Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening to speak to Bill C-15. This bill is part of the government's efforts to respond to the current tariff crisis with the Americans. I would say that it is a very weak, very lukewarm response.
The negotiations with the Americans are currently on hold, and I do not believe anything in the budget will help meet the needs of Quebec. I do not think that it will help meet the needs of Canadians either. I will try to explain why.
There was one aspect of Bill C-15 that was very off-putting to the Bloc Québécois, and that was the addition of several billion dollars in new subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. Our leader indicated from the outset that this was a non-starter. If the government added tax credits or subsidies to the fossil fuel sector, which has greatly benefited from such measures, the Bloc Québécois could not support the budget. In fact, we voted against the budget without hiding behind the curtains.
Bill C-15 includes an increase to the carbon capture and storage tax credit. The period currently goes from 2031 to 2036, but it is being extended to 2041, which will negatively impact the energy transition. We know that the principle of carbon capture and storage is mainly aimed at carbon-neutral oil production, which is a pipe dream.
It also expands the clean technology investment tax credit to include small nuclear power plants. A year and a half ago, we learned that the main objective for developing small nuclear power plants was to support the oil and gas sector by supplying the heat needed to extract bitumen and to enable it to export more gas rather than using other types of energy to process oil sands.
The budget also includes incentives for the conversion of liquefied natural gas power plants. Once again, massive support is being offered to fossil fuels.
Then there is the whole hydrogen component. In the last two or three budgets, there were considerable tax benefits for green hydrogen. There is no hiding the truth any longer: More flexible tax credits means that the gas and oil sector will be able to produce hydrogen from gas and oil and benefit from a tax credit.
The thing that bothers me the most is what the budget says about pathways plus, which is a project of national interest, according to the government. I will come back to the oil companies that make up the Pathways Alliance.
The purpose of the pathways plus project is to capture and store all emissions from the oil sector in order to achieve, as I was saying earlier, the infamous pipe dream known as low-carbon oil. The best analogy I can think of to explain what low-carbon oil means is as follows. Trying to make oil low-carbon is like going on a diet. Everyone knows not to eat poutine when dieting. There is no such thing as low-calorie poutine. There is no such thing as low-carbon oil either. This government pipe dream has found its way into the budget as a way to indirectly support the oil and gas sector. In the end, low-carbon oil will never be produced, and Quebec taxpayers' money will once again have been used to support the greedy oil and gas sector.
There is a precedent. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, I remember the government saying that we had to keep our economic sectors going, so it launched the infamous emissions reduction fund. This fund was intended to reduce emissions from the oil and gas sector. After a year and a half, we realized that this was far from being the case. Production was allowed to increase, but emissions were never reduced. An unequivocal report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer demonstrated, with supporting evidence, that the government had not accomplished its mission. It was another fossil fuel subsidy in disguise. I am afraid that history could repeat itself today.
Why does that bother me? It bothers me because the purpose of this budget is ostensibly to develop infrastructure so Canada can break away from the United States. The government has repeatedly said that there will be trade corridors and infrastructure that will allow us to develop more trade with Europe. That is how we are going to sustain our economy and break away from the United States.
However, if we look at the energy sector, particularly the gas and oil sector, we see that the four members of the Pathways Alliance represent 80% of all oil sands companies. They are Canadian Natural Resources, Cenovus, Imperial Oil and Suncor Energy. These companies are 73% foreign-owned and 60% American-owned. There will be investments in carbon capture strategies. The government may announce a new pipeline project tomorrow. We have already paid $34 billion for one. Whose interests will these funds serve? They will serve 60% American interests.
Worse still, even my Conservative friends are talking about the affordability crisis. Everyone knows that it is the cost of energy that is putting pressure on inflation. We know that the cost of energy has been rising sharply since the pandemic. Why? It is because the cost of refining fossil fuels is rising because the industry's margins are appallingly high. When we take a closer look at this, we realize that—I am warning my colleagues, their hair might stand on end—from 2021 to 2024, the big oil and gas companies made $131 billion in profits. That is a record.
These companies did not use their profits to buy infrastructure with. They did not use it pay for carbon capture or storage. What they did was give dividends to their shareholders. They gave almost $80 billion in dividends to their shareholders. Three-quarters of the profits made by the oil and gas sector went to the United States.
Today, the government is telling us that three-quarters of $80 billion is not enough. It is going to try to help them a little more and pay for their infrastructure too. Tomorrow, the government is going to announce a pipeline project. The budget talks about the infamous pathways plus project, under which we will collectively pay for carbon capture strategies only to watch six-tenths of the money from the oil sector's profits slip right through our fingers. It will not be reinvested in our health care system or our education system. No, it is going straight to the United States. This project is supposed to be the centrepiece of the government's plan to break away from the United States by developing Canada's own energy infrastructure. I do not know if any of that is the least bit coherent to anyone else, but I am having a hard time understanding it.
Meanwhile, the forestry sector is going through some very tough times. We had a debate on this yesterday. The government announced a $700-million liquidity support program in August. Today, it increased that amount to $1.2 billion. However, people in the forestry sector are saying that more loans are not what they need. What they need is a plan to help save the forestry sector.
Clearly, what the government announced does not address this issue. It cannot even reach an agreement with the big banks to implement this process. The only solution available to the government is one that I have been talking about for three days now. The only solution is the proposal made by the forestry sector itself to buy back the countervailing and anti-dumping duties to enable it to survive. When I look at the budget, the government seems to be far more interested in the oil and gas sector than in the forestry sector.
That evidently explains why the Bloc Québécois voted against this budget.