Debates of Nov. 2nd, 2023

(Return tabled)

Question No.1707—

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

With regard to the Universal Broadband Fund announcement by the government on August 28, 2023, specifically relating funding recipient Rogers – UBF-05530 in the amount of $79,052,000 to bring high speed internet access to 28,269 households: (a) how many of the 28,269 individual households are each located in (i) Ancaster, (ii) Binbrook, (iii) Branchton, (iv) Campbellville, (v) Carlisle, (vi) Copetown, (vii) Dundas, (viii) Freelton, (ix) Grassie, (x) Jerseyville, (xi) Kilbride, (xii) Lynden, (xiii) Millgrove, (xiv) Mount Hope, (xv) Pleasant View Survey, (xvi) Rockton, (xvii) Sheffield, (xviii) Stoney Creek, (xix) Strabane, (xx) Troy, (xxi) Waterdown; and (b) how much of the allotted $79,052,000 for this project is allocated to be used in (i) Ancaster, (ii) Binbrook, (iii) Branchton, (iv) Campbellville, (v) Carlisle, (vi) Copetown, (vii) Dundas, (viii) Freelton, (ix) Grassie, (x) Jerseyville, (xi) Kilbride, (xii) Lynden, (xiii) Millgrove, (xiv) Mount Hope, (xv) Pleasant View Survey, (xvi) Rockton, (xvii) Sheffield, (xviii) Stoney Creek, (xix) Strabane, (xx) Troy, (xxi) Waterdown?

(Return tabled)

Question No.1709—

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

With regard to the President of the Treasury Board's directive to find specific cuts within departments by October 2, 2023, broken down by department: (a) were any third-party management firms contracted to assist with identifying spending cuts; and (b) what are the details of all contracts in (a), including the (i) name of the firm contracted, (ii) value of the contract, (iii) deadline to submit deliverables, (iv) titles of any reports or summary documents produced?

(Return tabled)

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I wish to inform the House that, because of the ministerial statements, Government Orders will be extended by 28 minutes.

Opposition Motion—Carbon Tax Pause on Home Heating

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

moved:

That, given that the government has announced a “temporary, three-year pause” to the federal carbon tax on home heating oil, the House call on the government to extend that pause to all forms of home heating.

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Peterborough—Kawartha.

“A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.” Those were the words of the Prime Minister, and that is the principle of my motion today. It reads, “That, given that the government has announced a ‘temporary, three-year pause’ to the federal carbon tax on home heating oil, the House call on the government to extend that pause to all forms of home heating.”

It is very simple. How does anyone argue with that? If the Prime Minister has now caved on the carbon tax for those heating with oil, then he ought to be intellectually consistent and do it for all forms of heating for all Canadians. We know that the Prime Minister has decided to create two classes of citizens. He, under pressure and under duress, decided to pause the carbon tax on home heat until after the election, at which point he intends to quadruple it. In the meantime, there will be a temporary carve-out. Asked why there was a double standard and why this carve-out applied only to about 3% of households, the Minister of Rural Economic Development said that other Canadians could have had the break too, but they did not elect enough Liberals. In addition to that being a bloody-minded, divide-and-conquer approach to politics, it is actually inaccurate, because many did elect Liberal MPs and are still forced to pay the tax on the heat. These are people in Liberal-held ridings who will be excluded and will be forced to pay the higher tax on the heat as the temperatures go down and the snow starts to fall.

Are these citizens less Canadian than those who are getting the pause? Is the malnourished senior in the Liberal riding of Sudbury who heats with gas any less Canadian than those who get the pause? Is the single mom in the Liberal ridings of Thunder Bay any less Canadian as she is forced by the Prime Minister's tax to skip meals so her kids do not have to? Is the welder in North Bay any less Canadian, as he cannot gas up his truck to go visit his dying relatives in other parts of the province, any less Canadian? Of course they are not, but the Prime Minister thinks they are.

Once again we see his divide-to-distract strategy. He thinks that if people are afraid of their fellow Canadians, they might forget that they cannot afford to gas their car or heat their home. We have seen this divide-and-conquer strategy of the Prime Minister over many years. We saw how he called small businesses “tax cheats”. We saw how he called anyone who disagreed with him a “small fringe minority”, even though he later had to apologize for those comments. Recently, we saw how he tried to besmirch Muslims, Sikh and Christian parents, calling them “hateful” simply because they wanted to protect their children. We see, again and again, how the Prime Minister tries to demonize hunters, calling them “American” and saying that people who live in Cape Breton and hunt or who live in northern Canada and hunt for sustenance are the reason we have record gang shootings in downtown Toronto. That has become his go-to approach, and here we have it again with a “two classes of citizens” approach to his carbon tax.

Let us not forget that his plan is to quadruple the carbon tax if he is re-elected. My plan is the opposite. I propose, with this motion, a compromise in the meantime. What I propose is that we take the tax off so Canadians could keep the heat on this winter, and then, when Canadians go to the polls, we could have a carbon tax election where people choose between his plan to quadruple the tax on gas, heat and groceries, and my common-sense plan to axe the tax and bring home lower prices.

The Prime Minister, in his desperation yesterday, would not even show up and defend this approach in the House. He was in Ottawa and he was in the building, and he would not—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader is rising on a point of order.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Conservative Party has been told on many occasions that he cannot do indirectly what he cannot do directly. I would ask that the member recognize that members on all sides of the House, at times, cannot be in the House for a multitude of different reasons.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I will caution the hon. leader about that.

The hon. leader of the official opposition.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's strategy is to hide and divide: to hide from debate and divide the population. That is how he thinks he will cling to power, but here is the problem: He can run away from debating me all he wants, but he cannot run away from his own party. His former environment minister Catherine McKenna said that he had broken her heart. A Liberal senator, Paula Simons, said that he betrayed her, because he had assured her that the carbon tax was going to make people better off but later admitted that people heating with oil were made far worse off by his carbon tax, thus needing a pause from that tax.

Liberal Senator Percy Downe wrote a spectacular piece just yesterday, in which he said:

The opportunity for [the Conservative leader to form] government was created by a lack of fiscal responsibility in the [Liberal] government, and the damage it caused our economy is now showing up in the opinion [polls]. Within the Liberal Party, many members who are in favour of fiscal responsibility...have given up on this current iteration of the Liberal Party.

He goes on:

Originally, these centralist liberals assumed that [the Prime Minister] and his crowd needed to be educated on the economic issues of the day.

That naiveté was replaced with the realization that they were not a serious government when it came to the economy, that they simply didn’t care and would throw money at anything that crossed their mind. The resulting interest rate hikes, increasing cost of living, and huge debt didn’t seem to concern them.

The Liberal senator goes on to say that the Prime Minister should be fired and replaced with a new Liberal leader. Meanwhile, the incoming Liberal leader, Mark Carney, is now firing shots at the Prime Minister, claiming that he would not have allowed two classes of Canadians on the carbon tax question.

This is carbon tax chaos. Canadians are paying the price, and all of it proves that the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. He is not worth the cost of heat. He is not worth the cost of food. He is not worth the cost of housing. However, apparently, he is worth the cost to the NDP. The NDP was elected by good, solid, decent working-class folks in places like Vancouver Island, Skeena—Bulkley Valley and Timmins. I have met these these people, folks who pack their lunch, get out of bed every morning, work hard and build our country. However, they have been betrayed by the NDP, which now works for the Prime Minister and has sold out the working-class rural people of this country who were the foundation of that party.

It now has a decision to make. The NDP leader says that he disagrees with the dual-class citizenship approach of the Prime Minister on the carbon tax. I am giving him a chance to prove it. We have a motion before the House that simply says to give everyone the same tax-free heat this winter. The NDP leader has already stated that he agrees with that point of view, but he has to check with his boss, the leader of the Liberal Party, the Prime Minister of Canada. Everyday people in Timmins, in Kapuskasing, in Smithers, British Columbia, and in countless other NDP communities will be watching on Monday to find out whether the NDP leader votes for them or for the Prime Minister. If he does not vote for the people he represents, why should they vote for him in the next election?

The good news is that the Conservatives do not work for the Prime Minister. We work for the common people and for the common sense of the common people, united for our common home: your home, my home, our home. Let us bring it home.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting hearing the leader of the Conservative Party. One can ultimately say he has done a flip-flop. It was not that long ago that the NDP brought forward a motion to remove the GST on home heating. One would think, based on everything he has been blabbing about for the last week or so, that the Conservatives would have voted in favour of getting rid of the GST on home heating. Canadians would be surprised to find out that their leader did not. He looks to his colleagues and wonders if he really did that. Yes, he really did vote against an amendment that would have removed the GST on home heating oil. Why has there been this change? I think it is a fair assessment. I agreed with him. I too voted against it, but I am curious why the leader of the Conservative Party flip-flopped on this issue.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we would take all taxes off home heating. That is our view. The NDP did copycat our 2019 election platform commitment to take the GST off home heating; that is true, but then its members flip-flopped, and the NDP is now working for the Prime Minister. It has sold out the people in Kitimat and the people in Penticton, and it has sold out the hard-working miners and loggers in Timmins. Instead, the NDP members decided they would work for the Prime Minister of Canada, that they would speak for the Prime Minister in those communities, rather than speaking for those communities to the Prime Minister.

Conservatives are the exact opposite, and that is why we call for a consistent, “one Canada” approach. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, and we would take the tax off and keep the heat on for all Canadians everywhere and always.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

We have a point of order from the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

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

Mr. Speaker, I believe if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to table the NDP motion and the results of that vote—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I am already hearing members say no.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to a “one Canada” approach, this motion would apply to only four provinces and three territories. It would not help people in British Columbia. However, New Democrats, a year ago, brought forward a motion to remove the GST on home heating, which would have applied to all Canadians, in all 10 provinces and three territories.

While I am getting heckled by the Conservatives, I will try to push through.

Mr. Speaker, it was in the Conservatives' platform of 2019 to remove GST on home heating, but what did they do? They voted against it, so let us talk about who is fighting for all Canadians. The NDP did that by putting forward that motion.

Can the member for Carleton explain why his party members voted against the Conservative promise in the 2019 platform? Why did they vote against removing the GST on home heating for all Canadians?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we can do both. Why do we not take all taxes off home heating? Why do we not do both? It is very easy to do. The NDP has copycatted our 2019 platform commitment to take GST off home heating.

The member is now hyperventilating because he is going to lose his seat in the next election because the people on Vancouver Island have seen him betray them again and again, and now he is going to force British Columbians to pay a quadruple carbon tax on their heat, gas and groceries. He is voting in favour of the federal government's forcing the NDP government in his province to quadruple the tax.

We are simply saying to give his constituents the same break that some Atlantic Canadians are getting temporarily. Give them a pause on the carbon tax because a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I sat and listened to the leader of the official opposition's speech, and not once did he actually mention the program we have in order to help with the transition. There are a million Canadian households in this country that are extremely vulnerable. They are sometimes paying in excess of double or four times the price of alternatives such as natural gas or electricity. We have built a program. He is talking about removing the carbon price, which we have done on a temporary basis, and we have offered a solution. Does he believe in what the government is doing to help the most vulnerable people across the country? The Conservatives have not quite picked up that it is across the country. Does he believe in the Government of Canada's helping people in rural Ontario, rural Alberta and rural Saskatchewan to actually make the transition, people who are extremely vulnerable on home heating oil? Does he support the program?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, it is not across the country. It is only available in a few provinces. So far, the uptake has been very low, because we do not have the capacity to switch large numbers of people under the program that he proposes; plus it is just riddled with bureaucracy and paperwork. We can picture elderly grandmothers who are in the freezing cold in Kings—Hants having to fill out all of these forms that he has put in front of them.

Finally, let us just point out that the member was in full panic mode last week, because I was holding a monster rally of 1,000 common-sense Nova Scotians. You were there, Mr. Speaker, and they were rallying to axe the tax, while the member was bawling his eyes out on the phone with the PMO, asking them to save his job, because he knew he was going to be fired by his constituents. That is the only reason he even sought a pause.

The member has to tell them the truth: If he is re-elected, people will see that tax go back on their home heat. The only way to axe the tax is by electing a common-sense Conservative MP for Kings—Hants and government for Canada.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Mr. Speaker, today is an extremely important day. Today, the members of this House, who were elected to serve Canadians, have the opportunity to prove where their priorities are. The Conservative Party of Canada and our leader have put forth an opposition motion on which members will vote on Monday. It reads:

That, given that the government has announced a “temporary, three-year pause” to the federal carbon tax on home heating oil, the House call on the government to extend that pause to all forms of home heating.

This is a reasonable, common-sense, fair-minded motion. I want to read it into the record again:

That, given that the government has announced a “temporary, three-year pause” to the federal carbon tax on home heating oil, the House call on the government to extend that pause to all forms of home heating.

After eight years, the question is why we would even have to ask for such a common-sense motion. How did we get here? How did we get to the point that the Liberal-NDP government put in a punitive tax, telling Canadians it was an environment plan? We now know, through expert testimony and the behaviour of this Liberal Prime Minister, that this punitive carbon tax, which is driving up the cost of living, was never about environmental science. It was always about political science.

That is the pattern of behaviour we have seen over and over from the Prime Minister and the NDP, which continues to prop up the government and then practise hypocrisy in this House very single day in the chamber. The NDP prides itself on saying it stands up for the middle class and for the most vulnerable, and yet it props up the Prime Minister, who is making people's lives a living hell. This is not my opinion. These are facts.

Last week, Tiff Macklem, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, testified at the finance committee. I want to read into the record some of this testimony.

Mr. Tiff Macklem said, “First of all, it is the most vulnerable members of society that are suffering the most from high inflation. They are feeling the brunt of affordability more than everybody else. They can't just move down market. They're already at the bottom of the market. Much of their spending is already on necessities, you can't cut back on that. That's why it is so important that we get inflation down. Inflation is a tax that disproportionately affects the most vulnerable members of society.”

Some people may want to argue that the carbon tax is not responsible for inflation, or that it is not contributing to inflation. Let us correct that for the record as well. This Prime Minister has tried to tell Canadians that repeatedly, but again, we know it is not true. Let me read into the record more testimony from the Governor of the Bank of Canada during the finance committee last week.

The member for Northumberland—Peterborough South said, “Just to reiterate what you said there, it would be 60 basis points, or 0.6%. Currently the inflation rate is at 3.8%, so that equates to almost 15%, if I can do the math quickly.” Mr. Tiff Macklem said, “It would be 3.2.”

This testimony tells the story and the facts and it proves the impact of carbon tax on Canadians. If it were removed today or tomorrow, inflation would go from 3.8% to 3.2%. That is significant. For people at home who do not know, that is 16% overall. The cost of mortgages and interest rates, the cost of heating and the cost of groceries, which are all the things that people need, the necessities that people need to live that are squeezing them out every month, would go down. That is the impact of the carbon tax.

I want to read a couple of comments from constituents who write to me, because that is our job. Our job is to represent the constituents. It is to elevate their voices. When we talk about the most vulnerable, they are often our seniors.

Barb wrote to me and said, “We are retired and we heat with propane now. We changed from oil to propane because of the costs for oil, but propane is just as expensive now with the carbon tax and because the propane has jumped and our groceries, I work part-time to help cover these increases.”

Seniors worked their entire lives to retire, but they cannot. They are being forced back into the workforce and not at high-paying jobs. They are trying to get into entry-level jobs. They cannot enjoy the fruits of their labour. Some of them are moving in with their children. That is the result of this carbon tax.

I want to mention more stories, because they are very important to hear and have on the record.

Danny wrote, “My mother is going through this now. She has to make a choice: either heat her place or buy groceries. She layers up in clothing in her apartment. She is 69 years old. I have never seen this country so bad.”

Mike Jessop wrote, “I heat my home with food.” What does that mean? It means he does not have any money left over to pay for his heating. He can only pick one or the other. How sad is that?

Elizabeth MacNeil-Young wrote, “I lived through two Trudeau governments.” I am not sure I can say that name. “Back in the eighties, I worried about losing my home. I made it work, though. Now my children are in the same boat.”

Carol said, “I changed from an oil-fired boiler to an electric boiler because I couldn't afford the monthly oil bill any longer. I wish there was a rebate for us homeowners who couldn't afford a heat pump and put in an electric boiler instead.”

This brings me to a point I want to bring up. I sit in this House every day and listen to the members opposite in the Liberal Party. Their new argument is that they are giving away free heat pumps. There are two problems with that. Number one is that heat pumps only work to -25°C. We live in Canada. I do not know where the Liberals are talking about, but many areas in Canada go far below -25°C.

The second problem is their statement that they are giving away free heat pumps. That is the essence of the problem we have in this country because of the Liberals. Nothing is free. It is taxpayer money. This is basic fiscal policy. Anyone who manages a household budget understands this. There is monetary policy that is controlled by the Governor of the Bank of Canada. It is his or her job to control inflation.

Fiscal policy is controlled by the government, which, in this case, are the Liberals and NDP. Fiscal policy is how much they spend. A basic student going to university right now knows that if people spend more than they make and have to use their credit cards, they will only be paying off interest and that debt will go up and up. That is how we got into this position.

When Liberals say they are giving away free heat pumps, that is disgusting, because it is taxpayer money. They should be honest and transparent. They are using taxpayer money. How much is that going to cost? Are they going to pay for the amp service? People are going to need to up their amp service. That is the issue. Liberals do not have their own money. They have taxpayers' money. Until they figure that out, we are going to keep doing the same thing over and over again.

The Liberals' agenda is not about the climate. It is about holding onto power and keeping seats that are slipping from them because Canadians cannot handle this misery any longer. We heard from a Liberal minister on national television say that if people want a break from the carbon tax, they have to vote Liberal. That is shameful. It is awful. Every Canadian deserves the necessities to live. We are Canada.

The only party committed to affordability in this House is the Conservative Party. Today Conservatives challenge this House to prove their service to Canadians and to prove that they will do what they were elected to do, which is make life better, not worse. The most compassionate thing we can do is make life affordable for our children, for our seniors, for the middle class who go to work every day to pay their bills and cannot.

Today, Conservatives call on this House to treat all Canadians fairly and to vote in favour of the Conservatives' motion to pause the carbon tax on all home heating for all Canadians.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was interested to hear the member say that heat pumps do not work when it is -25°C. I just came back from the western part of my riding, including Emo, which is in northwestern Ontario, where it quite commonly gets much below -25°C, and half the town uses heat pumps.

The member is from Peterborough. Even in Peterborough, it gets below -25°C. Does nobody north of Peterborough use heat pumps?

Is the member not in favour of heat pumps? It certainly seems like an affordable way to heat houses if people can afford them.