Erin Weir

[Sports in Regina, March 18th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday was the inter-varsity men's volleyball national championships. I particularly congratulate my taller cousin, James Weir, and all Saskatchewan athletes who played in the final.

It is an exciting time for sport in Regina. Our city will host the Grey Cup next year, and the NHL's outdoor Heritage Classic later this year.

In less competitive skating, I want to thank the 300 people who participated in my office's Family Day skate one month ago. This event enabled Regina residents to lace up for free, including many new Canadians learning to skate for the first time.

We must continue this type of inclusive activity to counter the intolerance that motivated the terrible attack on Muslims in New Zealand on Friday. I invite all members to join in sharing our condolences.

[Labour, March 1st, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, this week, Statistics Canada reported that Saskatchewan was the only province where payroll earnings fell in 2018. That drop was driven by lower construction earnings. The government was elected promising to restore a fair wages policy for federally funded construction projects.

Will the government enact a fair wages policy for construction workers before the House rises this spring?

[Corrections and Conditional Release Act, February 26th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, the CCF agrees to apply and will vote no.

[Corrections and Conditional Release Act, February 26th, 2019]

The CCF agrees to apply and will vote yes.

[International Trade, February 22nd, 2019]

Madam Speaker, the misconduct of a Canadian company abroad has recently created some political controversy. More than a year ago, the government announced a Canadian ombudsperson for responsible enterprise to investigate such conduct. Unfortunately, no ombudsperson has been appointed. When asked yesterday, the minister said that the appointment will be announced soon.

Can the government commit to appoint an ombudsperson before the House rises this spring?

[Transportation, February 21st, 2019]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the parliamentary secretary for providing a very good account of why intercity bus service is so important.

The parliamentary secretary suggested that the federal government would fund only interprovincial service, but of course, the federal government has chosen to fund urban transit, which is clearly within provincial jurisdiction. The federal government could choose to fund other bus service within provincial jurisdiction as well if it wanted to offer the money.

The parliamentary secretary seemed open to future federal support or future federal offers. I wonder if he could clarify whether the Government of Canada will make its public transit infrastructure fund available to provinces on an equal per capita basis and whether it will make those funds available not only for urban transit but for intercity transit.

[Transportation, February 21st, 2019]

Madam Speaker, earlier this month, I asked whether the federal government was offering to share the cost of restoring needed bus service in Saskatchewan. I did not get a very specific answer that day, but the next day, news broke that the federal government had offered cost sharing to Saskatchewan but unfortunately our provincial government had turned down the money. I would like to use this adjournment debate to examine what the federal government offered and what it should potentially offer, going forward.

As reported in the media, the federal government's offer was an amount of $10 million to all four western Canadian provinces to replace the service lost when Greyhound withdrew from western Canada. Saskatchewan would have received about $2 million.

A large part of the reason that amount is so low is that the federal government was only proposing to replace the service lost from Greyhound. Greyhound only provided interprovincial routes from Saskatchewan. Routes inside the province were operated by a provincial crown corporation, the Saskatchewan Transportation Company. Therefore, the federal government was not proposing anything to replace the service lost when our Saskatchewan Party government shut down and sold off that enterprise in 2017. The Sask Party said that it would have cost $85 million over five years to continue operating the STC routes, which of course is an order of magnitude greater than what the federal government had offered to replace just the lost Greyhound service.

To put these numbers in context, budget 2017 unveiled a $20-billion transit fund. It allocated this money between the provinces, mostly according to existing transit ridership. That funding formula skewed very much in favour of large metropolitan centres that already had well-developed transit systems and a large number of people already using those systems. This focus on existing transit ridership disadvantaged smaller provinces such as Saskatchewan.

To provide some numbers, the federal government's formula gave Saskatchewan 1.6% of the transit funding, whereas our province comprises 3.2% of Canada's population. In other words, the federal government is providing transit funding of $320 million to Saskatchewan, whereas our equal per capita share of the money would be more like $640 million.

Of course, as members know, most federal transfer programs are allocated on a strictly per capita basis to the provinces. Therefore, the case that I would make is that by simply providing a fair per capita share of transit funding to Saskatchewan and making it clear that this money can be used not only for urban transit but also for interprovincial and rural bus service, there would be more than enough funding to restore needed bus service in Saskatchewan to replace not only the routes abandoned by Greyhound but also the routes that used to be provided by our provincial crown corporation, the Saskatchewan Transportation Company. I hope the government will agree to this approach, going forward.

[Rural Digital Infrastructure, February 20th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary sang the praises of the government's climate action rebate and I agree it makes sense to rebate money to households. In fact, I am putting forward a proposal for the government to deliver even bigger rebates.

The fundamental issue that has not been addressed is the question of imports versus Canadian-made products. Yes, the government has implemented this output-based pricing scheme to try to prevent Canadian industry from being displaced out of the country by the national carbon price. However, it has not done anything to ensure a level playing field between Canadian industry and products coming in from abroad, often from countries that do not price emissions.

Does the parliamentary secretary not agree that a carbon tariff would be a way of addressing that problem?

[Rural Digital Infrastructure, February 20th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, the question that prompts this evening's adjournment debate was whether the government would enact a carbon tariff. The context for this question is that the federal government has enacted a national price on carbon. One of the main concerns about a national carbon price is that it could prompt carbon-intensive industries to relocate to other countries that do not put a price on emissions. That would increase global emissions while eliminating Canadian jobs. Adjusting our carbon pricing at the border with a carbon tariff on imports and a rebate on exports would safeguard Canadian jobs while ensuring that our carbon pricing actually helps to reduce global emissions. I think this concept of carbon border adjustments can be illustrated with the help of an example.

Producing a tonne of steel in China and shipping it here emits about five times as much carbon as manufacturing it at the EVRAZ mill in Regina. However, if we just put a price on Canadian emissions, that would tend to increase the price of Regina-made steel, creating an incentive for consumers to instead use dirtier steel from China. This would eliminate Canadian jobs and actually increase global emissions.

By comparison, if we had a national carbon price with a corresponding carbon tariff, it would increase the price of steel imports from China by more than it would increase the price of Regina-made steel. This would create an environmentally appropriate incentive for Canadians to buy local. In a nutshell, that is what is being proposed with a carbon tariff.

The government certainly recognizes that there is a challenge with competitiveness, and what the government has proposed instead of adjusting carbon pricing at the border, is to basically rebate between 80% and 90% of carbon tax revenues directly to the large emitters. The government is essentially on board with the idea of some sort of rebate to large emitters and wants to base it on their output rather than on the amount that they export. The government is prepared to undertake this huge cost, which will come at the expense of the consumer rebates that the government has proposed to try to make carbon pricing more palatable.

What I feel the government is missing out on is the potential to collect its carbon price on the carbon content of imports from countries that do not price emissions. This carbon tariff would help to ensure a level playing field, as I have described, but it would also collect revenues to help offset the cost of whatever funds are rebated to industry, either through the government's existing output-based rebates or through an export rebate as I have proposed.

By fully adjusting Canada's carbon price at the border, including a carbon tariff on imports, the government could help to protect Canadian jobs, help to reduce global emissions and also collect more revenue to fund greater rebates to all Canadians.

[The Environment, February 7th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the parliamentary secretary for providing what I think was a very good overview of the government's general policies for trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but what I was hoping to do in this evening's adjournment debate was really drill down into what the government is doing or could be doing to minimize the emissions from cannabis production specifically. I am sure it is a small part of total emissions for the country, but it is an area over which the government has quite a bit of influence during this period of legalization.

I appreciate that the government might have been caught off guard by this rather esoteric question when I first asked it back in October, but I would ask the parliamentary secretary, in her final minute, to provide a little more information, if possible, about what specifically the government is doing to address carbon emissions from cannabis production.