward by the member for Calgary Forest Lawn. I will be sharing my time with the member for St. Catharines.

This motion proposes to exempt carbon pricing from some fuels based on their targeted purpose on the premise that affordability and fighting climate change are mutually exclusive. From the outset, I want to make it clear that this is a false premise and I reject it. The environment and the economy go hand in hand, and one good example of this is the price on pollution.

We know that the price on pollution has reduced carbon intensity in our economy since it was first introduced, and without it, our emissions would have been going up more than they have been. We know that the price on pollution is a market mechanism and is one of the most efficient ways to reduce carbon. It is widely held as the best way to do this from economists worldwide and has been instituted by many governments. We also know that this is a revenue-neutral price on pollution and that the money given back to Canadians who pay for it, for the most part, offsets any additional costs they incur.

We have been targeting our relief to Canadians who need it most. A blanket exemption of the price on pollution for all Canadians would provide relief to Canadians who need it and to Canadians who can perhaps afford it. All Canadians should be doing their part to reduce pollution. I believe we are doing that, and we are compensating those who can afford it least by returning this money, which is paid through the climate action incentive.

Canadians in provinces where this plan is in place have received a cheque. In Ontario, they would have received it starting last Friday from the climate action incentive. It gave them much-needed money at this time. The money they will be receiving back will be in excess of what they are contributing, if they are taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint. It is this price signal that is so important for reaching our goals.

We all know that we have had inflationary periods over the past and that commodity prices rise and fall. We have seen this happening for many reasons. The global impacts of the war on Ukraine, of the post-COVID economy and of so much more have hit people around the world. This will happen again, and while we know it is causing challenges for many Canadians and we are providing programs and incentives that are targeting the Canadians who need help the most, we are also aware that the climate crisis is not going away.

We as a government have a commitment to Canadians. We have a commitment to businesses that are investing in clean tech. We have a commitment to Canadians, who are trying to make choices to reduce their carbon footprint, to maintain this price on pollution and not continually introduce waivers and exemptions along the way. They rely on our commitment to make investments. We need to continue to do that. If we want Canadians businesses to invest in clean energy and want Canadian businesses to invest in clean tech, we cannot go back and forth and say today it is on and tomorrow it is off.

The Progressive Conservative Party used to be a party of business. It understood economics. I am really dismayed to see how the CPC has changed its bend. Now its math is even off. The price on pollution will be increasing from $50 a tonne to $65 a tonne on April 1, 2023. For most of Canada, that is after the coldest winter months, and in the math that I learned, that is not a doubling, a tripling or even a 35% rise in the price on pollution. I am not sure where the Conservatives are getting their economic or math abilities these days, but clearly they are not doing it themselves.

To go back to the price on pollution and the need for it, we often talk about what it costs Canadians and the cost of a price on pollution, but we do not often talk about what it costs us if we do not do this. What does it cost us if we do not take action to fight climate change?

Those costs are significant. We have seen them recently on the east coast with hurricane Fiona. We saw them on the west coast with atmospheric rivers, which none of us had heard of before but we now have in our vocabulary. These costs are significant. It is estimated that they are now $1.9 billion a year.

Those costs and the effects they have on Canadians' day-to-day living, on small businesses, on the agricultural manufacturing sector, on farms, on so many people are real costs. They include the cost of insurance going up, the flooding of homes and the supply chains that are being affected, which ultimately affects inflation. These things are happening because of the climate crisis and because we are not doing enough.

Therefore, in addition to the price on pollution, we have introduced other programs to try to expedite that change, because we know we have not met some of our targets. However, the price on pollution is effective and we have seen that because the intensity of carbon emissions has gone down. We cannot be short-sighted in this House. We cannot just be focused on the next six months. We have to look at the long term and do things for Canadians, both to build a stronger economy and to help Canadians with affordability while at the same fighting climate change.

I am proud that our government is doing that. We are targeting support because we are cognizant of the effects of widespread spending on inflation. We are trying not to put in place a measure that all Canadians get. We are trying to put in a measure that Canadians who need it most would benefit from. Taking the price on pollution off of heating oil and propane at this time would benefit all Canadians who use that fuel. I use that fuel in my home and I am among the many Canadians who do not need that break currently.

Let us focus on Canadians who need it most. Unlike Conservative policy with the Canada child care benefit, which was given to millionaires, we changed that and gave it to the people who need it most. That is what we have to do with our dollars now: focus on those who are really suffering and try to help all Canadians through other programs that we have put in place.

We have one of the most ambitious programs to address climate change and we know that other countries around the world are joining us. In fact, one of the premises in the preamble of this motion is that we are the only country that has increased the price on pollution during this period, and that is not true. In Canada, we are doing it in a very orderly fashion, incrementally by $10 a year and $15 a year going forward. Germany, for example, put a price on pollution of $25 a tonne in 2021. It will be going up to over $55 a tonne in one fell swoop. That is not what we chose to do. We chose to do it incrementally and consistently, so that people knew what was going to happen, they could adjust to those price increases and it would allow businesses to respond accordingly.

I know that Canadians from coast to coast to coast recognize that we need a government with a real plan of action, including the very effective market mechanism of the price on pollution. It is not sufficient, so we are moving forward with that. We are sticking with it while offering support to Canadians who need it most now. We will continue to do that and show that a green economy and green future go together. Let us keep fighting climate change while supporting Canadians.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, again I find it very interesting that real challenges being faced specifically by Atlantic Canadians and the cost of living crisis faced by so many are being dismissed by members of the government and also other left-leaning parties in this place. It is the definition of “elitism” to suggest that it is okay for us to raise prices as long as it is incrementally breaking people's banks just a little at a time. That is what the Liberals are suggesting.

The Prime Minister was elected in 2015 on the promise that he would never go above $50 a tonne. He promised that until it was learned through a slip of the tongue by his former environment minister that it was actually going up to $170 a tonne and some reports would suggest that it may go up to $1,000 a tonne.

Are the Liberals planning to continue to flip-flop and incrementally break Canadians at the bank?

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, there have been two elections since 2015, just to remind the hon. member opposite. Canadians have chosen to return us with our climate plan, which they see as a real plan, as opposed to the flip-flopping on the Conservative side, which, at some points, wants a price on pollution and then changes to not having a price on pollution and then goes back to, perhaps, a price on pollution. I am not sure where they are now. One member here seems to support it while the leader does not.

If he could clarify that for me, that would be great but, no, we are not flip-flopping. We are staying consistent in fighting climate change and we will continue to do that.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, once again, I would like to acknowledge my colleague who sits with me on the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development and whom I hold in high regard.

We must work to wean ourselves off oil, even if that thought gives some people hives. There are several ways to move away from oil, and the tax on pollution is one of them, but there is also the issue of energy efficiency. I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member opposite, with whom I enjoy serving on the environment committee very much.

I agree with you 100%. We know that we—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I would like to ask the hon. member to address questions and comments through the Chair. It is not the first time.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I do believe that we have to reduce reliance on fossil fuels for many reasons. Climate is, of course, one of them, but there is also the ups and downs in the commodity price, which has caused so much difficulty for Canadians in affording this.

Certainly, we will continue to do that. We have to also look, though, at efficiency in heating homes. That is why we have the greener homes grant. We also need to look at efficiency in new buildings. As we are increasing our housing stock, we have to make sure that homes are being built with greater efficiency, so that home heating costs are not as great and we do not have to rely on propane and heating oil.

Yes, I agree with the member opposite. I also know that there is a transition and while we are doing that, we have to ensure that our oil and gas sector is the cleanest in the world. Continuing to put in mechanisms during that transition is equally important.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to start by recognizing that the hon. member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill is one of the strongest voices for the environment in the governing party caucus. She was also being honest in saying that the Liberal Party has not been able to meet the climate targets that have been set so far.

One of the reasons why that is the case is that there has been a continued increase in subsidies to the very sector most responsible for the crisis we are in, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. Can she comment on what she could do to help move away from further increasing, for example, tax credits to carbon capture and storage, to the tune of $8.6 billion?

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's efforts on moving forward to combat climate change as well.

What I would like to say to that is that we have made a commitment to eliminate all fossil fuel subsidies and we are moving in that direction. I believe that we can do more and that we should do more to support renewable energy and to make that our primary focus. We know that fossil fuels will continue to be produced in Canada as we make the transition and that there are certain non-combustible uses that may remain. We need to make sure that we are supporting wind energy, solar and green hydrogen, and all of these other areas equally.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise today to speak to this motion. I truly believe it comes from a good place in the Conservative Party. There are many members all throughout this House who are concerned about the rising cost of living, the costs our constituents face on a daily basis. I think that is where this motion comes from, this genuine concern.

To all the members from the class of 2015, happy anniversary; it has been seven years. We can look back at all of the measures we have put in place on the cost of living, even starting from one of the first things we did, which was to raise taxes on the wealthiest 1% so we could cut them for everyone else. We have the Canada child benefit, $10-a-day day care, dental care and rental supports, which the Conservative Party opposes. Whenever we are there to offer tax relief, the Conservative Party has stood up and said absolutely not.

We did raise taxes on the wealthiest 1%. The Conservatives raised concerns about raising taxes. We raised them on the wealthiest individuals in this country and the Conservatives voted against it. It is a little rich, at this point, that they are starting to take interest. It is great that they are taking interest in the cost of living crisis. I really hope they change their minds on the current government initiatives before us, especially dental care.

Every member of this House gets subsidized dental care from the taxpayer. It is shocking to see Conservative members of the House get up and say that 30% of people do not have access to dental care and that is okay. It is shocking that they are able to stand in this place and speak about three out of 10 of their constituents and say they do not deserve dental care, but we do.

The one thing that is interesting in this entire debate on the cost of living, and I have not heard a Conservative member speak to it yet, is the cost of climate change. Just in the past seven years that many members have been sitting in this place, we have seen devastating forest fires, floods in British Columbia, droughts in the Prairies and intense storms throughout Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

There is no movement. Actually, that is probably not true. There is movement in the Conservative Party on a climate plan, but it is backwards. I was pleasantly surprised as parliamentary secretary to the minister of environment and climate change when the Conservatives brought out a price on pollution. I said this is a positive thing for the country, even though I did not agree with how they were going to implement it. It was a positive thing for the country that ever major party going into the election acknowledged that pollution is bad and we should price pollution. There has been a change to that. Every member here from the Conservative Party ran on carbon tax.

It is true. We are hearing some heckles that some of them did not and I guess they took matters into their own hands under the Reform Act and dealt with the source of the carbon tax, which was the hon. member for Durham, who stood up and said Canadians wanted answers on pollution. They are worried about their kids. I am worried for my kids.

I am sure members are coming from that place where they are worried about their constituents, but I do not see them worried down the road. They do not seem to be worried about the increase in storms. They talk about the rising cost of food and that is a real worry for Canadians across the country, which should be raised, but they never once link it back to climate change. There are incredible droughts in the United States and in the Prairies, or the storm in Florida and how it is going to impact citrus prices. All of these things are connected and are going to increase the costs that we see every day. How will many of the constituents they have who have experienced extreme weather be able to afford insurance on their homes if they live near a river or the ocean?

We hear Conservative leaders just dismiss that. There is no vision forward. There is no look ahead to ask, “What should we be looking at for our kids and for our grandkids?” It has always hearkened back to a price on pollution. Maybe there is a better plan out there by the Conservative Party to address climate change, but there is none. There is zero plan. There was a plan; now there is none. I am sure something will come out in the future. We have seen now three elections with an unserious plan for climate change, but Canadians are genuinely concerned because they can see it with their own eyes. I talk to my constituents. It does not rain the same anymore where I live.

Every member of the House can see with their own eyes how the weather is different, how trends are changing and how the cost of that is impacting our constituents in every riding of this country. However, when the members of the Conservative Party talk about the cost of living, they never mention climate change as part of it. We can forget about the fact that there is a rebate on the price on pollution. The Conservatives seem to ignore that and forget about that every day. It is very convenient.

They never even talk about the price of climate change. What is the cost to taxpayers to help people in Atlantic Canada? We will be there for them. What is the cost in British Columbia with floods? What was the cost in Alberta, to taxpayers, of fires? What is the cost to Canadian homes and households if there is a drought in the Prairies, or if there is a drought elsewhere, and the price of food goes up?

If we are going to have a serious discussion about the cost of living, climate change needs to be part of that, but we see, time and time again, the Conservative Party being unserious about science. We saw it on vaccines. We have seen it now again on climate change. It has been disappointing to be here in this House and see it. Some members, including the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent who just spoke, say that climate change is a real thing. That is great. I know the Conservative Party itself voted that down in its last policy meeting. However, why is there no action? Why are those members not being heard by the leadership to say that we need to take serious action on the climate?

My friend, the hon. member from Kingston, talked about a previous Conservative government in the 1980s that exercised global leadership in North America and helped institute a price on pollution. At times, it seems the hon. leader of the Conservative Party likes to engage in Thatcherism. I do not have a lot of positive things to say about that, but one of the things that—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Madam Speaker, we hear heckles that some of them like Margaret Thatcher, which is great. However, the one thing they do not like is that she warned the world early on that carbon dioxide was a problem, and Britain is now further ahead than Canada.

It is shocking, this cognitive dissonance that is going on in the Conservative Party. They like Margaret Thatcher, but they do not like this one thing she talked about. They like science, sort of, but they do not necessarily like vaccines. They are not going to talk about real solutions on climate change, and they do not care about the next generation or the generation after that.

I would take this motion a bit more seriously if there were actually a genuine plan and if there were something coming forward. It is very easy to feed on people's fears and anxieties, especially at a time like now, which is a time of extreme uncertainty, war and environmental turmoil, but the Conservatives offer nothing. They offer nothing in this place, except fear.

We have brought forward solutions. We have brought forward real solutions to the environmental climate crisis. Maybe some day they will take it seriously, but after three elections, Canadians have seen that the Conservative Party of Canada does not take environmental climate change seriously and that is why the Conservatives are probably going to stay on that side of the House, unless they come to the table and address Canadians properly and talk about affordability in a real way and that means addressing climate change.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the member across the way. It was a bit of a vitriolic on my colleagues here and our stance on climate and the environment, which I think is much more progressive than what I have seen on that side of the House, because we are actually trying to come to solutions. However, solutions are one thing and talking about pretending to be serious is something else. I am going to catch him on this because he has failed every step he has made as far as reducing emissions goes. When we talk about being serious, I would like him to think seriously. I would like to go back to where the whole concept of carbon pricing started. It was advanced by a gentleman named William Nordhaus who won a Nobel Prize for it. A carbon tax was effectively one way of doing it.

Let us take a look at how the current government talks about the carbon tax it has. It has to throw regulations on it, including the clean fuel standard, the clean electricity standard and numerous others. It is atrocious. If it is thinking about a market mechanism, this is not a market mechanism. It is a tax. Can the member address that?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Madam Speaker, as the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled, this is not a tax. It is a price on pollution that is returned back to Canadians.

The hon. member talked about solutions at the beginning of his question and then rambled on about nothing. Never do I hear a Conservative member stand up in this place and offer anything concrete, anything substantive on climate change. There is nothing, time after time, day after day, year after year, from any of them. They are laughing over there and smiling like this is some kind of joke that our children are going to live through, their children are going to live through and our grandchildren are going to live through. They do not care.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite for his speech. However, anger is a not a good guide when it comes to this subject.

We are talking about inflation and a suggestion that was made by the Conservative Party. I would like to know what my colleague opposite sees as alternative solutions for increasing seniors' purchasing power.

What about making the economy more resilient, for example, by rebuilding the supply chain, reducing our dependence on oil or taking action to address the labour shortage?

What other proposals does my colleague have?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think there were six questions bundled up in there, and I do not think I have enough time in my 30 seconds to respond to that.

Even just looking at seniors with respect to the GST tax credit and rental supports, that is something that seniors and low-income seniors will benefit from. We have raised the OAS. We have raised the guaranteed income supplement. We have been there for seniors. The Conservatives are talking about the cost of living, but after the Conservative government increased the age people can collect OAS and GIS to 67, we lowered it back down. It did not increase the age its members could collect their pensions. They just increased it for seniors.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, what I believe is an important piece to this, which was mentioned by the Conservative bench and I want to give it credit for that, is the fact that the current Liberal government has increased the production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases with its plan. However, what we are also seeing on the other end is that its budgets are continuing to pad the pockets of rich big oil and making sure they can continue to increase production. These two are connected.

When will the current government come clean and actually do the work?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Madam Speaker, with respect to subsidies, I know the previous Liberal member discussed our plan on fossil fuel subsidies, but it is interesting that the New Democrats in the last Parliament voted in favour of one of those increases, which was to clean up abandoned wells to help address the devastating economic impacts of oil and gas and the companies that have abandoned those oil and gas wells, and to put people back to work. Now, a year later, they are saying that they did not mean it when they voted for it. Let us have a serious discussion. The New Democrats were in favour of it before, and they are against it now.