Mr. Speaker, it is tough to get back to House business given the events that happened in Tumbler Ridge on Tuesday. Canada is still trying to recover. We send our thoughts and prayers to the community, the people and the families of Tumbler Ridge. They are going to have a long journey of healing. My family is quite upset about this.
Today, we are talking about electric vehicles and the rebate initiative from the federal government. Listening to the speeches, I keep hearing the conversation go back to how we are supporting Canadian auto worker, that the world is moving towards electric vehicles and how Canada intends to join that trend, but American EV automakers are actually writing off their losses, and the same thing is happening in China. Its domestic sales are collapsing. Canada is actually throwing a lifeline to America for EVs made in the United States with a rebate. There is only one car that could possibly qualify for the rebate that we are talking about; the rest of it is going to help an industry that is dying in the United States.
The agreement the government signed with China is going to help an industry that is dying in China. It is an over-produced, over-subsidized vehicle. However, it does not end there. Tesla has revenues coming from carbon credits. Since 2017, without selling anything, it has raised over $10 billion in carbon credits from auto manufacturers that do not produce electric vehicles, including those in Canada. We will be sending $2.3 billion of rebates to help a failing industry in the United States, and our auto manufacturers, or what is left of them in Canada, that do not produce electric vehicles will have to buy carbon credits from an American company. How is this building Canada strong?
We hear all these talking points, but everything is actually geared toward the United States and helping its economy, helping it with its jobs and helping it re-establish its manufacturing sector. Canada not only is helping it with this rebate, but we also previously gave Stellantis hundreds of millions of dollars to produce jobs and vehicles in Canada. What did Stellantis do? It said, “Thank you very much,” left Canada and went to the United States. It is going to build a plant down there. Everything is geared toward the United States.
There are the promises made by the Prime Minister. He promised that we are going to be the strongest performing country in the G7. No, we have a failing grade on that. He promised that we are going to be an energy superpower. No, we are not. He wanted to be judged by the price of groceries at the grocery store. No.
One of the most significant promises he made was to President Trump, and it was that he was going to invest $1 trillion Canadian into the United States economy. I think we are well on the road to seeing that promise fulfilled, even if it is in instalments, like a $2.3-billion rebate going to the electric vehicle manufacturers in the United States.
By the way, when the Prime Minister came back to Canada, he clarified that it would not be taxpayer dollars, but that it might be private investment dollars. Well, this tax rebate is coming from the government; it is coming from taxpayers. It is $2.3 billion, and that is on top of the $52 billion that the government committed to creating an electric vehicle supply chain in Canada for a vehicle that is produced in the United States.
Now we are looking at 49,000 electric vehicles coming from China. We are helping lagging economies, but doing nothing to help our own economy and our own people, whether we are talking about jobs or affordability.
I will say one thing, and I talked about this a lot in the B.C. legislature, but the electric vehicle mandate was unfair and unreasonable. Putting financial pressure on people to buy an electric vehicle, especially in ridings like mine, in Skeena—Bulkley Valley, where it is not practical for those who work in forestry or on farms. Perhaps I should say they used to work in forestry, because the industry is basically shutting down left, right and centre in B.C. An EV is not practical. Therefore, to put financial pressure on people who are already struggling with affordability, making sure they get punished if they buy a gas or diesel vehicle, is unfair.
What has replaced this electric vehicle mandate? A tailpipe emissions mandate, which is going to accomplish the same thing as the EV mandate. It is going to put pressure on Canadians, especially those who cannot even think about purchasing an electric vehicle. This is not fair. Government should not be putting more hurdles and obstacles in front of Canadians, who cannot afford a home, cannot afford groceries and cannot afford to pay their utilities.
This is not what the Prime Minister promised, especially when I do not think the Canadian public understands where we are going with respect to investments. This is not just investing the $2.3 billion in rebates, which will go to the auto manufacturers in the United States. According to Natural Resources Canada, we will need around 450,000 public EV chargers, along with nearly 12 million in homes, by 2035 to accommodate the projected new EV car sales.
We talked a lot about this in B.C. The infrastructure we need in B.C., especially in the rural areas, is just not there. We are talking about a supply of electricity that B.C. does not have in the first place. Then there is the transmission line, which comes right into our neighbourhoods and into our homes, but it is just not there. It is going to cost billions more to provide the infrastructure for the EV mandates. Who is going to pay for that in the end? It will not be the government; it will be the consumers and the taxpayers.
In fact, right now, I am getting complaints at my office about the new hydroelectricity bills that people got in the last couple of days. They are asking what is causing the jump, but I do not know. I know that the hydroelectricity cost for the dams in B.C. was a deferred cost. Just like with the unmanageable budget the Liberal government has put in place, at some point somebody is going to have to pay that bill. If they do not, there will be consequences to our sovereignty. There are many examples of what happens if a country cannot pay its bills.
I know that to some people here, the idea of being fiscally responsible is a joke, but under the Indian Act, it was hammered into us, as chiefs in council, that we were not allowed to go into debt or have deficits, under punishment from the federal government. Those rules are still there today.
We can talk all we want about this brand new world of driving an electric vehicle—