Debates of June 17th, 2025

Information Commissioner

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

It is my duty to lay upon the table, pursuant to subsection 40(1) of the Access to Information Act, the Information Commissioner's report for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(h), this report is deemed to have been permanently referred to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

Commissioner of Lobbying

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

It is my duty to lay upon the table, pursuant to section 11 of the Lobbying Act, the report of the Commissioner of Lobbying for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(h), this report is deemed to have been permanently referred to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

Veterans Ombudsman

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence]

Pursuant to Standing Order 32(2), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the 2024-25 annual report of the Office of the Veterans Ombudsman.

Income Tax Act

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-211, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act and the Canada Pension Plan (deeming provision).

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to introduce an act to amend the Income Tax Act and the Canada pension plan, deeming provision. The goal of this bill is to make it easier for people with disabilities to obtain the benefits they are entitled to and to reduce the paperwork load on health care workers.

People with disabilities often need to complete separate applications to access the disability tax credit, disability benefits and the disability pension plan at the provincial and federal levels. This process can be onerous for applicants, caregivers and health care providers, as they are required to prove the same impairment again and again. This bill would streamline the process so that when someone has a disability recognized in their home province or territory, it is automatically recognized federally as well. Each disability tax credit form takes up to one hour to complete, and in 2022, over 400,000 disability tax credit forms were processed, which amounts to over one million lost patient visits.

I would like to thank my colleague, the former member for Victoria, Laurel Collins, for introducing this bill in the last Parliament. I would also like to thank the member for Winnipeg Centre for seconding this bill and for her ongoing advocacy for people with disabilities. Finally, I would like to thank all those fighting for disability justice and for a more inclusive Canada.

I hope all members will support this very important bill.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

World Health Organization

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition signed by the health-conscious residents of my riding of Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke.

The petitioners are calling out this government's hypocrisy after it recently and covertly signed on to the WHO's so-called Pandemic Agreement, just prior to the opening of the 45th Parliament. The Prime Minister had repeatedly promised on the campaign trail to defend Canada's sovereignty in the face of foreign threats, yet after the election, he went ahead and signed on to this legally binding treaty that will give unaccountable, unelected UN bureaucrats the power to override laws passed by our Parliament, which was duly elected by Canadians.

This treaty was never debated, nor was it voted upon in this chamber. The freedom-loving petitioners are calling for the government to immediately withdraw from the WHO's so-called Pandemic Agreement.

Foreign Affairs

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in the petition I am tabling, the petitioners highlight that under common article 1 of the Geneva Convention, Canada is required to respect international humanitarian law, and that under article 59 of the fourth Geneva Convention, Israel is an occupying power that must allow and facilitate humanitarian aid by impartial organizations. They highlight that Canada's own Official Development Assistance Accountability Act requires that all Canadian foreign aid uphold human rights and international legal standards.

They highlight that, publicly and unequivocally, they reject the militarized aid model used in Palestine. They also highlight that they demand the full restoration of access for the UN agencies and established humanitarian NGOs, including UNRWA and the World Food Programme. They insist on safe and immediate entry for Canadian health care workers and other international humanitarian personnel to Palestine. They also ask that Canadian funding be withheld from any entity or model that does not comply with the principles of neutrality, impartiality, independence and humanity, and, finally, that all Canadian aid to Gaza is delivered through internationally recognized humanitarian channels.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Opposition Motion—Sale of Gas‑Powered Vehicles

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

moved:

That, given that the Liberal government is banning the sale of gaspowered vehicles that will force Canadians to buy electric vehicles, and this mandate will drive up the cost of vehicles by $20,000, in order to allow Canadians the choice to purchase any vehicle that meets their needs at a price they can afford, the House calls on the Liberal government to immediately end their ban on gas-powered vehicles.

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Today being the last allotted day for the supply period ending June 23, the House will proceed as usual to the consideration and passage of the appropriation bills. In view of recent practices, do hon. members agree that the bills be distributed now?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to split my time.

I rise today in support of the Conservative motion in opposition to the government's authoritarian, misguided and altogether nonsensical ban on gas-powered vehicles. A ban on gas-powered vehicles sounds like some kind of conspiracy theory or something straight out of a science fiction novel, but it is real stuff. It is happening right now, and the Minister of Environment told us as much last week. She did not tell us that it was some aspiration or some kind of 100-year plan. She told us that it was a hard ban, a concrete requirement the government is going to bring in less than 10 years from now.

We know that members across the way like to think while wearing their radical thinking caps or their CN Tower-climbing jumpsuits, but let us take them off for one second and really consider what a policy like this does for Canadians and the Canadian economy. It would mean that we would need nearly 700,000 charging ports from coast to coast in less than a decade. We have 60,000 right now, and get this. In 2024, last year, the government managed to install fewer chargers than it did the year before. Apparently, the only thing moving slower than the construction of electric vehicle charging stations is the government email mandating them.

This ban would also mean that $600 billion would have to be spent preparing infrastructure. That is over $11,000 for every single car on the road at the moment. It would mean even lower car sales, lost jobs, higher auto prices and misery for consumers and workers alike. That is not according to me. That is according to the CEOs of some of the largest automakers in Canada.

Canadian economists and the non-partisan number crunchers say that this ban would cost us 38,000 jobs, if the sector remains operational at all. The boots on the ground, the people who make the cars, purchase the parts and navigate international trading relationships, say that a move like this would take us out of alignment with key trading partners like the U.S. in an integrated North American market, threatening our position in the supply chain and the global economy.

Let us not forget that the Liberals want to do all of this at a time when our auto sector is already menaced by tariffs south of the border, when we are already losing jobs left, right and centre, The Globe and Mail reporting more today, and when Canadians are still reeling from the worst inflation in four decades. Add an industrial carbon tax to this and we now have a recipe for uncompetitiveness, all while preaching the bravado of “elbows up”. Canadians cannot even think about putting food on the table or finding a place to live. Frankly, I think the last thing on their minds is putting a new Tesla in the driveway.

The government is going to come in with another job-killing mandate, another burden on consumers and the economy, all because it knows better than people do. I do not think the environment minister has taken any time to think about these mandates in a real way. I know that her accomplice, the heritage minister, who actually put these mandates in place, has not either. This is what we get when we govern by vibes instead of governing by logic and reason. Canadians have certainly gotten used to this from the Liberals, but even by established standards, this ban deserves some kind of award in creative governance.

If we take a deeper dive into the program and the inconsistencies and lack of oversight, we end up with just plain lunacy. I think Canadians watching this at home have no idea that it is happening. This is a plot twist that nobody saw coming, except for every single automaker in the industry.

The federal electric vehicle rebate program just ran out of money two months early, poof, gone, vanished, just like that, but the sales mandates are still in place. It is like telling Canadians that they have to eat nothing but steak for dinner every night while simultaneously taking away their grocery budget and calling it a climate plan.

Automakers, dealers and consumers were shockingly not thrilled to find out that the $5,000 rebate evaporated overnight. Some poor souls even went to the dealership expecting that rebate and did not get it when they were in line to buy their electric cars. I am not a fan of the rebate to begin with, but nothing says stable investment climate like a last-minute pullback of a rebate that Canadians thought they were getting.

Let us not forget the nearly $31 billion in subsidies that were handed out to foreign automakers and battery manufacturers, all of which are already going bust in a really big way. There are billions for multinational corporations and their executives, but heaven forbid a consumer gets $5,000 to buy one of these things.

The new economic model the Liberals always think of is to subsidize the company that builds the product, then subsidize the consumer that buys it, and hope that nobody notices that the math does not add up. We cannot prop up both ends of the see-saw forever. Eventually, someone is going to want a product the government will not write a cheque for. Markets do not work on that basis, when Ottawa plays both the buyer and the seller in all of this.

In Ottawa's mind, the electric vehicle revolution is happening because they said so. Incentives are not their problem. Infrastructure is also somebody else's problem. Communication seems optional for them, but the mandates are very real, and they are sticking to them.

The result will be that automakers will face penalties for not selling enough electric vehicles, consumers will face higher prices and dealers will face unsellable inventory. They have told us as much. They have told the government as much. Ottawa will face absolutely no accountability for any of it.

What is more is that the liberty and freedom of choice that is guaranteed to every single Canadian vanishes with each passing decision. They are being replaced by a government that thinks it knows best about what someone should eat, what they should drink, how they should drink it, or what you should use to drink it, and yes, what kind of car they should drive. For those watching this at home, the government does not want them to drive their gas-powered cars anymore. It has decided to mandate that everybody drives an electric car. It is insanity.

The bureaucrats, the middle managers, the members of Parliament and the ministers of the government think they know better than Canadian consumers, and they want to make those decisions from Ottawa. They think they should be in control of every aspect of someone's life. We have seen this show before. We know how it ends. We can take our pick. It is a mandate, a carbon tax, some weird DEI quota or plastic straws. The Liberals believe they can control someone's life better than they can. They can make decisions better than Canadians can for themselves, and we get significantly worse outcomes. In fact, they backtrack on some of those outcomes. We get those outcomes at a greater cost. It sometimes takes seven times longer than it should, and it leaves everybody worse off.

Instead of a government that does a few important things really well, we get a government that does a zillion things badly. We still cannot get anybody's passport to come in the mail on time because the passport printer is broken and the mail people are on strike.

This is a government that wants to do everything for Canadians, to creep into their lives and to take control. The government wants to build an economy based on edicts, mandates and ideologies, and a healthy sprinkling of fairy dust, and none of this is actually going to happen.

Edicts, mandates, ideology and all of those things do not put food on the table. All of those things do not actually help people. All of those things do not provide the choice that someone should have as a Canadian. This might come as news to the government, but that is what it does.

Individual people living their lives as they see fit, participating in a free market, making decisions based on rational analysis and scarce resources is something the government knows nothing about.

For instance, in my community, there are lots of people who drive electric vehicles because it makes sense. They drive short distances. We do not have erratic weather. We do not have really cold temperatures. With the right incentives, it makes sense based on what people choose. However, try telling somebody who lives in rural Alberta, who has to drive an hour or more just to run errands, and where it gets to -40°C, that they are going to be mandated to drive an electric vehicle by the government. It makes no sense and is not rational, which is exactly why we oppose this mandate.

All those on the opposite side of the aisle might be content to pursue the ideological war on the gas-powered car, but Conservatives on this side of the House will not stand for it. We will speak for every single person who wants to make their own decisions, who wants to make a rational economic decision. We will stand up for the auto workers and for those who build our sector. We will stand up for the decisions made that are common sense, by the auto sector, by the workers in the auto sector and by every single Canadian who wants to make a decision.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I must say there is a bit of irony here. For those who are not aware, the member who just spoke used to work for Doug Ford, and he is the Premier of Ontario. Whenever we saw those giant press conferences where Justin Trudeau was talking about the importance of the expansion of and the employment opportunities in the electric field in vehicle productions, who was beside him? It was Doug Ford, the Premier of Ontario.

Did Doug Ford have any influence on the member opposite, or was Doug Ford wrong in his investments? There were provincial investments also tied into it. Was Doug Ford wrong too?

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Doug Ford has had no influence on the member in the insane decision of mandating electric vehicles for people to drive. There is a $31-billion government investment that is going to vanish in this country. Jobs will vanish in this country. Members should tell that to the 38,000 auto workers who will be out of a job and the 56,000 auto workers whose jobs are at risk today.

If he wants to make a joke about Doug Ford, that is his prerogative, but this is serious. It is about the people who work in this country and get to choose what they drive, how they live their lives, what straw to use and every decision regarding their lives. We are not going to take a lesson from the government on how to live our lives.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if the member is aware, but there is a very strong transport electrification hub in Quebec. An entire industry has developed there. There are a lot of people who are excited about working on the energy of the future and clean technologies.

Is my colleague trying to attack a strong industry in Quebec that generates thousands of jobs by declaring war on electric vehicles?

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, nobody is denying that there are times when there is a choice to drive an electric car or denying the people making that choice. There is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is the government mandating that everybody drive an electric car instead of a gas-powered car rather than giving them the choice. The decision has to make economic sense. It has to make sense for the driver and the Canadian economy. That is what we are saying here today.

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

Mr. Speaker, Honda Canada was in my riding until this latest election and the redistribution. I dealt with it all the time. I thank my colleague for pointing out the importance of those jobs.

I remember when Stephen Harper, back when I was a mayor prior to my time here, introduced the gas tax. For a lot of municipalities, it was dedicated funding for roads and bridges. I know how important it was, especially for the rural areas at that time.

This is ridiculous. All the companies know it. All the manufacturers know it. Does the member believe this will go the same route as the carbon tax and that the Liberal government will try to sell it, but in the end, the reality is that it just makes absolutely no sense?

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, from the beginning, it has made absolutely no sense for the government to want to tie itself to the EV mandate for the next nine years until it does some weird mental gymnastics and backs out of the very central piece of its policy.

It is the very fact that Canadians cannot choose. It does not make economic sense, particularly in that member's riding, for anybody to drive an EV. It takes a good couple of hours to get around his riding, and I suspect the charging infrastructure is not there and will not be there. The Liberals are married to a plan that does not work. I suspect, after they get bonked over the head with it over the next couple of years, there will be a reversal, just like there was with the carbon tax when Conservatives pushed them to drop it.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, one thing I agree with my colleague on is that, when incentives are on the table, they should be honoured. That is certainly something we agree on.

I am going to talk a bit about Norway, where 88.9% of all new vehicle sales are EVs. It is a cold country and a lot of it is very rural. It is going to be at 100% by the end of this year.

Through you to my colleague, why do Conservatives constantly cite that it is impossible when other countries around the world are taking action on protecting the environment and on climate change?

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly not going to take lessons from that member and his party, which supported the previous government all the way through only to sit with seven people in opposition.

Here is the point: We cannot force people to do something against their economic interests. That is what we will stand for every day in the House.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when we think about the terrible policy initiatives put forward by the Liberal government over the last decade, this banning of gasoline vehicles ranks in the top five.

I will explain exactly why. In law, we would call this gross negligence because the Liberals know what they are doing is wrong, and that it is negligent, but they continue to do it anyway. If we could take them to court over this, they would absolutely lose on a charge of gross negligence.

I am going to point out and explain exactly why. When we look at where we are in Canada right now, we see we that about 8% to 10% of new vehicles being purchased are EVs. That is, of course, with the subsidies that have been in place. My colleague just explained that those subsidies have dried up, yet next year, in 2026, Canadians are expected to go to 20%, so increasing by more than double in one year. That is an enormous challenge right now, given that the average EV is about $20,000 more than its comparable gas-powered vehicle.

We are at a time of an unprecedented cost of living crisis, where we have a million Ontarians regularly using the food bank, which is three times more than it was a decade ago. That is the economic record of the Liberal government. Now the government is going to say that Canadians have to spend $20,000 more just to get a new vehicle. That is just for next year, but it gets worse.

By 2030, which is a mere five years away, it is going to be 60%. We are going to go from 8% to 10% this year to 60% by 2030, six times the previous amount. How is that even remotely possible? The government knows it is not possible, yet it is continuing to drive forward on this. This is because the Prime Minister is just as obsessed as Justin Trudeau was with this impossible agenda on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Let us break down a couple of things. This is the epitome of ideology over fact and ideology over reality. First, it is going to cost, in an estimate from the Canadian Journal of Economics, 38,000 manufacturing jobs in the auto sector. That is a devastating blow that would happen as a result of a policy that the Liberals know is not possible but are driving ahead with anyway. It is as though they are saying, “Damn the torpedoes, we are going ahead”. The Liberals are ideologically obsessed with this, and the consequences to Canadians just do not matter. It does not even factor in it for them. Then it is to be 100% by 2035, a mere decade away.

The consequence of this for Canadians is that we are not going to be able to buy a gas-powered vehicle. When we go to 60% in a mere five years, if Canadians go to that dealership and say, “I am a farmer, and I want to replace my diesel pickup truck.” The dealer will say, “Sorry, we have sold all the diesel pickup trucks we are allowed to sell this year.” That farmer will not be able to get one. Can members imagine that that will be the consequence?

Now, if there were a readily available charging network in Canada, people might say that this makes sense, but, one, there is not; two, the government has no plan to create a charging network; and three, who is going to pay for it?

There was a report put out by RBC called “The $2 Trillion Transition: Canada’s Road to Net Zero”. The government is ideologically obsessed with net zero, no matter what the harmful consequences are to Canadians. I had the privilege of being the shadow minister for the environment at the time the report came out. I asked the deputy minister of environment at committee how much would it cost to build out the charging network in Canada, electric generation in Canada and increases to electric transmission in Canada to get to these zero-emission vehicle mandates. The answer was that they had no idea, that they had not calculated it. When we talk about gross negligence, that is the example.

The Liberals are driving forward with an ideologically driven mandate that is going to be harmful for Canadians. They do not know how they are going to get there, and they do not know how much it is going to cost. This is the direct definition of negligence, and they do not care. They are driving forward with it.

Let us think about how we get there. First of all, the government has set the charging network at a capacity that is higher per car usage than California or the EU. It has calculated the number of charging stations needed for a vehicle. The government has said that in Canada, a cold country, we need fewer chargers per vehicle than California does. This, in and of itself, is negligence.

Then, we look at where they are regarding the build-out of the charging network. Even with the Liberals' modest goals, which would not create the charging network that Canadians need, they are at about 10% of their goals. Are they changing the mandates? No, they are not. This is gross negligence. It would have catastrophic consequences for Canadians who are would be forced to buy these vehicles and then have nowhere to charge them.

How can a government continue like this? How can members of the Liberal Party support this? Many of them have rural ridings where there will be no charging network, and their constituents, their voters, the people they are supposed to represent, would be forced to buy these vehicles.

This is not a zero-emissions vehicle mandate; it is a ban on gasoline vehicles. Let us call it what it is: a ban on buying a gasoline vehicle regardless of the consequences. If someone does not have a charging network that they can go to, that is too bad; they would still have to buy an electric vehicle. These are the consequences of the kinds of things the Liberals are talking about.

Look at number one: We do not have the electric generating capacity to do this across the country. It takes 10 to 15 years to permit and develop new electricity generation, so somehow we have to massively increase our electricity demand for all the electric vehicles that would have to be charged, plus heat pumps, but there is no plan to actually increase the amount of electricity we generate. Again, this is gross negligence, or it is an absolute denial of reality.

Then we go the issue of the cost, which no one knows. I asked the deputy minister of the environment at committee how much it would cost, and he said, basically, that they have no idea and have not calculated that out to the end point.

Let us move to the issue of electricity transmission, and there are two aspects to that. There is transmission across the country, which would have to be massively increased. How much would that cost? They have no idea. Does the ministry of the environment have an idea? No, because I asked, and it does not know.

Then we get to local transmission. If everybody on my street in the town of Orangeville were to decide they were going to install an electric vehicle charger, because remember, in five years, 60% of the people on my street would have to have an electric vehicle, the local transmission cannot handle that capacity. Again, it does not just get downloaded from the federal government. That means there would have to be improvements made to Orangeville Hydro for local transmission. How much is that going to cost? Nobody knows. Do the Liberals know? No, they do not. Do they seem to care? No, they do not.

Therefore, the gasoline-powered vehicle bans that the Liberals are coming forward with are completely ideologically driven, with no plan. I have seen the Liberals come up with things for which they have a plan on the back of a napkin, but at least it is a plan. It is a terrible plan that they drew up in about 10 seconds, and that is often how they govern, but on this, there is absolutely no plan. There is no plan to build the electric generation capacity, no plan to build the electric transmission capacity and no plan to build the local electricity generation capacity. This is where we are.

What have some of the CEOs of the auto companies said about this? Bev Goodman, CEO of Ford Motor Company of Canada, called for the EV mandates to be repealed. Kristian Aquilina, president of General Motors, urged the Liberals to scrap the EV mandates, saying, “It's unrealistic to believe that the country is going to go from 5 or 6 per cent to 20 per cent by [2026], which starts now.”

The auto manufacturers have said that the mandates are unrealistic and are impossible to achieve. The Liberals do not know the cost of the electricity generation or how they are going to get there. They do not know how they are going to get there on transmission or on local transmission. They have set the EV charging network standards way lower than in California and way lower than in the EU. There are more cars per charger for chargers that they have not built, yet the Liberals are refusing to cancel the gas vehicle bans. Why is that? It is because they are about ideology over reality.

The only people who are going to be hurt by this are Canadians who are already suffering from a cost of living crisis, an inflationary crisis and a housing crisis. They cannot afford it. Conservatives would cancel the mandates. Why will the Liberals not get onside?

[Corey Hogan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard arguments like “simply no alternatives”, “prohibitive costs” or “no reason to prohibit”. Those were actually arguments against phasing out tetraethyl lead, leaded gasoline. We have also heard arguments about stealing freedom and about people's need to have the right to choose for themself; those are arguments against seat belt laws that were used back in the day.

Yes, government should govern judiciously. Creating new rules should not be the instinct immediately, but I think we can agree that we have a role in setting the floor. My question for the member is this: What should that floor be? Does the member have a counterproposal, short of doing nothing?

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is amazing. The member has the opportunity to respond to the real, valid criticisms that have been raised: we do not have the electric generating capacity, we do not have the transmission capacity, we do not have the local transmission capacity, we do not have the EV charging network in place and the CEOs of the companies are also saying they cannot reach the mandates. The member's answer is to say that there were some other issues that were dealt with a generation ago, so why can we not deal with this?

Deal with the facts. What is the cost of doing this? You have no idea. What is the cost of the transmission network? You have no idea. What is the cost of the charging network? You have no idea. Will you reach any of these things before the mandates come in? No. They have absolutely no clue what they are talking about. It is ideology over reality.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

Before I go to questions and comments, this is just a reminder to members to speak through the Chair. The Chair has, in fact, no ideas about this debate.

The hon. member for Shefford has the floor.