Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to rise to speak to this nonsense motion. I will obviously be voting against it. I would like to think that, if there was any common sense on the other side of the House, Conservatives would recognize just how foolish the motion is when they incorporate the fact that the price on pollution is something the Conservative Party campaigned on in the last federal election.
Instead of trying to reflect the reality of real life today in Canada and the concerns about issues such as affordability and our environment, Conservatives choose to play this game in an attempt to participate in things such as a character assassination of the Prime Minister or the spread of false information, literally misinformation, to Canadians coast to coast to coast.
I would like to put a few things on the record to try to highlight the degree to which Conservatives are misleading Canadians. Let there be no doubt about that. When they say, for example, that they are going to “axe the tax”, what they are really doing is also axing the rebate. For the vast majority of Canadians, if the Conservatives were successful in axing the tax, that little disposable income of 80% or more of Canadians would actually go down. It would go down because we know for a fact that a vast majority of Canadians receive more money through the rebate than they pay in carbon tax. The member for Kingston and the Islands used his own personal example.
Canadians following the debate today are going to hear a lot of disinformation coming from Conservatives. I would recommend they look at the carbon tax they pay on the consumption of gas on an annual basis and the carbon tax they pay for heating their homes and then take a look at the carbon rebate. More than 80% of people will find that the rebate dollars are higher than the tax they are paying. By participating in this program, in the eight provinces that do, it means they are also contributing to a better and healthier environment. That is something in which the Progressive Conservative Party used to believe.
Some might say that I am a bit biased because I sit on the Liberal benches and maybe I am being a little harsh on Conservatives. Everyone knows the names of Brian Mulroney, Joe Clark and Kim Campbell, who are former prime ministers. The leader of the official opposition started off talking about quotes. Let me provide a few quotes from those former prime ministers. The caveat I would put on this is that members have to realize that today's Conservative Party, that MAGA right party we have today, is not the same party of those former prime ministers I just listed off. Let me clearly demonstrate why that is the case.
The leader of the Conservative Party started off talking about quotes. I have a quote for him. I believe this is from the Toronto Star. It is from Kim Campbell, who was not only Canada's first and only female prime minister but a Progressive Conservative prime minister.
To quote the headline, it states that he is a word I cannot say—