Madam Speaker, he says “we did”. They are heckling me, saying they did, but the public never heard about it. I guess the member made a phone call or sent an email that only Conservatives got to see. They should stand for their principles. If they were really against it back then, they would have stood up back then during the election and actually said they were against pricing pollution, but they did not. They bought into Erin O'Toole's plan. They ran on Erin O'Toole's plan, and now they are in this place and they have brought forward 11 motions, one after another, against that plan.
However, Erin O'Toole was not the only one. Stephen Harper also did it, so some of those Conservatives have run under multiple leaders looking to price pollution, yet here they are, once again, with no shame at all saying they did this twice under Stephen Harper and Erin O'Toole, but now are suddenly against it.
How can people actually believe what Conservatives tell them?
I want to read something. This comes out of the B.C. legislature. I found it this morning. I found it very interesting. I will read a quote:
In 2008, our government made the decision to implement a tax on carbon. It was designed to help British Columbia reduce greenhouse gas emissions while at the same time be fair to hard-working families. To do that, by law, we made it—the carbon tax—revenue-neutral. What does it mean to have a revenue-neutral carbon tax? It means that every dollar collected from B.C. carbon tax is given back to taxpayers in the form of tax credits or tax cuts.
I know that the member for Vancouver-Kensington made a comment about it and tried to blame it on the federal government, as far as revenue neutrality. Well, the fact of the matter is that we have the option of how we wanted to bring this about, as far as a carbon tax. Our policy—it’s law—is to put it back into the pockets of taxpayers. We don’t see it as a slush fund, which it appears that the NDP sees it as. Since 2008, the carbon tax has raised almost $8.5 billion and returned more than $10.6 billion in tax reductions for businesses, individuals and families.
The quote goes on. The member, in the B.C. legislature, goes to say:
Our carbon tax appears to be working. Independent studies have found that between 2008 and 2012, fuel use in B.C. dropped by 16 percent per capita. In 2015, a review of seven independent studies suggested that B.C.’s carbon tax has reduced emissions in the province by up to 15 percent. All of this has been accomplished without taking a dime off B.C. taxpayers.
Do we know who said that in the B.C. legislature, back on February 27, 2017? The now-Conservative member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, who sits in this House, the same member who got up earlier in this debate and tried to chastise this government for bringing in a price on pollution.
These are his words. I am not making it up. I am literally reading from the record of the B.C. legislature on February 27, 2017.
How can that member actually come into this House and speak to this issue against it as if he has any authority on it, given the comments that he made just a few years ago on this exact same issue?
All I am doing here is underscoring the hypocrisy that we see time after time after time. I should really say that 11 times because they have brought in a similar motion 11 times.
They ran on it. They did not ever challenge their leaders on it. They spoke about it in other legislatures as if it was the be-all and end-all to fixing the problem that we have with climate change. Now, suddenly, they come in here and act as though a carbon tax, a price on pollution, is absolutely ludicrous, that it will never work.
Explain to me how this is not one of the ultimate forms of hypocrisy. It is literally oozing down the steps on that side of the aisle. I cannot understand how they would ever put themselves in a position to demonstrate such incredible hypocrisy.
All we get from Conservatives, as I indicated earlier, is finally the recognition that climate change is real. Whether humans have created it, well, they have not gone that far. I am sure they are still debating that internally, but, at least now, the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent mentioned, moments ago, that climate change is real. I think I have heard a couple others say it from time to time. At least, we are hearing that now.
All they offer is to say that they will fix this with technology. That is their solution. They will fix this with technology and that is it, a hard stop there.
We can talk about what more we can do. I agreed with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands earlier, when she was speaking about this issue, when she said that the carbon tax is only one thing. Of course, it is only one thing, putting a price on pollution. We need to do more.
I think, as I indicated earlier, that another great system that we need to implement is cap and trade. We need to bring in cap and trade and put on strong emissions caps in the oil and gas sector specifically.
A lot of people do not understand that, rightfully so, because it is not as simple to explain as an actual price on pollution, but the cap-and-trade model allows the government to set an overall cap on the GHG emissions for sectors covered over a given period. This cap is gradually and progressively reduced over time, encouraging the emission reductions. At the end of a three-year period, for example, emitters must obtain an emissions allowance for each tonne of GHGs they release into the atmosphere and surrender those to the government. They must surrender enough allowances to cover their emissions or penalties will apply.
The whole idea here is nothing new, as this idea was conceived and brought into North America back in around 2005, 2006, and that was with the western initiative. This was a number of states. This was Quebec, which still, to its benefit, and rightfully so, is in the western alliance, and Ontario, at the time, although Doug Ford has backed out. This was a plan that basically put a cap on the amount of emissions and if one needed to exceed that, one would have to sell off one's emissions.