Mr. Speaker, I know I am touching on the truth and hitting a nerve when Conservatives heckle me on this point, because they always do that. However, it is a fact.
I have said to the House before, and I will say it again to those who might be listening at home and to those who are in the House, that I did the math myself for my own family. I looked at our Enbridge gas bill, which is the only thing we pay a carbon tax on. I added up all the carbon taxes for 2023. My wife and I drive electric hybrid vehicles, but I asked what the average Canadian uses in gas per year. I assumed we were using gas, as I did not want to throw off the equation by not having to pay the carbon tax on electricity that we are powering our cars with.
When I did that, I came to the conclusion that in 2023, I paid about $805 or $810, if I remember my calculations correctly, on the carbon tax. My rebate, not what the government told me I was going to get but what I saw when I actually looked at my bank statement, the four deposits in 2023, added up to about $865. Right off the bat I knew that my household was better off. We got back more than we paid.
A lot of people will ask how that is possible. How can the majority get back more than they pay? It is because the two out of 10 households, which might have many more vehicles, boats or other luxury items, are definitely going to be paying more than they get back. That is who the Conservatives are protecting. That is who they are really looking out for. They are looking out for the two out of 10 Canadians who are getting back more. The Conservatives will sell it as though who they are really looking out for are the lowest-income Canadians, but that is simply not the truth.
I really started to feel a sense of disbelief, but not when the leader of the NDP decided that he wanted to get out of the supply and confidence agreement, because I think that we all knew that would happen at one time or another, although I thought it was premature. I thought we still had a good year left to solidify a lot of these social programs that we had to make sure that they were there for a long time. What really bothered me was when, a few days later, he started to backtrack on the price on pollution, the carbon tax, basically saying that it was hurting Canadians.
What it showed me in that moment, and what I think it showed a lot of Canadians, is that the leader of the NDP does not have the ability to stand up to the Leader of the Opposition. He did a great job standing up to a protester outside of these doors just last week. I just wish he could stand up to the Leader of the Opposition like that. I know that the leader of the NDP believes in a price on pollution. I will prove in a moment that he and his colleagues definitely do not believe that the price on pollution has contributed to inflation and the hardships of Canadians, even though the leader of the NDP said that. Why can he not stand up to the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Carleton, the same way that he was able to stand up to a protester outside, to stand up for what is right?
I will tell members what I recall. I went around and did some digging as soon as I saw the NDP start to flip-flop on the price on pollution. On June 13 of this year, just before the House left for the summer break, the member for Edmonton Strathcona said, “the carbon tax does not impact the price of food to nearly the extent the member is saying. It is minuscule.” She goes on to say, “economists, journalists and members of Parliament have made it very clear that the carbon tax is not what is responsible for the cost of food increasing so much.” My question to the member from Edmonton Strathcona, and I hope she asks me a question after I am finished, is this: How did she respond when the NDP leader suddenly said the price on pollution is negatively impacting Canadians?
I have pages and pages of examples, but since I am talking about the member for Edmonton Strathcona, I will tell the members something else that she said. On May 30, she quoted an economics professor who said, “‘A clear majority of households do receive rebates that are larger than the carbon taxes they pay for.... If we got rid of the carbon tax and the rebate, then this would harm a much larger fraction of lower- and middle-income households than it would higher-income households.’” That is right. She basically said, on May 30, what I just said the Conservatives are doing.
They are trying to appease the two out of 10. They are selling it as though they are appeasing the eight out of 10, but they are really trying to put more money back in the pockets of the two out of 10. The member for Edmonton Strathcona knows that. She agreed with it and spoke to it. Then she had to watch her party's leader go out and say that he came to the conclusion that the carbon tax and the rebates are not actually helping Canadians more than they are hurting them. This is position that we find ourselves in. I am very glad to see that the NDP and the Bloc are continuing to be the adults in the room, recognizing the stunt that the Leader of the Opposition did.
Did members notice the fanfare that existed on Tuesday when the Conservatives had their opposition motion? It is so dead now. It is totally deflated because of what happened yesterday with the vote. They do not have nearly the energy as they did then. We have not heard from the Leader of the Opposition on this motion yet. I do not even know if he will speak to it at some point today. The point is, it is all a game for them. I know the NDP knows it was a game for them, yet somehow they caved to the pressure. I want to understand how the NDP got to that point.