Debates of Sept. 28th, 2023

Opposition Motion—Carbon Tax

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I understand that, today, the Conservatives are on a partisan mission to attack the Bloc Québécois. They can do what they want. It is their choice and their interest.

I would simply like to point out that there are people like Rich Kruger, the president and CEO of Suncor, who had the gall to say that his company is going to stop talking about renewable energy and climate change, that it is going to stop pretending, that its only interest is to make as much profit as possible as quickly as possible, and that that is just too bad for everyone else, for citizens, for the planet and for the environment. It is people like Rich Kruger that this member and his party support in life.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, as the critic for labour for the NDP, my hon. colleague has done so much to put in place things like anti-scab legislation. I know that he cares about workers. One thing I know about the Conservatives is that they do not. When Suncor, a week after the provincial election, laid off 1,500 workers, the Conservatives said nothing about it. When Rich Kruger says that he will burn this planet to the ground just so he can get that last dollar out, we do not hear a peep from the Conservatives.

Perhaps he could talk about why the Conservatives care so much about CEOs and so little about Albertan workers.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Edmonton Strathcona for her hard work standing up for workers in Alberta.

I think that we need to be able to make this transition, which will create sustainable jobs in sustainable energy sectors. This means that people could go through this transition with the vocational training and support they need to take on the jobs of the future in renewable energy. There is incredible potential in Alberta when it comes to solar and wind energy. I hope we will be able to work with the unions and the Alberta Federation of Labour to create good jobs in this new sector.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to bring forward a bit of history to start today, because I know the Conservatives hate deeply facts and history.

I am going to read from the people of the State of California, attorney general versus ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, American Petroleum Institute and BP.

In 1988, Shell, along with all the other big oil companies, did major scientific studies of the dangers of fossil fuel burning. In that report to Shell executives, they warned that the drive of CO2 buildup was going to have “significant changes in sea level, ocean currents, precipitation patterns, regional temperature and weather.” However, they said something even more concerning. They said, “by the time the global warming becomes detectable”, which they said in 2000, “ it could be too late to take effective countermeasures.” They knew they were burning the planet.

What did Shell do? The next year, Shell raised the drilling platforms in the ocean by six feet. It was saying to hell with the people who were living on islands in the Pacific and the hundreds of millions of people on shorelines. It knew it was burning the planet. It knew the ice caps were melting. It was damned sure it would get every last dime before the planet was done. To make that possible, it had to use an elaborate system of disinformation.

As such, today, once again, we have the Conservatives bringing forward this constant disinformation, but it is not even smart disinformation. It is distilled down to this dumb meme they are going to send out as their attack ads.

Yesterday, we were told that the leader of the Conservative Party apparently had a paper route. He has no other job history, but he had a paper route at one time. In June, I remember him saying that he was going to keep speaking until the government dropped the budget and got rid of dental and child benefits. He spoke for three hours to his rapturous backbench, and then even it got bored and the budget passed. Therefore, he needed a new stunt, because with the Conservatives it is always about stunts, spin, smear and smoke and mirrors, and smoke from fires.

The Conservative leader announced, in the hottest summer in the history of the planet, that he was going to go from coast to coast to coast to pitch the idea that burning fossil fuels should be free, saying to hell with the 14 million hectares of forest lands that burned this year, the 200,000 Canadians displaced and the communities that lived in fear. When he came to my region, people were trying to escape the fire by canoe, because we could not get Hercules planes up there. He was promising that not only was he going to expand pipelines everywhere, but that fossil fuel burning was going to be free.

However, it did not work out so well for him, because even he had to flee the fires. However, it did not stop the Conservatives with their sock puppets of disinformation.

The member for Kelowna—Lake Country, as her community was burning, was going on about making fossil fuel burning free, showing disconnect and disinterest in keeping people safe, and not recognizing that there was a direct link between fossil fuel burning and the destruction of our environment. The member for Kelowna—Lake Country would rather promote the sock puppet messages from the Conservative war room than protect her own people.

I mention the member for Kelowna—Lake Country, because just recently the West Kelowna fire chief, Jason Brolund, spoke at the United Nations. This is what leadership is. He said that climate change became very real for West Kelowna, that the scope and scale for them to fight was nearly impossible to be successful again, that because of the changing climate leading to conditions, it was making it easier for fires to burn and grow. He asked a simple question. He wanted to know why we were spending money on fighting fires when we should be spending money on dealing with climate change.

However, we would not hear that from the member for Kelowna—Lake Country, because she is a loyal sock puppet of disinformation for the Conservative Party office.

The new member for Calgary Heritage, in his very first speech in the House, was going on about the rise in the price of potatoes, and he blamed it on the carbon tax. Calgary gets its potatoes from Idaho. There is no carbon tax there. That does not matter to Conservatives, because they are deeply opposed to facts. Facts make them angry; they need spin.

What caused the rise of price of potatoes in Calgary Heritage? It was the droughts and the wildfires in the western United States. However, the Conservatives do not want us to hear that.

Here we are with a motion that is not a credible one. It is more like political toxic gibberish, which is what we have come to expect. The Conservatives are failing to deliver for Canadians, as well as leaving our children and our grandchildren to deal with a planet that is now on fire. They are missing and deliberately undermining the opportunities.

I want to say one more thing so people can understand how serious this is. The EU just released its graph on Canada's forest fire average. In just over three days, Canada pumped more than 50 megatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere from wild, out-of-control forest fires. That is more than what we would normally put out in a year, and this is at the end of September. Those members know that the planet is on fire, but it is to hell with the planet and the truth.

At the same time this past week, the International Energy Agency said that the explosive growth in renewables would give us a fighting chance against the 1.5 barrier. It does give us a chance. We are seeing a huge investment in renewables around the world, and yet the Conservative Party, at every level, tries to stop, delay and deny the ability of Canada to participate.

My friends should look at Texas. Texas is so right wing it would fit in comfortably with the Conservatives. Texas got through the death-causing heat wave because of the massive amount of solar that is online right now in the state of Texas, with over 890,000 jobs in Texas in clean energy. More and more are coming on stream all the time, yet the Conservatives do not want people to hear that. That is why Danielle Smith tried to shut down the huge opportunities for Alberta workers, because they would rather tie themselves to an industry.

We heard Rich Kruger say that they are more than willing to burn the planet to get the last dollar and leave Alberta workers, and Canadian workers, on the sidelines. They were going to go after work. That was Kruger's statement. They just fired 1,500 workers. We have lost 50,000 jobs in the oil patch as profits have gone up $200 billion. They have made $200 billion while our planet burns and they are not putting any of it back in. They expect the taxpayer to pay for their carbon capture and they are firing the workers. Therefore, Alberta energy workers came forward and said they wanted a vision to get into the huge opportunities in clean energy. All we have heard from the Conservatives is absolute ridicule.

People will look back on this era and wonder whether there were any leaders willing to stand up to protect the future of the planet, because the planet is in crisis now. If people ever want to hear laughter, just listen to the Conservatives talk about the planetary crisis. It is to hell with the planet, to hell with our burning forests, to hell with the people who are living in the coastal regions, like in Nova Scotia. Two years in a row there have been catastrophic hurricanes.

The Conservatives would rather leave people to that fate than actually be part of the solution with which the rest of the world is embracing and moving ahead. It is about ideology. It is about disinformation. It is about rage farming. They believe that if they run disinformation, get people angry and spin disinformation, the member, who lives in Stornoway, will become prime minister. To hell with the planet, to hell with our children; to hell with our burning forests.

We need to come together and show a better vision.

The United States, with Biden's massive investments in clean tech, is leaving us at the side of the road. We hear the Conservatives ridiculing the investments in the battery plants. We either compete or we are left at the side of the road. However, it is to hell with the workers, to hell with the future economy, to hell with our planet. It is about rage farming. It is about obstructing anything that we are doing as a nation to live up to our global obligations and to preserve this planet for our children.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the member's speech. Speeches like that are why he is going to lose his seat in Timmins—James Bay, because to him it is to hell with his constituents. He does not care what they have to say. We have been up there. We know that they have an affordability crisis, and he spent the last 10 minutes rage farming, talking about Conservatives not caring about the environment or Conservatives not caring about children. I have three children. What a ridiculously stupid comment by that member, to say that we—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

Can we avoid the insults, please? The hon. member knows this. That is actually going overboard.

The hon. member for Regina—Lewvan.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Comments can be stupid, Madam Speaker; I did not call the member that. Sometimes people say things on this floor, like we do not care about children, that are ridiculous.

Have the constituents from Timmins—James Bay talked about the affordability crisis? How much has the food bank usage gone up under the member's watch?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, the Conservatives come to rage farm in Timmins and they refuse to meet with the Cree, the Ojibway and the Algonquin people. They never will meet with the indigenous people in the riding. They do not seem to think they count.

Let us talk affordability. What is the price for a Chassagne- Montrachet bottle of wine? It is $818. A bottle of Le Passage Cotes is $265. A bottle of Vaio Armaron Amarone is $719. That was the drink of four Conservatives who were flown over to England by the climate-crisis crank, Dan McTeague, for one night. Talk about affordability. Here is the kicker: Those four Conservatives then finished the night off with a $1,791 bottle of Champagne.

For them to talk about affordability, when their leader lives in a 19-room mansion; when they are being flown around the world by cranks, claiming that it is being paid for; and they are spending $1,800 on Champagne. To hell with the—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. deputy House leader.

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

Madam Speaker, with all due respect to the member for Regina—Lewvan, at least the member for Timmins—James Bay is allowed to stand and speak in the House. We have been back in session for only a week and a half, and we have already seen the Conservative leader silence members from debating on a very important issue with respect to India. We have already seen the Leader of the Opposition send out an email, which has been leaked, telling his caucus members not to talk about the LGBTQ rights that are being discussed literally on the streets in front of this place.

Therefore, it is very rich for the member for Regina—Lewvan to stand up and somehow tell the member for Timmins—James Bay that he is unable to speak on behalf of his constituents. Would the member like to comment on that?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I feel at a disadvantage; I have never had a paper route. However, I have been a carpenter and I have worked to raise my kids. I have done many jobs, and the thing that I have learned from people is that they expect us to be honest.

The leader of the Conservative Party, at a time of international crisis, refused to get a security clearance. He does not want to know facts; he wants to be able to throw whatever toxic gibberish out there while we are dealing with an international crisis. That man is not fit to live in a 19-room mansion. He is not fit to have his private chef paid for by the taxpayer. He is not fit to be—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member for Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate the member for Timmins—James Bay for his speech on the Conservative motion. Why am I congratulating him? In his speech, he appealed to people's intelligence, unlike today's Conservative motion, which appeals more at the reptilian brain, if not lower.

When we look at the Conservative motion, we can see that it is not based on facts. The Conservatives are not interested in the facts when the facts do not fit their narrative. They are not interested in reality and the truth. That is okay. When the facts do not work for them, they come up with an alternative reality. They write motions full of half-truths and then complain about how everyone else voted against the motions. They are saying that the carbon tax applies in Quebec when it does not apply in Quebec. They are saying that the Bloc Québécois supported regulations that the government adopted.

What does my NDP colleague think of these tactics? Does he think that we are here in Parliament to elevate the debate, or to use spin regardless of whether it is true or false?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, we are in a really dangerous moment. The Conservatives are using disinformation, rage farming and toxic means to attack, and people are starting to get more and more threatening toward MPs who disagree with them. We need to elevate this to a level where we are dealing with a climate crisis of unprecedented proportions. Instead, we get toxic gibberish from the Conservatives.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, the volume and verbosity of the member for Timmins—James Bay was in inverse relationship to the quality of the content of that presentation.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Banff—Airdrie.

Today I rise on an important motion that is significant to Nova Scotians and to all Canadians. As we know, after eight years of the NDP-Liberal government, Canadians are struggling to make ends meet. Earlier this week, I spoke in the House about one such example, university student Walt McDonald. Walt, like many students right across Canada, is having to choose between eating his breakfast and saving his single meal from the food bank for lunch. The Dalhousie Student Union food bank, as I informed the House, says that the food bank usage is at a record high. It says that 10 years ago, it served just snacks to students, but now students are using it for their weekly meal plan.

This is what life is like after eight years of the NDP-Liberal government. What is the government's solution? It is to raise taxes. There is not anything it has met that it does not want to tax, and there is not anything it has met that it does not want to increase the tax on. The Liberal-NDP government has supported measures to quadruple the carbon tax to 61¢ per litre.

The carbon tax hikes are coming at the worst possible time for Canadian families and for students like Walt who are struggling with the rising costs of everything due to the inflation caused by this coalition. The NDP-Liberals would argue that their cherished carbon tax is the only way to address climate change, but of course we know this is false, first, because it does nothing to improve the environment as carbon emissions continue to go up, and second, because it fails to grasp the reality of what life is like not only for Nova Scotians but for all Canadians.

Unlike the large cities that are dense in population and have ample services like public transit, rural communities like mine do not enjoy those same amenities. When a lobster fisherman wakes up before dawn to go on the water in February, there is no public transit system to take him to the local dock at four in the morning. A forestry worker who drives from Lunenburg to Northfield in 20 minutes cannot spend an extra four hours to commute via bicycle. A senior living on OAS and CPP does not have $30,000 to spare to upgrade their heating system to solar, or even $10,000. The MP for Central Nova brags about his solution for everything in our affordability crisis, which is to install a $10,000 heat pump.

These are the realities of what life is like in Nova Scotia and other rural communities across Canada. Taxing these everyday realities is not a solution and is doing nothing to combat climate change. While the Liberal approach is to punish working people for heating their homes and driving to work, Conservatives believe we should protect our environment with technology and not taxes, by developing Canada's energy sector to utilize cleaner energy like natural gas and propane. By reducing our reliance on fossil fuels like coal in favour of clean natural gas, Canada could develop its energy sector from coast to coast and finally end its import of dirty fuels from overseas dictatorships such as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, which are what we have to use in Nova Scotia.

These are the fuels we are forced to use in our homes and to drive our vehicles in Nova Scotia because the Liberals would rather we do that than have a pipeline to the east coast from the Prairies with some of the cleanest oil and gas on the planet. They would rather have us use electricity from burning coal imported from Columbia than extract the trillions of cubic feet of shale gas we have right in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. We actually import shale gas from the United States into Nova Scotia thanks to the efforts of the NDP-Liberal coalition.

By unleashing Canada's natural resource sector and approving good Canadian projects, global emissions would be reduced. That is because Canada has the strictest environmental regulations in the world for producing these resources. The oil extracted in Canada is the cleanest, most efficient energy in the world. On top of that, the emissions produced by shipping oil across the Atlantic Ocean from Saudi Arabia completely negate any benefit from any supposed improvement by the carbon tax.

Let us green-light Newfoundland and Labrador's planned increases in oil and gas production, which would allow us to fully replace every single barrel of oil we are importing from abroad within five years. Let us make Canada a place where nuclear and hydroelectricity are welcomed, not admonished.

The other issue the Liberals argue is that they believe this tax is revenue-neutral and that through this climate action incentive payment, as they euphemistically call it, eight out of 10 families will receive more in rebate cheques than they pay out. That is sort of typical Liberal math, where they cannot find a million people whom they have let in. They cannot add that, and on top of that, they actually believe that one can tax somebody and give them back more money than they paid out. It does not make any basic economic sense. It is completely false, as we know from the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report.

The report stated that Nova Scotians would see a net loss of $1,500 from the carbon tax despite the receipt of climate action incentive payments from the Liberals. The truth is that the Liberal carbon tax is bad for Nova Scotia. If those rebates were working, Nova Scotia Liberal MPs would not be calling on their own government to increase the size of those cheques. Obviously those cheques are not having any impact on our cost of living crisis. If they were, two weeks ago after caucus, in a unified force under the member for Kings—Hants, the MPs would not have gone out and said that they should increase those payments.

The Liberals' solution to the carbon tax problem of the cost of living is to actually increase payments to people, not get rid of the problem in the first place. It is the carbon tax that is causing it. Despite this, the Liberals from Atlantic Canada support raising the cost of living on Nova Scotian families. Since 2015, the Liberal members from Atlantic Canada have voted 23 times in Parliament for the carbon tax, the increases in the carbon tax and the budgetary measures to increase the carbon tax.

The Liberal members from Atlantic Canada have an opportunity today to show that they will actually speak up for their constituents and not for their leader, demand that the cause of the problem be removed from the cost of living, and demand that their own government remove the carbon tax. They know, because they heard it all summer, that the carbon tax is the main irritant that the government has caused to the economic well-being of Canadians.

The member who spoke previously mocked anyone drawing attention to the cost of living increases. I will do it again, since he does not seem to care about the price of anything, which is, again, why he will soon be the former member for that riding. Under the NDP-Liberal coalition government, lettuce is up 94%, onions are up 69%, cabbage is up 70%, carrots are up 74%, potatoes are up 73%, oranges are up 77% and apples are up 61%. The only thing that is up in this country, besides taxes, is the cost of everything, thanks to the NDP-Liberal government.

It is hypocritical of these members to stand up and say that we should stand out, take a different view on this and stand up for our constituents. I challenge them to, once and for all, speak for what their constituents told them this summer, which I know was not happy. They told me personally that what they heard at the door was not happy. They should stand up and support this motion and oppose the government's continued policy of increasing the cost of living on every Canadian and every Nova Scotian.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous Services]

Madam Speaker, the assertions of this poorly constructed and willfully ignorant motion are categorically false.

As a member from the Atlantic provinces, I am being targeted by this farce. I really want to speak on behalf of my constituents, who are very aware of what we are facing with the climate crisis. They understand that the price on pollution drives innovation and is but one important part of our climate action plan. The Atlantic Accord is yet another. It incentivizes offshore wind and renewable energy options, yet the Conservatives are against it.

Why does nothing the Conservatives say about the environment make any sense?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, what does not make sense is that the member voted 23 times to support the cost of living increase. What does not make sense is that the Green/NDP member, trying to make up her mind on what her belief is, is willing to actually vote for a bill that would impose a process on the development of offshore energy in Atlantic Canada using the same process exported from Bill C-69 into Bill C-49. That process has resulted in absolutely no energy projects being developed in western Canada. That same approach would have the same result on Atlantic energy development in Atlantic Canada, which is that zero projects would get approved, even the renewable energy ones that we all want.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have a very simple question for my colleague. I would like to know how he voted on the clean fuel regulations. Did he vote for or against them? It is quite a simple question.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, it was a simple question and I will give a simple answer.

I voted against it, and the reason I voted against is that it puts the cost of living up. On July 1, in Nova Scotia, gas went up 14¢ a litre. Five days later, it went up another 5¢ a litre. As a result of the NDP-Liberal coalition, gas went up from $1.49 to $1.69 in the space of five days. It is now almost $2.00 thanks to the great cost of living concern of the Liberal-NDP coalition.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, whom I enjoy working with at the industry committee.

When I look at this motion, I would ask the member a very serious question about process. The motion calls for the government to actually introduce legislation within seven days. For all the hyperbole in what we have heard today, the Conservatives are asking the government to come with its own legislation within seven days, during a time when we have a national holiday to recognize indigenous persons, and actually table it back in the House. How realistic is it to have that expectation? If the government does not have that prepared, is the Conservative Party going to prepare and actually table that legislation within seven days after this motion fails? It is very juvenile.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, except for that last word, I do enjoy very much working with the member on the industry committee. He is very positive and helpful in moving the agenda forward.

However, on that particular issue, I think it is pretty easy. We have legislation and bills on the carbon tax that we have introduced in the past to simply remove the carbon tax. Government members do not have to create a new bill. It is already there in the ones they voted against. They could reintroduce it and vote for it.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Madam Speaker, there have been consultations, and I believe that if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, on Tuesday, October 3, 2023, should the regular business of the House following the election of the Speaker commence between 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., the House shall immediately proceed to Statements by Members, followed by Oral Questions, and by the Daily Routine of Business; and at the expiry of time provided for debate on the opposition motion today, all questions necessary to dispose of the motion be deemed put, a recorded division deemed demanded, and the vote deferred until Wednesday, October 4, 2023, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

All those opposed to the hon. member's moving the motion will please say nay.

It is agreed.

The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.

(Motion agreed to)

The hon. member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is always hard to figure out where to start when the Conservatives are talking about the carbon tax, since they deny the reality of the climate crisis. However, I was in Kelowna this summer when West Kelowna and parts of Kelowna were on fire, and the Conservative member for Kelowna—Lake Country was tweeting about ending the carbon tax. One of my friends, and a friend of many in the House, the former member for Kelowna—Lake Country, Stephen Fuhr, had his house burned to the ground during these fires.

When the members talk about how expensive things get, I think they are forgetting that for those who are the victims of fires, floods and typhoons, things are really very expensive and very difficult. Lives are completely disrupted. If we do not take action on climate change, we are going to see those costs passed on to people in huge numbers.