Debates of March 21st, 2024

Opposition Motion—Carbon Tax Election

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I will not talk about that, and I will remind the member that she is to address questions and comments through the Chair and not directly to the member.

The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, through you, I will respond to my colleague.

I would say that this undermines two things. First, it undermines the very idea of government, that a government must govern. It also undermines the very idea of the often ridiculous parliamentary system that we use, which is based on the principle of ministerial responsibility. The government must be accountable to Parliament.

I will admit that I was unaware of the incident my colleague mentioned. This is the first I have heard of it. Unfortunately, I am not surprised. We have a government representative who, in answering the parliamentarians to whom he is supposed to be accountable in a committee, says that it is not his responsibility even though it is something that is completely under his purview. He could simply say that he does not have the information. That is one thing. That is honest. However, for him to say that it is not his responsibility, when his government is meant to be accountable to parliamentarians, does not make sense to me.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague from Victoria.

The Trans Mountain pipeline is a huge scam that flies in the face of climate action. It comes at an unbelievable cost of over $34 billion, for a pipeline that makes no sense, which is what the private sector, in the shape of Kinder Morgan, had decided.

I would like to hear my Bloc Québécois colleague's thoughts on that.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, let us speak plainly. My colleague knows our position on that pipeline.

Let us not forget that, generally speaking, fossil fuels are archaic. We need a transition. That does not mean that people will start working in that area overnight. A transition means having a plan. It means starting at point A and, in a few years, arriving at point B. We need to plan ahead, year by year.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Timmins—James Bay.

Right now, Canadians are struggling. They are struggling with the cost of living and paying for rent, groceries and medication. They are struggling because they are also feeling the profound impacts of the climate crisis. Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in the wildfires last year. Hundreds of people died in the heat dome that hit British Columbia. There have been hurricanes, drought and extreme flooding. The climate crisis is here now.

Unfortunately, there is a party on one side of the House that denies that climate change is even a crisis. On the other side of the House, there is a party that makes promises, breaks promises and talks about climate action but does not take the action necessary that would match the scale and urgency of the crisis we are in.

I have heard from so many people in my home community of Victoria who care about the environment. They want to protect their families. They are choking on smoke during the summers. They are seeing the profound impacts this crisis is having across our country. They are also very concerned about how they are going to make the rent next month or pay their mortgages. They are very concerned about the skyrocketing costs of food, gas, medication, everything. People are struggling to get by.

Unfortunately, they do not have a government that is looking out for them. Instead, we see the people at the very top, CEOs of the wealthiest corporations, making record profits. The oil and gas industry is gouging Canadians at the pump, continuing to rake in billions of dollars and then getting handouts from the government in carbon capture and storage and billions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies that consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments have been giving them for decades.

Grocery store CEOs are making millions of dollars while everyday Canadians are struggling to afford their bills. While the Conservatives today have put forward a motion pretending that they care and want to give Canadians a break, New Democrats know that corporate greed is what is driving up inflation. Corporate greed is driving up the cost of groceries.

Real estate developers and rich investors are treating our housing market like a place to get rich. When they look at the housing market, they see something great that is working for them. When everyday Canadians experience the housing market, it is a crisis. It is scary. It is scary for people not knowing whether they will be renovicted. It is scary for them not to know, if they lose their homes, whether they will be able to find one they are able to afford or whether they are going to be able to pay their mortgages next month.

The Conservatives' governing body, 50% of it, is made up of lobbyists from these very industries: real estate investors, oil and gas, pharmaceutical companies. It is no wonder they do not want to take on corporate greed. It is no wonder they refuse to put forward solutions that would actually tackle the inequity that exists in our country.

On the other side of the House, while the Liberals talk about climate action and affordability, they will not take the action needed to take on these big corporations. They refuse to address the climate emergency with the urgency and scale that is required. To be honest, if we have an option between climate denial and climate delay, the result is the same. It is climate inaction. People will continue to struggle. What people in Canada see more and more is that the climate crisis is a pocketbook issue. When crops fail, when there are multi-year droughts, when wildfires impact communities, the cost of groceries goes up.

When we have oil and gas companies, and rich CEOs at the head of grocery store chains making record profits, and everyday Canadians struggling with the cost of living and with the impacts of the climate crisis, one would think we would have a government that would take action.

There are solutions. We could implement a windfall profits tax on oil and gas companies and could put that money into retrofitting people's homes, into building public transit, into the climate solutions we know would make a difference and into renewable energy. Instead, we have a government that has invested $35 billion into the Trans Mountain pipeline. We know that the oil sands have been ramping up production in anticipation of the Trans Mountain pipeline opening.

Imagine, in a climate crisis, ramping up oil and gas production so that they could ship raw bitumen to the coast, threatening our coastal communities, the ecosystems and the very livelihood of coastal communities and threatening indigenous communities. It is so disheartening.

It makes Canadians cynical when a government declares a climate emergency, and the very next day, it approves the Trans Mountain pipeline. It makes people cynical when the Prime Minister gets up and says that he believes in climate change and the climate crisis but then puts forward an oil and gas cap that is so watered down that it does not even meet their own weak climate targets. It does not even meet our Paris Agreement.

This is not climate leadership. Canadians should not have to choose between bad and worse or between deny and delay. Let us implement a windfall tax on big oil and gas. Let us make sure that all low- and middle-income Canadians have access to heat pumps. Let us make sure that we are investing in our public transit system, in reducing our emissions and in ensuring that we invest in renewable energy.

There are billions of dollars that the Liberal government continues to hand out to wealthy oil and gas CEOs in the form of fossil fuel subsidies that could be going into climate solutions. However, we will not hear either of those parties talking about moving the billions of dollars that they hand out to big and oil gas through carbon capture and storage or though the tax breaks to the oil and gas industry. We will not hear them talking about moving that money into supporting communities impacted by the climate crisis.

We could fund a youth climate corps and could employ young people in the industries, in the jobs of the future, in responding to climate disasters, in making our communities more climate resilient and in bringing down our greenhouse gas emissions, in retrofitting our homes and in changing over our infrastructure to green infrastructure to ensure that we build an economy and a country that are climate safe and that is climate resilient.

Every day I hear from Canadians who are worried about their future, and they are also worried about right now. Canadians are struggling with the cost of living. They are struggling, seeing the impacts of the climate crisis. They want a government that would take on the culprits, the people who are fuelling this crisis and the people who are gouging Canadians. It is time we had a government that looks out for everyday Canadians, not just the people at the very top, not just those CEOs who are ripping people off.

It is time that we take care of Canadians who are seeing their costs go up, who are seeing their communities, sometimes, devastated by extreme flooding, by continued drought and by wildfires. Wildfire season is starting in February. We now know that Canada has the worst air pollution in North America. Last year, we had the best in North America. Now, because of wildfires, the top 13 worst polluted cities in North America are here in Canada.

I want to finish by saying that Canadians deserve better. Canadians deserve a government, and every party, that is fighting the climate crisis like we want to win.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, all day, and indeed every day for months now, the Conservatives have been blaming the carbon tax for everything. If the culture sector is in trouble, it is because of the carbon tax. If people ask for MAID, it is because of the carbon tax. If people are lining up at food banks, it is because of the carbon tax. It reminds me of Plume Latraverse, who sang “it's El Niño's fault again”. Simply replace the words “El Niño” with “the carbon tax” and, voila, it is the Conservative platform.

I would like to hear my colleague's comments on the food bank issue. What we are hearing in Quebec is that the cost of food is higher primarily because of climate change. That is what people are telling us. Farmers are struggling because of drought or excessive rainfall. I would like to hear my colleague's comments about the cost of food going up because of climate change and the fact that the Conservatives are still denying the existence of climate change.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member has it exactly right. The climate crisis is impacting food costs. We know that there are multi-year droughts in British Columbia and in Alberta and that crops are being impacted. Just this week, the Province of British Columbia created a water infrastructure fund with $80 million to support farmers because they know what is coming. We have seen the impacts of this multi-year drought on farmers and on our crops. It is felt by consumers at the grocery store, and costs are rising. The experts have communicated this very well.

It is not the carbon tax that is making groceries so expensive; it is the climate crisis, and it is also corporate greed. Rich CEOs, the Galen Westons of the world, are making record profits, and they are gouging Canadians. We need a government that will take this on.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I think my hon. friend from Victoria and I agree on many things. Will she agree with me that it is never too late, even after $34 billion has been wasted on building the Trans Mountain pipeline, to refuse to open it?

The use of the Trans Mountain pipeline will have the effect of increasing greenhouse gases from the oil sands and will massively increase the risk of a dilbit spill in the Salish Sea, which cannot be cleaned up.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for her ongoing advocacy on this.

The Trans Mountain pipeline is a complete disaster. It is an economic and environmental boondoggle. We do not want to see the increase in bitumen on our coasts, the increase in tanker traffic and the impacts on coastal marine ecosystems and on emissions globally. This project is a disaster; it should have never happened.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for Victoria for highlighting the tremendous risks that the climate crisis presents to Canadians and in particular to young people.

We have heard recently from young people across the country, from coast to coast, about the need to ensure that young people are at the forefront of action in this country. We know there are solutions to the climate crisis that young people so desperately want to be involved in, particularly their work in promoting the Youth Climate Corps.

Can the member speak about the importance of having youth at the forefront of what will be the devastating consequences of climate change if we do not act?

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his ongoing advocacy for the Youth Climate Corps.

We co-hosted a Youth Climate Corps town hall, and we had hundreds of young people join us. There were people from in-person watch parties in 16 communities across Canada who urgently want a government to take action and who want to get involved and to actually make a tangible difference. A youth climate corps could employ young people in the climate solutions, could train them up in the jobs of the future and could give them access to training and to education.

We know that young people feel the climate crisis acutely. Over 50% of them have said that they are so concerned about climate change that it impacts their daily lives. The vast majority of them are so concerned that it is impacting how they live and how they are able to engage. We need to give young people a pathway to make a difference. The Youth Climate Corps is a way we can do this—

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

We have to resume debate.

The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay has the floor.

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

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in Parliament. On my way over here, I had to almost elbow my way through the big long line of Conservatives with their phones, doing selfie videos, saying that they were here in Parliament today, that they were going to huff and puff, and that they might blow the House down tonight, and then they asked people to please send money to their addresses as quickly as they could.

The price of a federal election is $630 million. If we tell our constituents and the people of Canada that the member for Carleton, the official opposition leader, is going to cost the Canadian taxpayer $630 million in an election because things are so desperate and people need to stand up, then we certainly expect him to be here to do that work if it is that serious.

Just this past Monday, we had nine confidence votes. For those who watch Conservative TikTok, I will give them a little explanation. A confidence vote causes an election, yet we saw all the dutiful backbench Conservatives vote to show confidence in the government. Now, three days later, it is the “huff and puff and they may blow the House down” strategy when there are going to be nine confidence votes tonight.

Given the importance of this and given the fact that we would plunge the nation into an election at this time, I really hope to see the member who lives at Stornoway standing here and leading his troops because it is one of the concerns I have had.

I have been accused of making claims about his background and about the fact that he apparently worked for Dairy Queen. I am willing to retract that, because we actually do not know if he worked at Dairy Queen. I have tried to find what his job résumé was before he became a professional political “whatever he has been his whole life”. Some say he had a paper route, and others say he worked at Dairy Queen. It does not seem that he actually may have done both. However, if he worked at Dairy Queen, I am sure they taught him that he had to show up, because showing up is a fundamental thing we learn in jobs.

When I was younger and was trying to feed my two young daughters by working on construction sites, I was told if I was not ready to go with all my tools by 7:30 in the morning, do not to bother to show up. I had to pay the rent at the end of the month, so I learned to show up. I raise this because there is a pattern with the member.

I remember when he said that he was going to stand in the House and speak until the budget fell. That was extraordinary. All the little Conservatives who repeat all his talking points and who get the gold stars, all stood around him. They were going to stay in the House until he brought the House down and would cause an election. Then, after about two hours, he ran out of gas because he ran out of slogans. When one's entire electoral platform is a bumper sticker slogan, even the member who lives at Stornoway gets tired, so after two hours, he gave up and went home, but he thought they were going to have an election.

I remember, before Christmas, he said he was going to keep us voting in the House until Christmas. We came and waited, and that never happened. Again, I do not know whether he was off having canapés and mojitos with Jenni Byrne, the lobbyist for Loblaws, and her staff, who are apparently lobbying the federal government through Forecheck Strategies, but we did not see him. All the poor schleps were left here for two nights doing the hard lifting of voting against the government.

What did they vote against? They voted against support for Ukraine, and that was actually one time he showed up; he showed up to vote against Ukraine. He had to be on the record that he voted against Ukraine, because Tucker Carlson would have been displeased. They voted against clean water on reserves. They wanted to get that on the record. They showed up and voted against a national suicide hotline, because they were going to force an election. I felt bad for my colleagues in the Conservative Party who dutifully stayed up all night when the member for Carleton was having canapés at fundraisers. We did not vote until Christmas, but he was going to bring the House down.

On Monday night, there was a historic opportunity to bring the government down, and he was voting from behind the curtain. That was the night we moved the historic vote for peace in Gaza, a vote that has been recognized around the world. Numerous other jurisdictions are now following Canada's lead because the New Democrats showed up that night. We showed what it means to come to work every day and work, to find a compromise plan to recognize the need to deal with the horrific death of innocent children in Gaza. We showed what it means to say that the terrorist attacks by Hamas should be condemned and that the people of Israel have a right to live in peace, but, because of the systemic killing of journalists, aid workers and children, the Netanyahu government cannot be given any more weapons. The New Democrats showed up, and that was historic.

Again, I would advise the member, who probably puts some ice cream and walnuts on a Dairy Queen banana float, that if he is going to be a leader of this country, he should show up and stand up at these historic moments. He does not get to go off to Stornoway, have canapés and leave the poor schleps on the backbench to do the heavy lifting. Monday night was an opportunity and he missed it.

With respect to the Conservative bumper sticker slogans, one has to put three or four of them on side by side now. Today the member comes in again, and this is the moment he says that he is going to axe the tax and force an election. He says he is putting $630 million on the line. Will he be here tonight?

In 2021, when the Liberals decided to go to an election, people were telling us to get back to work. They wanted us to work in here and get something done. They asked what I was going to do if I went back to Parliament. I said that we were going to get national dental care, because we heard about that at the doors. I said that we would fight to get national pharmacare if they gave us a check to hold the Liberals to account.

We will hold the Liberals to account, because that is what we do. We show up for work. It is not a hard concept. Canadians are hard-working people; they show up for work. They understand. Canadians are not dummies. The member who lives in a 19-room mansion with his own private chef goes on about a carbon tax affecting the price of food. Canadians know that it is the relentless gouging by Loblaws doing so. We have never, ever heard the member speak about Loblaws. Canadians understand this when they find out that Jenni Byrne, his chief boss, was a lobbyist for Loblaws.

Last night, a working-class guy wrote to me. He has to drive his truck to get to work and drives 50 to 100 kilometres each day to get out to the mine. He asked about the carbon tax, because he saw that the price of gas in our region went up 20¢ overnight. I told him he was getting gouged. Then he asked if I could break down the carbon price for him. I told him it was three cents a litre. Then he asked where the other 17¢ went. I told him that it went to Rich Kruger, the CEO of Suncor, who told his investors at the height of the worst climate catastrophe we have experienced that there was an urgent need for them to make even more money.

The oil industry in Canada last year made $78 billion, and we have never heard the member who lives at Stornoway talk about that. We have never heard a single Alberta Conservative stand up to talk about how we are four years into a brutal drought. The Oldman River reservoir is almost empty. I was in Edmonton in January; there was no snow on the ground and it was above zero. We have never heard a single Conservative talk when, because of the climate catastrophe, fire season is announced in northern Alberta in February. Conservatives are climate deniers, and there is a reason for that. If they admitted that the planet is on fire and children cannot go out because of the catastrophic fumes from the oil and gas sector's pumping of CO2 emissions, then they would need a plan. However, they do not have a plan because it would not fit on a bumper sticker slogan.

I am going to conclude on this simple thing: The member for Stornoway said that he is going to lead this country, force an election, bring it home, axe the yakking and do the backtracking all the way to a fundraising event tonight. He should show up and do his job.

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

Madam Speaker, this member knows exactly what is going on with the Conservatives. It is all theatre. It is all theatrics when they are out there wearing the cult jerseys, doing their videos and talking about what is going on. Let me read what the member for Calgary Shepard put on Facebook. He said, the “NDP-Liberal coalition voted against the Conservative motion to spike the carbon tax hike. It was [the Prime Minister's] last chance to provide relief for Canadians. Brace for impact: Conservatives are now calling a vote of no confidence, steering us straight into a Carbon Tax Election.”

This is the theatre that is being put on by these jokers in order to raise money. What does the member think of that?

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

Madam Speaker, I have watched the member who lives in the 19-room mansion in Stornoway brace for impact time and time again, as he stands up and announces that he is going to huff, he is going to puff, he is going to vote Parliament down. However, he cannot really be here, because he has to head off to a fundraiser with Jenni Byrne and the Loblaws lobbyists at Forecheck Strategies to have canapés at Stornoway.

My only concern is for the poor schleps here who are left behind, night after night, having to stand up and vote against Ukraine, having to stand up and vote against a national suicide crisis hotline while their boss is drinking mojitos.

Conservatives are told to brace for impact. There will be one more night when they will have to show up. Wait a minute, were we not supposed to vote while they were going to huff and puff all weekend long? Then they thought, “Oh, well, it's going to be too long. Can we just go home?”

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Madam Speaker, it must be great being a member of the NDP, those paragons of virtue who come here and criticize members on this side. What have they accomplished on their side for Canadians?

The price of housing has doubled. Mortgage costs have doubled. Two million people are visiting food banks because of their support of the Liberal government. When they talk about environmental policies, guess what? The carbon tax is not an environmental policy.

Can you tell us how much has been reduced because of the carbon tax?

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

As the hon. member knows, I cannot answer any question.

The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

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

Madam Speaker, we can imagine the poor Conservatives asking New Democrats how to get things done. They have come here for three years to jump up and down, howl at the moon and say they are going to bring Halley's comet to strike this place; next, they have something else. I am more than willing to help school my friend. I cannot see his name tag.

What did we do? We showed up and we got a national dental care strategy while they said they would vote against it. We got coverage for diabetes, which they would take away from people, while the member for Stornoway has all those benefits. We got peace and Canada's stance for Gaza, while they stood back and did nothing except huff—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Madam Speaker, my NDP colleague is quite right. We are losing a whole day again. I think that is something we, in the House, cannot afford. Unfortunately, the Conservatives are engaging in theatrics, and very bad theatrics at that.

My question is this. Arrangements are being made for us to vote until midnight on Friday and Saturday. It is highly unusual for the House to sit on a Saturday. Sitting is not the problem, but sitting this Saturday, the day of Brian Mulroney's funeral, is a problem.

I would like to hear my colleague's opinion on the matter.

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

Madam Speaker, although Conservatives are demanding to vote until midnight on Saturday, I would bet they are going to fold like cheap suits. They always do.

I would encourage my friend to probably plan to go home, because the leader of the Conservatives is going to be off doing fundraisers, drinking and eating canapés with lobbyists for Loblaw and Jenni Byrne. Meanwhile, the rest of the schleps are going to start to cry and ask to please go home. They are all going to leave. I am ready to stay until Saturday night, but I was ready to vote until Christmas and they all packed up and left.

I would say that, if there is going to be a vote against Ukraine on Saturday night, they will all come in to make sure they are there. However, if we do not vote against Ukraine, I bet the Conservatives will all want to go home.

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

Madam Speaker, I will start by saying that I agree with much of what the member for Timmins—James Bay just said. We talk about the Conservative hype. This, as I said in my question for him, is just theatre for Conservatives to motivate their base and raise money. That is all, that is it, and it is nothing more.

The Conservatives talk about bringing in a confidence vote this evening. We have 11 confidence votes this evening. We are voting on the estimates; they are all confidence votes. They would rather play this up, put on the cult jerseys they got the other day at their caucus meeting, go out into the lobby, film their selfie videos and tell the world how they are about to bring down the government. They then say, “You better donate here so we can get an extra 20 bucks from you to make it happen.” Then, of course, it will fall flat. Nothing will happen, and the Leader of the Opposition will be at his fundraiser this evening.

I found it very interesting. I listened to the Leader of the Opposition's speech today, and I heard what he had to say. I heard him talk about headlines. There are a couple of headlines he forgot to bring up when he was speaking, such as one that says, “Corporate lobbyists are flocking to [the Leader of the Opposition's] cash-for-access fundraisers.” Members should listen to this: The “Conservative leader...took aim”, and we will all remember this, “at Canada's ‘corporate lobbyists’ in a speech a week ago to the Vancouver Board of Trade, saying [that lobbyists] were ‘utterly useless’ and that under a Conservative government they would no longer ‘write a policy...and expect it to be implemented.’”

However, it goes on to say the following:

But in the past weeks and months, his party has in fact widely opened the doors to them. [The Leader of the Opposition] has rubbed shoulders with more than a hundred active or recent lobbyists at dozens of fundraising events since he became leader in 2022.... Lobbyists for oil and natural resource companies, big banks, telecoms, large retailers, and real estate investors paid for entry to private cash-for-access fundraisers with [the Leader of the Opposition.]

We have an individual who, on the one hand, will go up to the Vancouver Board of Trade, stand there and say, “Lobbyists are utterly useless. I will never listen to them.” However, then we find out through access to information or getting the lists of donors that the people who are actually going to the fundraisers he is having are all lobbyists. It is the hypocrisy that comes with that.

There is another headline that he forgot to mention, and this one is more recent. This one is from this morning in The Globe and Mail. It states that the Leader of the Opposition's campaign manager, Jenni Byrne, established a second lobbying firm from the same office. Members should listen to this:

But on the Monday after [the Leader of the Opposition's] Sept. 10, 2022, leadership win, the president and senior vice-president of Jenni Byrne + Associates incorporated Forecheck Strategies. Many of the staff who work at Ms. Byrne's firm also lobby federally for Forecheck.

Clients who booked meetings on [the new company's] website were redirected to the booking system for Jenni Byrne + Associates. That function was removed, as was Ms. Byrne's headshot posted to the website, after The Globe's inquiries about the connection between the two firms.

Madam Speaker, look at what we have here. Not only did we raise the hypocrisy of Jenni Byrne being an active lobbyist a couple months ago, but she knew it and the Conservatives knew it. The day after he became the leader, she went out and set up a new company to be a lobbyist. She removed her association from it, or at least tried to, but when people went on that new website, it ended up going to the exact same booking information as for Jenni Byrne + Associates. This tells us that not only did they know what they were doing was wrong but that they also actively tried to pre-empt getting caught. Unfortunately, at least for them, they still got caught.

That is what we have going on here. The Leader of the Opposition is no different from Donald Trump in the United States. He will get in front of his rallies, grab that microphone and tell the crowd what they want to hear. He will throw lobbyists under the bus and say they are the worst human beings ever. Then he will turn right around, just as Donald Trump would, and open up his hand to receive money from them.

When the Leader of the Opposition, or any member, says, “Oh, we are nothing like the MAGA Republicans in the United States,” I call BS. That is absolutely not true. He is exactly like Donald Trump. He is employing the exact same tactics, receiving the exact same money and using it in the exact same way as Donald Trump would.

I find it fascinating that today's motion is a confidence motion to trigger an election on an issue they ran on. In 2021, they ran on pricing pollution. We literally delivered to them what they wanted, and now they are saying they need to call an election on it because they do not think it was a good idea. This is what we are dealing with over there. It is absolutely ludicrous and insane. They cannot even be consistent on anything. It is because they deny climate change. As many members from the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberal Party have said, they deny climate change. They deny that it is something we have to deal with. They deny the reality of it.

I found it really interesting, and I felt for him, when the member for South Shore—St. Margarets said in a passionate question for the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader that he is a Progressive Conservative, was from the days of Progressive Conservatives, and how dare they suggest that he does not belong to that party of the past, the former Progressive Conservatives. I would say to the member for South Shore—St. Margarets that he did not leave the Conservative Party; the Conservative Party left him.

It is true. Look at people like Flora MacDonald, the last Conservative to be elected from Kingston and the Islands, in 1984. Flora MacDonald went on to be the first female to run in a national leadership campaign. She worked side by side with people like Brian Mulroney. These were Progressive Conservatives who cared about the environment. They brought countries together from around the world and said, “Listen, there is problem with the ozone layer. We need to fix it, and we need to work together.” They were not just protecting the Canadian environment; they were leaders on the global front when it came to saving the ozone layer in the 1990s.

As for acid rain, George Bush Sr. was against doing anything on it. It was Brian Mulroney who pushed George Bush Sr. and kept asking the Americans, saying that we needed to do something about acid rain. It was he who finally got them to sit down and come to an agreement on how we could control acid rain on this continent.

Those were the Progressive Conservatives. Those are the Conservatives that the member for South Shore—St. Margarets is hearkening back to. He unfortunately does not belong to a party that any longer bears any slight resemblance to that Progressive Conservative Party. People like Flora MacDonald, Kim Campbell, Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney were leaders when it came to the environment. The current Conservative Party has absolutely no interest in it.

Let us just get out of Canada for a second and look at what is going on globally. Globally, we are seeing a price on pollution, in one form or another, throughout the entire world. The Leader of the Opposition wants to try to suggest that having a price on pollution is an uniquely Canadian situation. I would say to him that every country has a price on pollution in one form or another. We often hear that the United States does not have a price on pollution. Yes it does. Many of the states are part of the cap-and-trade system. It is called the western initiative.

In the early 2000s, the environment ministers of provinces like Quebec and Ontario went to negotiate with California and other U.S. states to implement a cap-and-trade system. Cap and trade is just another form of pricing pollution. When Conservatives get up and imply that we are the only country that has a price on pollution, they are absolutely wrong.

The hypocrisy does not even end there. There are even Conservatives who sit here today who not only ran on pricing pollution, and I have already talked about that, but have also implemented pricing pollution in this country. The member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge was in the provincial legislature in B.C. when it brought in pricing pollution. Two members currently sit here, the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent and another member, who were sitting in the Quebec National Assembly when it unanimously adopted pricing pollution. The member for Louis-Saint-Laurent was the leader of his party at the time when they did that. We cannot make this stuff up.

Now they come back in here and speak as though it were such a foreign concept, and they say they could never understand how anybody would ever be interested in pricing pollution. Given their record, I would be embarrassed to be them, to even stand up to ask questions or even vote on issues regarding this, when they are one hundred per cent doing a 180° turn from where they were before.

What we know, despite the rhetoric, is that pricing pollution works. More importantly, eight out of 10 Canadians get more back than they pay into it. This is Groundhog Day, as NDP members have said. I remember talking about this just two days ago, and I will remind the House what I said. My home is in Ontario. It is heated by natural gas, which I get from from Enbridge. Just before we broke from sitting three weeks ago, in all the discussions about pricing pollution, I looked at all of my bills from 2023. I added up the price on pollution, the carbon tax, that I was paying. It totalled, in my house, $379.93 per year.

I drive an electric car, and my wife drives an electric hybrid plug-in. It would be unfair for me to just stop there. Let us assume that I did also drive a fully gas vehicle. The average gas vehicle consumes 1,667 litres of gas per year. In 2023, which is the year for which I am doing the calculations, that would amount to $238.55 that I would have paid on that car. If my wife and I both drove gas cars, plus I added the heating that I already talked about, it would come out to $855 that my household would have spent on the two highest contributing factors to what people pay on a price on pollution.

I am not trusting what the government tells me or what is posted on a website. I looked at my actual bank statement to see what was actually deposited into my account. When I combined the four rebate payments, it came out to $885 that I got back. In the scenario that I laid out, I am still ahead, given all of that.

When Conservatives say that the vast majority do not get it back, they are absolutely wrong. That is why 94% of households with incomes below $50,000 received rebates that exceeded their carbon tax costs in 2023. I do not even have to believe anybody; I just know that I benefited. I am in the net positive. Therefore when I read stats that suggest that 94% of households with incomes below $50,000 get more back, this is extremely easy to believe, given that I have seen what the impact is on me personally.

Only about 55% of households with incomes above $250,000 receive more back in payments than they paid. This is because when we consider who those two out of 10 are, and members can question and have a discussion about that, they are people who probably live in big houses with multiple vehicles and probably toys that consume a lot of gas or fossil fuels.

Do Conservatives care about the eight out of 10? No, they do not. They care only about the two out of 10. That is why they keep fighting with a false narrative and driving the false narrative based on misinformation back to people, in particular the eight out of 10 people. They would like to dupe them into believing their claims so the two out of 10 can benefit more.

I will close with a couple of quotes. One that I found very interesting was on Radio-Canada recently. The interviewer asked the chair of energy sector management at HEC Montréal, Mr. Pierre-Olivier Pineau, “When you hear [the Leader of the Opposition] say that carbon pricing increases the burden on taxpayers, while this week we also heard [the Minister of the Environment] retort that 80% of Canadians receive more back than they pay, who is telling the truth?” I can understand why people want to know that.

The chair of energy sector management said, “Well, [the environment minister] is telling the truth, and [the Leader of the Opposition] is acting in very bad faith when he claims that it adds to the burden, because in provinces where the federal carbon pricing applies, the federal government sends cheques to all households, which net-benefit the majority of Canadians. So, in fact, in [the Leader of the Opposition]'s plan, if it were implemented, a large number of households would no longer receive these cheques, making them poorer, on the contrary. So it's really playing on perceptions because it's true that at the pump, there's an extra cost, but in the taxpayers' pockets, it's beneficial.”

These are experts saying this. These are the people who are contradicting the Conservatives on a daily basis, and who are out there trying to inform the public as to what is really going on, what the reality is in these situations. Conservatives can continue to harp on ad nauseam about the price on pollution, but in reality, more people get back more.

What do the Conservatives really want to do? What do they really want to axe? Conservatives want to axe the rebate. Conservatives want to axe the measures we have put in place to help Canadians get through the effects of climate change and to help Canadians deal with the reality that when we price pollution, we are putting a price on a bad product.

We all pay property taxes to dispose of our garbage that we put at the curb. We all do that without batting an eyelash, because we accept the fact that producing garbage and putting it in a landfill or disposing of it one way or the other has to be dealt with. The exact same logic applies to carbon that is being put into the atmosphere and that will stay there for generations and have impacts for generations to come.

Putting a price on carbon will do exactly what putting a price on garbage does: It incentivizes people to make different choices, to recycle more, to put less in a garbage bag and to develop strategies and ideas as to what they can do to reduce their impact. The nice thing is that in the process, when people do start to make those choices and transitions, they will end up even farther ahead as a result when it comes to how much money they are getting back.

I certainly will not be voting in favour of the opposition motion today. I am very glad to hear around the room that it appears as though all of my colleagues in the other political parties will be following suit. It is incredible to work with adults in the room from time to time, because they do exist in here, unlike the Conservatives. A couple of minutes ago, I heard a Conservative member ask what the NDP has done. The NDP has done more in the short time that it has had an agreement with the government than the Conservatives have done in the over eight years I have been here. The only thing the Conservatives ever do is whine and complain about everything.

Finally we have adults in the room. New Democrats might be small in number, but the impact they have far outweighs any of the impact that the Conservatives have. New Democrats have actually been able to get things done. They have been able to put forward their initiatives. They understand what it is like to work in a minority Parliament. They understand that at the end of the day, our job here is to do things on behalf of Canadians and improve their lives, not just come here to yell and bark at the Prime Minister and accuse him of everything they can possibly come up with.

Witness Responses at the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to add my comments to the question of privilege raised yesterday by the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes about Kristian Firth's testimony on March 13 at the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

The Bloc Québécois finds it unacceptable that during his testimony before the committee, the witness repeatedly refused to answer questions. The fact that Kristian Firth and his colleague Darren Anthony from GC Strategies are under RCMP investigation does not excuse them from answering questions in committee. Some of Mr. Firth's statements are being questioned because some members of the committee felt that they were misleading or false or differed from what the witness had said in a previous appearance before the committee.

That said, I have no intention of defending the witness's answers or lack thereof in committee. However, if the House finds that there is a prima facie breach of privilege or even contempt of Parliament, and if the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs studies the matter, the reason the witness gave for not answering must be considered. The witness was of the opinion that his comments might not be covered by immunity and could be used against him in a future trial if they were reported in traditional and social media. We need to make sure that question is answered as we examine our practices in order to ensure the committees' work is not hindered or even halted because witnesses have concerns about their immunity.

Once again, I would remind the House that it will be up to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to determine whether the House finds that there is a prima facie breach of privilege or contempt of Parliament.

I would remind the House that, as the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes pointed out, witnesses must answer all questions put to them by a committee. A witness can object to a question asked by a committee member. However, if the committee agrees that the question be put to the witness, the witness is obliged to reply.

House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, Bosc and Gagnon, states on pages 1078 and 1079 that a witness who refuses to answer questions put by a committee may be reported to the House. Furthermore, page 1081 of this procedural manual states that refusal to answer questions or failure to reply truthfully may give rise to a charge of contempt of the House.

The committee unanimously agreed to report the matter to the House, which indicates and substantiates the gravity of the situation. I am underscoring this because it is important. According to page 82 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, Bosc and Gagnon, “refusing to answer a question or provide information” required by a committee and “deliberately attempting to mislead...a committee” can constitute contempt of Parliament.

Given the witness' immunity, and despite the question raised earlier, the Bloc Québécois feels that Mr. Firth's evasive attempts to avoid answering the committee's questions were unacceptable. We believe there is a prima facie breach of parliamentary privilege, if not contempt of Parliament.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Opposition Motion—Carbon Tax Election

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Madam Speaker, after eight years, we all know that mortgages have doubled and rent has doubled. The only place in Canada where the does it seem to be the case is in the member of Kingston and the Islands' head, where our leader seems to live free.

In listening to his speech, a lot of it, if it was not about our leader, was about himself and how wonderful he was doing. However, what I hear from residents is the exact opposite. Maybe the member and a lot of the Liberal elites are doing fantastic, but I am hearing the opposite. In fact, I have a copy of gas bill that came in today from a farmer in my riding. The cost of the gas supplied was $407.85 and the carbon price on that was $428.04.

We are talking about a carbon price. We are talking about Canadians. Why are we not focusing on that instead of the leader, because he succeeded? The reality is that we have to realize that after a period of time—