Kevin Lamoureux

[Government Business No. 34—Proceedings on Bill C-62, February 13th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded vote.

[Government Business No. 34—Proceedings on Bill C-62, February 13th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, when I reflect on this, the whole discussion and debate that has taken place over the last number of years has been fairly extensive.

Going back to the Supreme Court of Canada's Carter decision of 2015 and to the amount of committee and House of Commons' time, there has been a great of deal of discussion, justifiably so. It is important to recognize that medical assistance in dying is not necessarily a new issue. It has been well discussed in many different forms, even the issue of mental health well-being.

I wonder if the minister could provide his thoughts on the journey taken to bring us to this point today and on why it is so critically important that it pass by the end of this week.

[Questions on the Order Paper, February 13th, 2024]

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

[Carbon Pricing, February 12th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the member across the way gets the gold star for the day for the number of times he said, “axe the tax”. He does deserve a pat on the back for that.

However, let us take a look at the reality of the situation. The Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc all support a price on pollution. Countries around the world support it; they actually have a price on pollution, or a carbon tax. The Conservatives are the only group that does not, even though in 2021 each member, including the member who just spoke, actually campaigned on a carbon tax. However, they flip-flopped on that; they made a change just because they got a leader with a nice idea for a bumper sticker. That does not make good public policy.

I look to the Conservatives to ask them to tell us what their plan is for the environment. What would they do—

[Carbon Pricing, February 12th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I will withhold my comments on the poem itself. I wish I had been given it in advance because I would have taken it line by line and provided a few thoughts. The poem might not have rhymed as well, but it definitely could have been a little more factual. When we are in the House, facts are really important.

For example, the member is concerned about inflation, as well member should be, and ties it to axing the tax, along with axing the rebate. I have to make sure we include both of them, which is only fair, because that is telling Canadians what Conservatives would really do, but it would only be for the provinces that both pay the tax and receive the rebate. I would add that qualifier, too. Therefore, B.C. and Quebec would not be included, which is a fairly high percentage of Canada in terms of population.

We could ask farmers about inflation and how it is impacting food production into the future, but I believe the greater threat to food production in the future is climate, things like floods. Earlier today, in the first hour of debate, members on all sides of the House talked about floods and the impacts they are having. Floods, droughts, fires and other natural disasters, which are all on the increase, are all based on climate change, something the Conservative Party refuses to recognize. I can tell the member opposite that there is a very good chance they will have a much larger, more significant impact on inflation.

When the Conservatives talk about axing the tax, it might sound nice, it might even look nice on a bumper sticker, as I referred to earlier, but, at the end of the day, it is not sound government policy, even if we try to tie it into inflation. The Governor of the Bank of Canada indicated that the percentage of the carbon tax increasing inflation was 0.15%, just a fraction. Let us compare Canada's inflation to countries that do not have a national price on pollution, like the United States. I pointed out some of the states do, but we would find that in many areas, their inflation rate is higher than Canada's inflation rate. This whole idea of cutting the carbon tax and the rebate would somehow drive the price of food down is quite misleading.

In the poem, the member said the Conservatives are going to build homes. The leader of the Conservative Party was responsible for housing when he was minister. I need to remind my colleague across the way that he bombed on the issue. He did not even come close to dealing with the housing issue. I want to be nice, so I had best leave that one.

On car theft, let us look at Manitoba. It was at its very worst when Stephen Harper was prime minister.

[Housing, February 12th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the government is very much concerned about the cost and affordability of housing. That is one of the reasons it is imperative that the Government of Canada continue to work with municipalities and provinces in particular, but also the non-profit organizations that are out there. I am a big fan, for example, of Habitat for Humanity. Without that organization, there are literally hundreds of people in the city of Winnipeg alone who would never have had the opportunity to own a home. The organization does a lot of good work.

There are a number of advocates and organizations out there to give that helping hand. We need to work collectively to try to make things more affordable. All I can tell the member is that the Government of Canada is at the table, and we are going to do what we can.

[Housing, February 12th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I would disagree entirely with the impression that the member is trying to give, which is just not even remotely close to the reality of the situation. For example, I would challenge the member to cite a prime minister in the last 50 or 60 years who has done more in terms of investing in housing in all sorts of ways. That is not only in terms of financial commitments; we have seen other budgetary measures whereby we have attempted to deal with issues such as fraud and foreign ownership.

We understand and very much appreciate the value and the importance of being able to own a home. That is why this government, like no other government in the last number of decades, made a decision years ago, not just in the last 24 hours. Shortly after being elected to government in 2015-16, we consciously said that as a national government we wanted to be proactive in dealing with housing going forward, and we brought forward the first-ever national housing strategy.

It is important that we recognize that it is not just the national government's responsibility. We can lead, which we have done, both financially and legislatively, and we have reached out to the many different stakeholders. We need the stakeholders also to come to the table, and we are seeing that. We are seeing literally hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in working with mayors and other jurisdictions to ensure that we can increase the housing supply.

I am a bit concerned that the member talked about the issue of immigration. I do not believe we should even attempt to blame the issue on immigrants. At the end of the day, whether it is provincial governments or the national government, we have recognized and believe in the power of immigrants and how they have lifted all of us higher. It is in good part something that we will continue to work on with other jurisdictions. I do not like the tie-in to immigrants on the issue of fraud. This is a government that has recognized the issue; we are working with others to resolve it. Most importantly, we are recognizing the national government's lead in ensuring that we have more housing and more affordable housing, because we understand the importance of it.

Unlike the Conservatives, we will work with other jurisdictions. We are not going to go around saying that this or that person is a bad mayor. I have not heard the Conservatives say anything good about mayors. It is important that we recognize that we need to work with other jurisdictions, because often it is the councils and in some areas the provinces that actually have more tools than we would have, outside of financial supports.

[Carbon Pricing, February 12th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, it is amazing in terms of the places around the world where we see a price on pollution actually being implemented, or a carbon tax. We could talk about Ukraine, which has a price on pollution, a carbon tax, as do countries like Poland, many European countries and, in fact, Mexico. People often say the United States does not have it. It does not have a national carbon tax, but many states have a carbon tax.

The reason I say that is, at the end of the day, having a price on pollution, making the polluters pay, is sound public policy. Unfortunately, it is being distorted to the nth degree by the Conservative Party, all in an attempt to have a shiny bumper sticker of deceit for Canadians. I think that is sad. We are supposed to be here to develop and to encourage sound public policy.

[Carbon Pricing, February 12th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I thought maybe what I would do is reflect on the word “real” that my friend amplified during her four minutes. I give her credit, she knows the four priorities of the Conservative Party. She probably even has the bumper stickers already produced, ready for circulation. In fairness to the member, I suspect that if she does not have them, she will likely be the first Conservative to have the actual bumper stickers.

She sticks to the points. I know she puts a great deal of effort into her every word. Sometimes we hear that we should not let the facts deny a potentially good speech. I suspect that my friend across the way adhered to that. She made reference to the 80%, so let us take a look at the 80%. It is the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer, not the Liberals or the NDP or anyone else, who has said that 80% of people will receive more back through the carbon rebate than they will pay in the carbon tax.

She would say that if we do this or that, then maybe people might pay more. All of “this or that” does not take into consideration things such as weather patterns or the impact that climate change is having on farms, and that also needs to be taken into consideration.

For now, what we should do is acknowledge that the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer is correct when he says that 80% of Canadians will actually receive more money back than they are paying in through the carbon tax. The rebate is bigger than the tax for 80%-plus. In Winnipeg North, I suspect the percentage is even higher. I do not know that for a fact, so I cannot say that as fact.

What I can say is that the Conservatives do not talk about cancelling or getting rid of the rebate portion. All they talk about is getting rid of the tax. In reality, it would do two things. One, it would reinforce that the Conservative Party is loaded with climate deniers. Two, it would take net disposable money out of 80%-plus of the residents I represent. However, we would not know that if we listened to the Conservatives.

If we listen to the Conservatives, we would think that it is for everyone in Canada, yet provinces like British Columbia and Quebec do not have the carbon tax. However, that does not stop the Conservative leader from going around saying, what I would suggest is misleading information, through social media and other forms, to Canadians that they are going to be better off because if they axe the carbon tax, they would have more money. However, that is factually incorrect on a number of fronts.

The bottom line is that I think it is good to have a sound, solid environmental policy. It would be nice to see the Conservative Party share what their new environment policy is. We know that back in 2021, their environmental policy also had a price on pollution or, dare I say, a carbon tax. In fact, the first administration, virtually in North America, to have a carbon tax was the Conservatives in the province of Alberta.

[National Council for Reconciliation Act, February 12th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the member spent a lot of time in her comments dealing with the makeup of the national council itself. It is important to recognize that the minister did work in collaboration with the transitional committee, a committee whose membership she made reference to. The very impressive group of people in the membership of that committee came up with the terms of the future board, including the four identified groups that would ultimately get appointments.

I wonder whether the member could add her further thoughts on what specific groups she would suggest should be incorporated into the legislation, or whether she is okay with the four that are listed.