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—