Mr. Speaker, it is quite an honour to rise tonight to speak during this emergency debate.
I guess what it boils down to is that this government is trying to move ahead and work very hard for the economy without implementing further taxes. We want to cut taxes and not implement another carbon tax on consumers.
The return of the budget bill from committee to the House of Commons highlights what the government is doing for Canadians. The bill ensures a balanced budget. It controls spending and invests in the priority areas such as the forestry sector and the environment. It keeps Canadian taxes down. It does all of this without a carbon gas and heating tax on Canadian families.
To date, our government has taken actions that will provide nearly $200 billion in tax relief over this and the next five years, $140 billion of which will be for individuals, those people who are particularly hard hit by this.
We took action last fall to stimulate the economy and get ahead of the challenges that we are facing right now with tax reductions to keep Canada's economy strong. Last month in fact, over 19,000 net new jobs were created. Over three-quarters of a million new jobs have been created since our party took office. This government is getting the fiscal fundamentals right. This government is getting things done.
This year, thanks to the GST reduction, Canadians will pay half a billion dollars less in gas tax than they paid last year. By 2009, money being transferred to the municipalities from the gas tax transfer fund will be up almost 50%. In 2008-09 alone this will mean $23.2 million and in 2009-10 a $46.4 million gas tax refund to my province of New Brunswick. That means much more money for our local roads, our highways and our bridges. It is just part of the building Canada fund, a $33 billion program to clean up after 13 years of infrastructure neglect.
We have invested $2 billion in clean renewable fuels and $1.5 billion to provinces and territories to address their climate change programs. There are eco-energy initiatives which fund the construction, development and research of solar, wind, biomass, geothermal and hydroelectric power.
I want to mention our ecofreight program. Sunbury Transport, a trucking company in the Fredericton region, is going to be installing auxiliary power units in its trucks which will save tremendous amounts of fuel overnight as it is resting its trucks.
We also brought down the tax burden to the lowest levels in 50 years and paid down almost $40 billion in debt and helped businesses create jobs. We know that Canadians do not want higher taxes. Canadians want results. This government is working to lower taxes, build roads and bridges and create more clean energy.
A carbon tax is just more theory.
The member for Mississauga—Erindale not too long ago stated among other things that the Liberals would not raise gas taxes. While our government is delivering real results, the Liberal leader and his party are peddling a completely different option. The Liberals have decided that a time of record gas prices and economic uncertainty is the perfect time for a massive so-called carbon tax that will punish Canadians with higher prices on gas, electricity and everything else they buy. Should the Liberals succeed in imposing this massive new tax, there would be no going back. Canadians would be stuck paying higher taxes forever.
Last week I was talking to an elderly gentleman in my riding. He was talking about the carbon tax. He talked about the idea of a tax shifting scheme. He said that people want their taxes lowered. He also said that the tax shifting scheme could be good. I said that we did not know enough details about it but it looked like there would be a tax on everything one bought and it would be a carbon tax. He talked about tax shifting. I said to him that he had been through lots of governments, had seen a lot of things and I asked if he had ever seen a lot of taxes change over the course of his life. I asked if he had ever seen a tax that was put in where people actually got the money back. He said that he could not think of ever having seen a tax like that. I asked how he thought that would be rewarding Canadians every week as they were having to buy fuel for their cars and trucks and their heating and hope that maybe at the end of the year they would get a tax break after being out dollars on a day to day basis. Once that tax was implemented, it would be a tax forever.
The Liberal leader ran on a platform not to implement a carbon tax. In his platform promise in 2006 he said:
A carbon tax is less effective than a carbon market at reducing emissions. Some of my opponents for the Liberal leadership have suggested that a carbon tax would be the most effective measure to curb climate pollution. This is simply bad policy, for the following reasons:
1) A carbon tax is almost always implemented as a direct tax on fossil fuels....
2) A carbon tax is a flat tax—it costs each polluter a fixed amount per tonne of emissions. Such a tax will not inflate with a bull market or recede in times of difficulty. In the energy market, in particular, soaring prices make anything but a prohibitively high tax a mere nuisance for large producers.
3) Finally, and most significantly, valuing reductions in emissions equally across all sectors and industries eliminates the potential benefits to be had by maximizing reductions where the cost is lowest....
That is what policy really needs to be, where we can get the biggest bang for our buck as quickly as possible.
The member for Mississauga—Erindale also stated that gas prices had doubled since our government was elected. He is wrong, and so was the member for Madawaska—Restigouche who talked about the price being 84¢ per litre when the Liberals were in power. If we look back in the records, in August and September of 2005 gas prices were at $1.22 per litre. The Liberals say that they have doubled and that the price had been 84¢. Sure it was at some point in time, but the Liberals had high gas prices.
We can all say that gas prices will be tough, and they are. The Liberal leader has also said he would help manufacturing and forestry. The Windsor Star reported that farmers would see their costs escalate and that would result in higher food prices. In fact, the cost of nearly everything we make or buy would increase at some point, since both the manufacturing and shipping of products are tied to fossil fuels.
Not only would Canadians be facing gas prices over $2 and escalating heating and electricity prices up to 50%, they would face rising costs for everything, and it does not stop there. Our export industries would be hammered and also would raise their prices, putting them out of competition in an already fierce global market.
I listened to the comments from my colleague from the NDP, the member for Windsor West. I had the opportunity to represent one of the largest per capita trucking regions in the country, in the Carleton and Victoria counties of New Brunswick. I had the opportunity last week on our recess week to visit a few of those trucking firms, and times are rough. However, it is not all about gas prices. A challenge was put out to do something with the oil companies to really go after this. As I commented, six studies have been done in the past and have found that there has been no collusion on these prices.
It was more than just that for the trucking companies. Given that concentration of trucking companies, I will have to dispute the fact that there will be less competition. They talked about regulation. They talked about consistency across the provinces and the regulatory aspect, much of which cost them money. They talked about tax programs and looking at ways that we could change the ecofreight program so that their trucks could get those units for their oil. They talked about resources and trying to get drivers, how it was so difficult to bring people in and how the significant changes we are making in the immigration system would help that. They also talked about the taxes.
My hon. colleague from the NDP, the hon. member for Windsor West, talked about the tools that have been used by President Bush. At the end of the day, the gas prices are based predominantly on supply and demand. In the world today, we are presently using about 86 million barrels of oil a day, with a supply of close to 87 million barrels a day. To think we can take one step, wave our hands and cure this problem is not accurate. When we introduce the concept that a potential strike of a pipeline in Nigeria drives up the prices right away, it is not that easy for us to challenge all those things.
We are doing things. We are making innovations in the auto industry. We have a dynamic ecofreight program. We are putting in a renewable energy incentive and incentives for public transit which will help all across Canada.
