Charlie Angus

[Business of Supply, June 13th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, it is important, for the record, that the member just accused the Speaker of asking questions about her personal life. I do not think the Speaker is interested in questions like that.

[Business of Supply, June 13th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I think it is very unfair for the member to make a habit of this, when we know that there are certain members missing from the backbench who have been put in the doghouse permanently for speaking of abortion.

[Business of Supply, June 13th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, it is clear that the Liberal government has no credibility when it comes to subsidies for the oil companies. Let us not forget that the public investment in developing the Trans Mountain pipeline was enormous. There were a lot of subsidies for helping with the expansion and the development of the oil companies, which led to an increase in GHG emissions in Alberta, without any plan to lower them.

The question is: what about the GHG target? Mr. Trudeau made a promise, but where is the plan?

[Business of Supply, June 13th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I feel like I am being asked to make commentary on something that was going on inside the member's head. I do not know really what the question was, but then I never quite do.

Let us talk about getting out more than what one puts in. Let us talk about Pathways Alliance and what they get out of Canada with putting less in. That is the question, I think, we should be asking the Liberals. Why do they continue to give Pathways Alliance such a free pass, when it is making $68 billion in profits and it has made it clear that it has no intention of lessening its emissions unless we pay for it? It wants us to pay 70% of the costs of this carbon capture scheme, which even it admits does not work. That is it. We put in a lot more and we get out a lot less from those guys.

[Business of Supply, June 13th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, that was pretty hilarious. I feel like I am being stoned to death with popcorn, with the insincerity coming from my colleagues. Let us talk about the abandonment of working-class people, when the member for Kelowna—Lake Country was bragging about making carbon and pollution free while her city was on fire during a climate crisis.

Let us talk about how the member who lives in Stornoway, who has never actually had a job that we have been able to figure out, was flying up to Yukon to say that they are going to make pollution burning free while people were fleeing from their homes.

As for the working class, the working class has a right to sustainable living, sustainable jobs and a sustainable future for their children. The Conservatives would burn that in a second if they could, if it meant giving Suncor some more money.

[Business of Supply, June 13th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I am always proud to rise in this House and proud as well to share my time with the member for Vancouver East.

There are moments when I have a hard time justifying what people watch on television, when it comes to the House of Commons. Many of them think that our democracy is deteriorating into this ridiculous Punch and Judy show between the Liberals and Conservatives of refusing to deal with the issues at hand. Today is a really strong example of this, where the Conservatives have lit their hair on fire over an internal debate between the Parliamentary Budget Officer's numbers and the government's numbers over a report that we have access to.

There are so many things we could be taking the time to debate, like, for example, the issue of foreign interference, which everyone is concerned with, but we know that the Conservatives will not go to the foreign interference file because the leader, who lives in Stornoway, will not or cannot get security clearance. I have never imagined a situation where a would-be prime minister is unable or unwilling to actually know if there are threats to this country, because ignorance is not bliss in politics; it is dereliction of duty.

We could be talking about what is happening on the global stage with the frightening rise of the right in Europe and the threat that it poses to the defence of Ukraine as we see Putin's war machine moving continually against the Ukrainian people, but we do not see the Conservatives wanting to stand up on that, and they have voted against Ukraine a number of times.

We could talk about the war crimes findings of the United Nations this week, which I find very disturbing. We find the UN has reported that Hamas's crimes against civilians, sexual violence and kidnapping were extremely horrific on October 7, and of course we know that Hamas is a terrorist organization that has been widely condemned, and justly so. However, it is the findings on Israel in the UN reports that say that “The frequency, prevalence and severity of sexual and gender-based [violence]... against Palestinians” have become part of the normal “operating procedures” of the Israeli Security Forces. It is a frightening finding by the United Nations about a close ally of ours, that it is using widespread sexual violence against civilians.

The other finding that the UN raised serious concerns about is starvation as a method of warfare. The reality is, of course, that starvation is not a method of warfare. It is not a military aim; it is an attempt to destroy a people. When one cuts off food to children and families, they are trying to destroy a people, and that meets the test of genocide, yet the Conservatives do not want to talk about that.

Canada once had a bright light on the international stage on social justice. We are tiptoeing around the horrific violence being perpetrated against defenceless people in Palestine. The Conservatives will not speak about that, so they would rather we spend our time on this internal bickering about some numbers. The rest of the world is looking at Canada and saying, “Where are they? Where is their voice? Why are they not standing strong for the International Criminal Court and for justice, like so many of our allies, like our friends in Ireland who are not afraid to speak up?”

We have come to one more day of a long-going battle between the climate-denying Conservatives, who believe that the burning of the planet by big oil should be made free, and the Liberals, who have continually failed to explain a credible plan for dealing with rising carbon emissions. The fact is that carbon emissions from the oil and gas sector have risen every single year. They continue to rise. They rise under the current government dramatically.

There is government talk about how carbon pricing, when I fill up at the gas station or when I travel, is having this great benefit. Canadians are paying their share, and Canadians are willing to do their share to deal with the climate crisis, but big oil has no intention. Then, we have industrial carbon pricing that allows planet burners, like Suncor, to pay one-fourteenth in comparison to what an average person would pay.

Canadians know that is not right. The real issue on carbon pricing with the government is that the Prime Minister went to COP26 and announced an emissions cap that he had not consulted with anybody about and he was going to put an emissions cap on big oil, but at the same time he put aside $34 billion to build a pipeline for which there was no business case.

Compare that to the government's work on clean energy. How long has it been since the Deputy Prime Minister announced investment tax credits to kick-start our clean energy economy? We are still waiting. We are still waiting for justice in indigenous communities for housing. We get those promises. In my region, the Prime Minister wrote a letter to the Weeneebayko Area Health Authority saying the government supports getting rid of what is really an apartheid-era hospital, yet none of that has flowed. However, when it came to giving money to big oil, the taps turned on: $34 billion.

What does that mean in terms of the credibility of carbon pricing? Right now, in the oil patch, they are talking about a year of record production. Imperial Oil is breaking production records. Why? It is thanks to TMX. Cenovus is going to increase from 800,000 barrels a day to 950,000 barrels a day. Heavy bitumen is going to increase 500,000 barrels a day, thanks to the free gift of taxpayers' money to an industry that has not been serious at any point about reducing emissions. We are going to have an increase of 500,000 barrels a day of raw bitumen, which has the highest greenhouse gas emissions of any fuel on the planet out of the oil and gas sector.

Taxpayers are expected to pay for that, but they are not just paying for that. The Trans Mountain pipeline is such a boondoggle that even super-rich companies like Suncor and Imperial and Cenovus could not run the bitumen through it, because it would be too expensive to pay for the toll fees. The toll fees are how we get the money back for the investment in the pipeline. As it stands now, 78¢ on every dollar is going to be paid by the Canadian people as a subsidy to companies that made $68 billion in profit. The government is now saying that it is going to make it a little fairer. It wants the taxpayer to pay maybe 55¢ or 60¢ on every dollar. That is Liberal mathematics.

When the Liberals come out and say that the Prime Minister has a Haida tattoo and that the Prime Minister has said that Canada is back on the international stage, what they should have been saying all along is that they were adamant that they were going to massively increase what is the dirtiest oil on the planet. That is not a personal statement. That is a fact. Bitumen has the highest GHG emissions in the world.

There is a reason the Liberals had to scramble to spend that money. Certainly we know from the IPCC and the warnings by António Guterres that we are beyond the red line now in terms of a climate catastrophe unfolding, and the United Nations has actually called out world leaders for “lying” about their promises on the international stage while massively increasing fossil fuel production at a time when the planet is on fire. That is what the UN said, but then the International Energy Agency, hardly a hangout for left-wing thought, has been warning consistently against putting more infrastructure into oil and gas because it will result in stranded assets. In fact, the IEA says we are seeing a massive glut that is going to appear in the next three years that will completely undermine the economics of oil and gas production. Since bitumen is the highest cost going, the government had to scramble with our money to expand that, so we could be locked in for decades to come.

Under Canada's scenario on oil production, Liberals expect that we will still be burning the same amount of bitumen in 2050 as we are today. They were never serious about dealing with the climate crisis. They were never serious about lowering emissions. They expect the ordinary taxpayers, who are more than willing to do their part to help the planet, to do that, and it is all on their shoulders, while the government is giving gifts to companies that made billions. This is what the government will be remembered for on the climate crisis.

[Business of Supply, June 13th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, the government gave $34 billion to the TMX pipeline, but what it does not talk about is that it is so over-budget that no oil company can use it because of the toll charges that have to be charged per barrel of oil. The Canada Energy Regulator had capped the toll charges at 22¢ on every dollar so that 78¢ was going to be paid by taxpayers. Now Liberals are saying they are going to increase it to just under 50¢ per dollar.

In what credible world is it that the taxpayers of Canada will have to pay at least 50¢ on every dollar to ship raw bitumen to the coast on behalf of companies that are making record profits? This is the biggest scam and subsidy that I have ever heard of in promoting the burning of our planet, and yet the Minister of Environment is going along with it. I wonder what the member thinks of this.

[Business of Supply, June 13th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I have a lot of respect for my colleague.

Today's discussion is very strange. When it comes to the climate crisis, the Conservatives are a bunch of conspiracy theorists. That being said, I am concerned about the Liberal Party's position. The government invested a lot of money in the construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline. This will result in a massive increase in greenhouse gases.

Why is the government supporting the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline and promoting the tar sands during a climate crisis?

[Business of Supply, June 13th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, the fundamental problem with the Liberals' carbon pricing schemes is that the government, under the present minister, gave $34 billion for the TMX pipeline. We now have record production taking place at Imperial. Cenovus is going to increase from 150,000 barrels a day. We are expecting a 500,000-barrels-a-day increase from the bitumen sands, which cause the highest greenhouse gas emissions on the planet.

How is the minister telling consumers that they should pay more when they go to the pumps when he is giving free money to big oil to continue the emissions that have risen in the oil sector year in, year out, and are now being subsidized by the government's pipeline?

[Business of Supply, June 13th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. I appreciate the member is tabling documents that we have not had a chance to see, but I will accept them. However, would the member table the documents on how much the toll fees for TMX are going to be and how much taxpayers are expected to cover off?