Madam Speaker, as a member of the standing committee on environment, I am honoured to speak about the work of our committee. I was fortunate to work on the committee's 10th report on clean technologies. The report proved that technology, not taxes, should be the foundation of an environment policy. Unfortunately the Liberal government is hell-bent on plowing ahead with its failed carbon tax without getting any environmental results.
There is an old saying that “only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.” With multiple reports published recently, it is clear that the Liberals have been swimming naked in the waters of environmentalism for years. Last month, Canada's independent, non-partisan environment commissioner released a damning audit that revealed that the Liberals will not meet their own emissions reduction targets, despite plowing ahead with their plan to quadruple the carbon tax.
The commissioner revealed that under the Prime Minister, Canada has the worst record for emissions reductions in the entire G7. In fact according to the 2025 climate change performance index, which was just released, Canada now ranks 62nd out of 67 countries in environmental performance under the environment minister.
The ranking is four places lower than it was two years ago, despite multiple carbon tax hikes on Canadians. With such an embarrassing ranking, it is no wonder the environment minister is trying to discredit the report by saying it is some random international assessment that does not reflect Canada's policies and reality. No, it is a report that does not reflect his imaginary fantasy that he wants it to.
Unsurprisingly, dozens of countries around the world that do not punish their people with a carbon tax are significantly outperforming Canada on the environmental index. This is why I asked the independent environment commissioner whether Canada could achieve its targets without a carbon tax. He said yes. For nine years, the Liberals falsely claimed that the carbon tax was the only way to meet their environmental targets. They were once again proven wrong.
It is for these reasons that Canadians are rejecting the failed so-called environmental policies of the government. Canadians understand that the Prime Minister and his radical environment minister are inflicting a lot of economic pain with no environmental gain.
It is not just the carbon tax that the environment committee has exposed; it seems as though at every committee meeting a new Liberal scandal or cover-up is exposed. The Liberal government's $8-billion net zero accelerator fund may win the top prize for the government's most expensive environmental scam yet.
Most Canadians tuning in have probably never heard of the government's $8-billion net zero accelerator fund. I find this surprising for three reasons. First, Canadian taxpayers are literally being charged $8 billion for the program. Second, the government usually brags about how much money it is spending. Third, the Liberals claim the $8-billion net zero accelerator would significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Instead the Liberals have gone incognito on their $8-billion net zero accelerator fund. I wonder why that is.
When I asked the commissioner how many emissions have been reduced by the $8-billion program, he stated, “I can't say”. It gets better. At the public accounts committee, I asked the environment minister's top official, the deputy minister, how many emissions were reduced; he stated that he did not know. It was such an outrageous misuse of taxpayer's funds that all parties except for the Liberals called an emergency meeting of the environment committee. When the Bloc Québécois MP for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert found out about the $8-billion fund, he stated:
This whole thing is kind of uncomfortable....
I would remind everyone that the net zero accelerator has $8 billion in funding. Everyone here represents constituents who expect us to do our job, which is to hold the government to account for the money it spends.
I agree with the Bloc member. It is more than embarrassing, though; it is corrupt. I can guarantee that Canadians want to know why they are paying $8 billion for the failed and fraudulent slush fund. Conservatives on the environment committee called on Liberals to release the funding details of their $8-billion net zero accelerator fund to the public, but the government refused. This is why the environment committee ordered the government to hand over all contracts to the committee so we could find out the truth.
Instead of handing over the contract to parliamentarians, the Liberals locked the contracts in a room and put a gag order on every MP who viewed them. Any MP who read the eight billion dollars' worth of contracts was forced to lock up their phone and not take any notes, and was prevented from discussing what they saw. I was one of those MPs, and I understand why the Liberals have gagged me. I was absolutely shocked by what I saw.
As I said, the government has placed me and all the members of the environment committee under a gag order to prevent us from disclosing the truth. Over 65 pages of net zero accelerator contracts were redacted and over 360 pages were completely ripped out of the contracts. Someone in the Liberal government ordered over 360 pages of the net zero accelerator contracts to be ripped out to prevent parliamentarians from seeing what $8 billion was spent on. This sounds borderline criminal.
Did the Minister of Environment order it to be done? Did the Prime Minister order it to be done? Who ripped out the pages of the net zero accelerator contracts to hide the truth? Who poured black ink on the contracts to cover up the lines? Who will be accountable for the $8-billion scam?
The Liberal government defied the will of Parliament by failing to hand over the contracts of its $8-billion net zero accelerator funds. It is very clear it is hiding something. The environment commissioner caught the Liberals giving away billions of tax dollars to large multinational companies without any commitment to reduce emissions. This could very well be the government's most expensive scandal yet.
If the NDP were truly opposed to corporate handouts, its members would be outraged. If the Bloc truly cared about the environment, its members would be outraged. If any member of Parliament cared about accountability, they would be outraged. I can promise that Canadians are outraged. Canadians deserve answers on the Liberal government's fake, failed and fraudulent $8-billion net zero accelerator fund. They deserve to know what companies received eight billion dollars' worth of taxpayers' money and what the money was spent on.
I therefore move the following amendment, seconded by my colleague from Langley—Aldergrove, on behalf of Canadians paying for the $8-billion scam: That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: “the tenth report of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, presented on Monday, October 30, 2023, be not now concurred in but that it be recommitted to the committee for further consideration, with a view to studying the implementation of the net zero accelerator initiative, and, to support the committee with this study, an order of the House do issue for: (a) copies of all signed contribution agreements and term sheets, including schedules of work for each contract, for the net zero Accelerator initiative; (b) a copy of the government’s tracker tool used to measure the net zero accelerator initiative’s progress and results; and (c) copies of documents which describe all internal net zero accelerator initiative targets set by the government, including the government’s net zero accelerator initiative emissions reduction target, provided that these documents shall be laid upon the table, in both official languages and in a complete and unredacted form, within two weeks of the adoption of this order, following which they shall stand referred to the committee.”