Madam Speaker, I can tell that the member opposite cannot explain to his constituents concepts like a market-based instrument or how a revenue-neutral carbon pricing scheme works, because he cannot explain it in the House, and he could not explain it at the doors in 2021 when he ran for the Conservative Party. Therefore, allow me to.
Yes, indeed, our carbon pricing plan is revenue-neutral. That means that all of the money that comes in from the carbon tax, as the member would like to call it, goes back to families in our communities. In fact, a family of four in Saskatchewan will receive $1,360. That is a number they will not see in an email that the member has sent to a constituent. He will not remind them that it is a revenue-neutral program. He will not say that they are actually getting a refund or a rebate every single year, and that it is tax-free.
The reason that the price is on pollution is that Saskatchewan, like some other provinces, continues to use coal to generate all of its electricity. Therefore, even if someone is using an electric car or a heat pump, unfortunately a lot of their electricity is still coming from coal. In 2005, Ontario also generated a lot of electricity using coal, and, like Saskatchewan, it had a lot of smog days. There are smog days in Saskatchewan now, and a lot of it has to do with burning coal. Coal is bad for the environment and it is bad for our health.