Erin O'Toole

[Customs Act, May 9th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, through you to the member, I would recommend to her to use research as opposed to anger in her interventions here in the House.

I am talking about the minister who just gave a speech and was questioning her in her questions and comments on his views on Bill C-21—

[Customs Act, May 9th, 2018]

You should listen better.

[Customs Act, May 9th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise in debate for the second time on Bill C-21 and speak about changes to the Customs Act.

I am going to premise my remarks upon the fact that many people in this House of Commons change over time. Sometimes the change is dramatic. I have highlighted the dramatic change of the deputy House leader of the Liberals, my friend from Winnipeg North, who speaks in this House far more than everyone else. He is just a treasure trove of contrary positions on a whole range of issues, particularly how hurt he was personally during the Conservative government whenever there was an omnibus bill or use of time allocation. Now he organizes the use of time allocation for his House leader.

There are also ironies in looking at the long-time member from Saskatchewan, who is now our Minister of Public Safety, because he has been on both sides of every issue. He is doing so wonderfully today. He gave a speech that extolled the virtues of a common entry-exit system with respect to the United States. He also talked about tracking exit information of Canadians for a variety of reasons and how good those reasons were. What did he say about it in 2011? The entry-exit issue has been part of the beyond the border initiative the Conservative government worked with President Obama on for many years trying to make sure goods were delivered faster, that there was exchange of workers across the border, and that security protocols were respected.

What did the minister who is now pushing this rapidly through the House say in February 2011? He said:

If we have a common entry and common exit system, does it not follow that Canada no longer has sovereign Canadian control over immigration and refugees? Canadians need to know what is at risk.

It is ironic in 2018 to hear that minister talk about sovereign Canadian control over our border when his press conference earlier this week in Quebec with several other members of cabinet showed their inaction and incompetence has essentially surrendered any sovereign border controls in this country. This is due to inaction, due to the desire to keep their centre left coalition alive. They will not even do the basic enforcement of border rules and regulations. It is astonishing.

When the Conservatives were exploring the entry-exit system, it was a high priority for our American friends under the Obama administration. The minister expressed concern about it at the time, and now he is driving it through. What else did he say about this in February 2011? He conceded in many ways that if Canada, under the Conservatives, were to go to a common entry-exit system information sharing with the United States, it only should be done under specific circumstances. He said, “Could the Prime Minister at least guarantee minimum gains for Canada?”

What the minister was saying at the time was if Canada was to relent to the American request for the sharing of entry and exit information across our border, we should at least extract something in return. What is going to be the guaranteed minimum gains for Canada? That is what he asked for in opposition. In fact, why did the Conservative government not complete entry and exit information sharing with the American administration? We were fighting for Canadian jobs related to the Keystone XL pipeline. We wanted a gain. We wanted to be treated as a mature partner in the Canada-U.S. relationship. We were fighting for that gain so we did not rush through a bill like Bill C-21.

What has Canada achieved under the U.S.-Canada relationship under the Liberal government? What is the minimum gain we are getting now for this entry-exit sharing? Nothing. In fact, NAFTA is at risk. Our steel and aluminum exports are at risk.

We are not even consulted on decisions of a security nature made by the United States. The government cannot even get its answers straight on whether it is talking to the Americans about fixing the gap in the safe third country agreement.

The minister suggests they are talking. The immigration minister—

[Foreign Affairs, May 9th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, Taiwan is being blocked from participating in the World Health Assembly, which is meant to bring countries together to work on health issues. Fifteen years ago, Canada and Taiwan were on the front lines of the SARS crisis, and that shows why Taiwan should be a participant.

Will the Prime Minister show some global swagger and take a public position in support of Taiwan joining the World Health Assembly, or will he remain silent due to his admiration for basic dictatorships?

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the work done by the national round table, other groups, and economists. I just worry about this growing sense that it is a truism the carbon tax is the only solution. It is not. It is a solution that does not recognize we have an integrated economy in North America. If we do something, it will harm our economy if we do not have our integrated partner alongside. The Prime Minister, in his bromance with President Obama, could not get Mr. Obama to agree to a North American carbon tax.

The smarter approach is one where the largest emitters, which account for well over 50% of our economy, have a reduction plan, not driving away jobs and taxing people who are not the problem. The carbon tax is lazy public policy.

As the member said in her remarks, everyone knows the Liberals want this to be a revenue source. The government's own estimates show that between $30 billion and $100 billion, if its plan is implemented, is going to flow into government. Not a single dollar of that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The false logic is the Liberals hope that by taxing it, they will change behaviour. Unless commuters going to work in the greater Montreal area and the greater Toronto area have transit now, they cannot make better choices. This is a tax grab.

Let us concentrate on the large emitters. Let us have a realistic long-term plan to get their emissions down without large-scale unemployment and without reduced productivity. That is a real plan, not the fallacy of the carbon tax.

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member. I hope after the next election he returns to his municipal level of government where he can continue his good work on LEED buildings.

Just this morning I met with Adam Melnick from Bowmanville on behalf of Mechanical Insulators Canada. He reminded me of the fact that the federal government, much like Kingston but on a larger scale, has 38,000 buildings. The association has estimated through studies that better insulation and better efficiencies of boilers and pipes would account for a 30% GHG reduction for federal government facilities. Where is the leadership on that? The government is going after the single seniors and working families, and is not taking care of its own.

I remind the member that I provided a plan. There are 596 reporting facilities right now that account for well over a third of Canada's emissions. The oil and gas and transportation sectors are 50% of our national emissions. Let us have a smart, targeted plan using the tax system as I described. That is a real plan that understands the economy, not the rhetoric and the platitudes of the minister and Prime Minister.

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to rise in debate today to talk about the carbon tax and its impact on Canadians. Going further, I want to talk about how I am troubled by debate in Canada where it appears that the government, and some commentators, believe it is a truism that only the carbon tax can lead to GHG reductions. In fact, we hear this idea regularly, including from the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, who said she is so done with Canadians who do not agree with her on this approach.

There is nothing inherent in a carbon tax that actually lowers greenhouse gas emissions. The hope by many economists and by many people like the members of the government is that it will cause people to make “better choices” with respect to their daily lives.

However, I want to show how backward this approach is and how it reflects the fact that, with the exception of perhaps the Minister of Finance, we have a government front bench that is devoid of any serious experience in the private sector economy. The carbon tax is not only unfair to a family struggling with affordability in Ontario and British Columbia, but it is also extremely unfair to fixed-income, single seniors living in Atlantic Canada, where most homes are heated with home heating oil. They are on fixed incomes. They are seeing property taxes and a range of other things going up, and they cannot afford to spend hundreds of dollars more on home heating oil. They cannot afford hundreds of dollars more in higher costs on all the goods and services they purchase. They cannot afford $1.60 gasoline.

What is fundamentally troubling and flawed in the logic on the carbon tax is that so many people working at universities or in the benches of government have virtually zero contact with private sector small and medium-sized businesses in Ontario. They do not realize it is making us uncompetitive. Not only are we going to see job losses; we are also seeing a lack of affordability.

The Ecofiscal Commission suggests that the $50 per tonne price on carbon, which will be fully in place by 2022, will raise $30 billion in tax revenues, basically taking that money out of the economy, out of investment by business, out of households, and away from seniors. These same people are advising the government to go to $200 per tonne before people will make “better choices”, to use the words of our Prime Minister. That would take $100 billion out of our economy, out of the pockets of Canadians, and away from our competitiveness, at a time when the United States is putting more capital and liquidity into its economy by lowering taxes and by making less regulatory intervention in the economy.

As noted economist and public thinker Terence Corcoran said about the carbon tax, “[It is] not a mere a tax grab, it is a multibillion-dollar tax bulldozer rolling through the economy.... ”

Canadians should already be aware that roughly 40¢ to 60¢ of the price at the pump right now is already tax, yet we are still driving, I have noticed, especially in the 416-905 GTA or in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. Can someone who lives in Bowmanville, in my riding, who has to commute to his job in Mississauga across the entire GTA to provide for his family, make better choices? There is no transit available. Moms and dads juggle so many things. They have to get back to pick up the kids for soccer. These are the people I represent. They have to work for their families. “Better choices” from the person living in the ivory tower of the Prime Minister's vantage point shows a radical disconnect.

Also, what if the employer he might work for in Mississauga is an auto parts manufacturer? That auto parts manufacturer in southern Ontario or in Kingston, where my friend is listening from now, competes against suppliers in Michigan, where there is no carbon input price to their competitiveness, where they are lowering taxes. This government has been raising taxes, with payroll taxes and carbon taxes.

Every bank economist has talked about our affordability and our competitiveness with a government that is devoid of a connection with the real world, the real needs of families, the real needs of single seniors. I am going to show why the Liberals' false debate, their creation of the truism that only the carbon tax can help our economy, is a failure of public policy leadership. Instead of standing up and citing her platitudes time and time again, the minister should meet with people in the real economy. I will use an example.

Statistics from the Liberal government for 2016, which was the latest year for which I could get these statistics, say that we have 704 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in our country, 37% of which comes from 596 facilities across the country that are already reporting. Let us compare that.

We have reports for 596 facilities that produce over a third of Canada's total emissions. We could have a targeted regulatory approach to help them step down their emissions without laying people off and without reducing production. We could do that by a targeted sector-by-sector enhanced approach—and I will speak later about how we could do that specifically—or we could do what the Liberal government is doing, which is by regulating the 13,320,610 households in Canada. That is what the Liberals are doing with the carbon tax. That represents 32.8 million people in those households.

A single senior in Kingston is who the government is targeting for its GHG program. Seniors will pay more for home heating, for fuel, for all the goods in their house at a time when property taxes are going up and affordability is going up.

Perhaps when the member was mayor, he lowered property taxes. I do not know, but seniors are not the problem. The government's own documents show us that fewer than 600 facilities account for over a third of the GHG emissions. What is even more striking is that 50% of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions come from two sectors: the oil and gas sector and the transportation sector.

I can tell the House right now about a program that is far better than every ridiculous time I hear the minister say the environment and the economy go together. She should understand the economy. She is detached from the real world, calling people who have a different plan for greenhouse gas emissions “climate change deniers”. I have been working on climate change and the environment likely longer than she has, but I have also been in the real economy and I know how we have to tackle these things.

Fifty per cent of our emissions as a country, over 350 megatonnes, are addressed in these two sectors. With the oil and gas sector, we can have two public policy goals to lower emissions. First is capital cost allowance acceleration for any investment that goes to a resource company or a company in the oil sands, one of our largest single contributors to the gross domestic product of Canada. Let us incentivize them to lower their emissions by using the tax system and writing off investments. I said during my leadership run that this approach could actually be extended to water usage too. We could allow any investments they make to depreciate at a faster rate.

Then we could work with those emitters. There are 596 of them. We know where the large emissions are coming from. We could lower their tax rate over a 10-, 15-, 20-year timeline if their emissions are reduced.

In the case of the transportation sector—remember that almost 50% comes from transport and oil and gas—the government has not lobbied for cabotage with our NAFTA modernization. As a result, right now if we make something in Oshawa, Ontario, and ship it to a state in the United States, such as California, because of trucking regulations, that truck has to come back empty. Just think of the wasted efficiency and the wasted GHG emissions. If we are modernizing NAFTA, we should work with President Trump in the U.S. and eliminate this archaic system whereby we have empty transports. In fact, there are hundreds of megatonnes coming from wasted inefficiencies in transport.

David Emerson, a former Liberal cabinet minister, agreed with me at the transportation committee that cabotage would be the single largest move to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as a country. We need cabotage for the transportation sector and a targeted, tailor-made approach using our tax system for the oil and gas and resource sector.

This is about using our tax system as a carrot to incentivize better choices, in the words of the Prime Minister, as opposed to a stick punishing the single seniors, punishing the families, and punishing the small businesses trying to compete. It is about time we had fresh thinking from the government.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, May 7th, 2018]

With regard to government expenditures, since December 1, 2017, for all vendors with a mailing address in Switzerland: what are the details of all such expenditures, including (i) vendor, (ii) amount, (iii) date, (iv) description of goods or services provided, (v) file number?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, May 7th, 2018]

With regard to expenditures in relation to the Canadian delegation to Davos, Switzerland, in January 2018, and based on invoices, contracts, or receipts received to date: (a) what is the total of all such expenditures; and (b) what are the details for each expenditure, including (i) vendor, (ii) amount, (iii) description of goods or services provided, (iv) file number, (v) date?

[Foreign Affairs, May 3rd, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the uranium nuclear deal provided billions of dollars to Iran and granted it access to the SWIFT financial system, which experts agree have helped Iran fund terror operations across the Middle East.

This week Israel revealed intelligence that shows that Iran lied about the extent of its nuclear program when the 2015 deal was struck. Since this agreement was built upon the sands of deception, will this government work with the atomic energy agency and our allies to have the deal with Iran revisited?