Peter Kent

[Business of Supply, June 3rd, 2019]

Madam Speaker, I appreciated almost all but the opening remarks of my colleague from Quebec's speech.

Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau had the good sense to stay out of the nation's bedrooms. His prime ministerial son does not have the wit, sagacity, acuity, percipience, sapience or clue of a newt to realize he has absolutely no business in the nation's newsrooms.

We know that the Liberal Prime Minister can memorize and recite a clever explanation of quantum computing, but he has shown us that he has no knowledge of or respect for the absolutely essential independence of the fourth estate. I will offer a reminder for the record, for Hansard, if the PM or his acolytes are ever advised by its contents, as well as for the most recent heritage minister.

Historically, there were three original states of the British realm: the clergy, the nobility and the commoners. However, over time and the evolution of parliamentary democracy, society came to recognize the press, or print, and then, over time, radio and television news, as a fourth estate, or independent chroniclers, protectors and defenders of facts and truth, arbiters of public trust, and eventually independently expressed analysis and criticism of the other evolved estates: the Crown, the courts and government. Then suddenly, as we approached the turn of the last century, mainstream journalism, as we had come to consider it, hit the rocks.

These were the rocks of technology, of fragmented audiences, of equally fragmented advertising revenues, and generational abandonment of traditional newspapers and appointment television and radio newscasts. At the same time, there was an ever-escalating shift of audiences to digital information sources, digital opinion and unregulated social and anti-social media.

The Canadian news industry began to collapse. Newspapers were downsized. There were massive layoffs and failed consolidations. Scores of newspapers were abandoned. The same shrivelling of original news content generation, local, national and international, hollowed out and emptied radio and TV newsrooms.

The solution to this crisis in Canada's news industry is not after-the-fact mitigation, the Liberal government's misguided attempted election-year bailout of failing newspapers, which, despite the heritage minister's rhetorical flailing, are indeed the fossilizing dinosaurs of hard-copy print.

The solution will eventually be found, will come, in those print and broadcast newsrooms that can adapt and survive the transformation to profitable, sustainable digital news platforms. The transformation and survival of robust, independent, digital journalism platforms in Canada will require bold policy adjustments and political leadership to level the news industry playing field. However, how can any news organizations be truly independent if they become dependent on government subsidies, temporary slush-fund tax relief or direct cash bailouts?

It is important to remember that these hundreds of millions of dollars, almost $600 million, will only go to Canadian journalistic organizations that must first apply to register for financial assistance and then be accepted as a QCJO. What is a QCJO? It is a typical, Liberal nanny state concept, a values-imposing concept, a confected panel bureaucratically designated as a qualified Canadian journalism organization. To be eligible, a newsroom must employ two or more journalists working a minimum of 26 hours a week and employed for at least 40 consecutive weeks. As well, the panel will also decide eligibility on the subjective measurement of acceptable news content generated by a newsroom.

The Liberal government is going to decide, through this commissioning panel, which struggling newspapers get money and which ones do not. It is a terrible concept, an outrageous concept. It offends the fundamental principles of the independent craft of journalism. However, it gets worse. This motley panel was created without consultation. Its most blatant shortcoming, of course, is the inclusion of Unifor, a union which has repeatedly proclaimed its deeply partisan intent to become the worst nightmare of the Leader of the Opposition in the coming election.

We have heard protests in recent weeks from many of the 12,000 practising journalists that Unifor claims to represent, journalists forced to belong to Unifor and forced to pay dues to a union that compromises their independent craft. However, beyond Unifor, we have heard protests from journalists represented by other groups among the eight groups on the Liberals' panel. For example, the head of the Canadian Association of Journalists said that she learned of the CAJ's involvement in the panel not by consultation but by the government's proclamation, and that she was concerned to learn that decisions of the panel will not be transparent and final but subject to secret secondary screening by the Liberal cabinet.

Condemnation of the Liberals' misguided decision to pick winners and losers in the Canadian news industry is not limited to those journalists represented by panel organizations. The columnist Andrew Coyne, for example, in noting that the Liberal plan excludes anyone outside the existing Canadian newspaper industry, wrote that it is designed for, “not the future of news but the past; not the scrappy startups who might save the business, but the lumbering dinosaurs who are taking it down.”

The founder and editor of The Logic, one of those scrappy start-ups, David Skok, complains that the mandatory full-time status of journalists required for funding ignores the vital role that freelance journalists play in the news ecosystem. Mr. Skok noted in an editorial, “According to Statistics Canada, as of 2016, there are about 12,000 people who identify 'journalist' as their profession. Of those, it's safe to assume that the number of people not employed full-time with a newsroom is in the thousands”.

Chantal Hébert, whose primary employer is the Toronto Star, will very likely be designated a qualified recipient of Liberal beneficence. She said, “The government’s half-a-billion package will not resolve the crisis [that newsrooms face]. It may end up doing little more than delaying the inevitable.” Ms. Hébert says that “among the ranks of the political columnists, many fear it is a poison pill that will eventually do the news industry more harm than good.”

Here are a few more prominent voices. One is Andrew Potter, from McGill University, who wrote, “This is actually worse than anyone could have imagined. An 'independent body' staffed entirely by unions and industry lobbyists. What a disaster.”

Jen Gerson, a commentator on CBC and Maclean's, tweeted, “If any of these associations or unions could be trusted to manage this “independent” panel, they would be denouncing it already.”

Aaron Wudrick from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation tweeted, “Mark my words, this isn't going to arrest the erosion of trust in media. It is going to make it worse. Indeed, it already has.”

Global News Journalist David Akin, who sits above us on many occasions, sent an invitation to Unifor union boss Jerry Dias to visit with Unifor members who are also members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. David tweeted, “I’ll set the meeting up. You will learn first-hand how much damage you are doing to the businesses that employ us, to our credibility and how terribly uninformed you are.”

The finance minister cannot justify this $600-million election year bailout because he has no idea at all what will happen after his subsidized transition period, and that is unacceptable. It is wasteful of Canadian tax dollars, because an intervention should have a goal of not only short-term survival of print but long-term sustainability of the evolving craft of digital journalism.

As I remarked earlier, the transformation and survival of robust, independent journalism platforms in Canada will require bold policy adjustments and political leadership, but how can any news organizations be truly independent if they become dependent on government subsidies, temporary slush fund tax relief or direct cash bailouts?

[The Senate, May 29th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's hand-picked senators have sole-sourced a contract to a private security company to provide extra bodyguards in the new Senate chamber. When questions were asked about this contract, all the men in black, the private mystery security agents, were sent home. There is something rotten in the Senate.

Why did the Prime Minister's appointed leader of the Liberal government in the Senate break the rules and issue this untendered secret contract?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns., May 27th, 2019]

With regard to Global Affairs Canada providing over $900,000 in funding to Wi’am through a $4.8 million payment to Kairos Canada as part of the government’s Women of Courage: Women, Peace, and Security program: (a) when did the government become aware that it was funding a group which supports the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sactions (BDS) campaign; (b) what is the government’s position on the statement from the director of Wi’am that “The world needs to be liberated from this guilty feeling that Israel has tried to instill in them and the world should be helping Israel shed its victim identity through BDS”; and (c) will the government immediately stop any funding to Wi’am and, if not, why not?

[Questions on the Order Paper, May 27th, 2019]

With regard to the warning that the government received from Fitch Ratings about the rising debt level: (a) what specific action, if any, is the government prepared to do to ensure that Canada retains the “AAA” credit rating; (b) does the government have any projections on the effect of losing the “AAA” credit on the government’s finances and, if so, what are the projections; and (c) has the government received warnings from any other credit ratings agencies, since January 1, 2017, that it may lose its “AAA” credit rating and, if so, what are the details of any such warnings?

[Democratic Institutions, May 27th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I would invite the member to ask the journalists above to give a thumbs up or a thumbs down on this outrageous program.

Another item in the Liberal election year stacked deck is found in the pre-writ advertising limits imposed on opposition parties while the Liberals will blow government resources on ministerial campaign-style events. The Liberals also refuse to commit government departments to not releasing research or reports that may influence public opinion during the summer pre-writ period. We know that these Liberals are increasingly anxious about October 21, but have they no shame attempting to rig the election?

[News Media Industry, May 27th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, this is a bailout welcomed by the owners and publishers of failing newspapers, doled out by a Liberal panel deciding which newsrooms are acceptable and which are not, a panel stacked by partisan big union bosses, but a bailout denounced by mainstream journalists.

Why will the Liberals not accept that they cannot rig an independent news industry?

[News Media Industry, May 27th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, one of the most blatantly stacked decks is the Liberals' partisan election year bailout of news industry fossils, a bailout welcomed by owners and publishers of failing newspapers, doled out by a Liberal panel deciding which newsrooms—

[The Environment, May 16th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

We know the Liberal government rolled back many of the responsible environmental programs we had to support responsible resource development. Navigable waters was one of them. There has not yet been one example put forward by any member in the House of damage done by the improvements we made in conjunction with municipalities and provinces to eliminate some of the red tape in the previous act.

With regard to the fate of Bill C-48 in the Senate, that bill has fallen off the legislative platform, as it well should. Bill C-48 was a discriminatory law aimed directly at Canada's responsible oil and gas industry.

[The Environment, May 16th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, perhaps the member opposite is contemplating the day after October 21, and may want to try his hand at provincial politics, perhaps in the province of Ontario or somewhere else.

With regard to his raising market-based solutions, I wonder how that fits in with the millions of dollars given to one of Canada's richest retail companies, with regard to the coolers and fridges for Loblaws, at the same time the Liberal shot gun carbon taxes, applied across the socio-economic scale, are causing increasing hardship? If the Liberal government were to be re-elected, it would ramp up the carbon taxes, which would have to be borne by those in Canadian society least able to carry those costs.

We believe in reducing emissions from the major emitters, not from burdening ordinary hard-working taxpayers with an unnecessary, unrealistic, unproductive carbon tax.

[The Environment, May 16th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Chilliwack—Hope, our chief opposition whip.

After several hours now of overheated Liberal rhetoric and revisionist history, it is time to get back to some basic facts. Climate change is real; climate change is a global problem, and climate change demands a global solution.

Canada, which generates barely 1.6% of global GHG emissions, must still do its part. That is why the leader of the official opposition will lay out the most comprehensive climate policy ever proposed by an opposition party in Canadian history, just a few weeks from now.

The motion before us fails to acknowledge that Canada today falls far short of its emissions reduction targets, so let us just take a look at Canada's targets under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

When they came to office, the Liberals embraced the same targets set by the previous Conservative government, to reduce GHG emissions by 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. When those Conservative targets were set, it was not with a carbon tax imposed on commuters and soccer moms and small businesses. We focused on the major emissions sectors. Working with the scientists at Environment Canada and the scientific community beyond, we developed meaningful regulations that did not hamstring hard-working Canadian taxpayers or the Canadian economy.

Transportation was the largest emitting sector, with about a quarter of Canada's total annual emissions. With our American counterparts, we developed continental tailpipe regulations that are still reducing emissions today. These regulations, which came into force in 2012 and built on existing regulations, require that all cars and light trucks built between 2017 and 2025 be required to cut emissions by an average of 5% every year. These regulations will see tailpipe emissions reduced to 50% of what they were in 2008.

There is a cost. The new technology adds somewhat to the cost of each new model year, but there is a significant offsetting benefit. Fuel consumption will also be reduced by some 50% from 2008 levels by 2025.

When the Liberals, with gesticulation and hyperbole, hysterically defend their carbon tax, which is indiscriminately imposed on commuters, soccer moms and small business transport companies, they are actually imposing a cost on top of what these motorists are already paying for environmentally responsible technology and significantly reduced emissions and fuel consumption. The bottom line is that the Liberals are riding on reductions that are still being realized today as a result of the previous Conservative government's regulations on large emitters.

Similarly, the previous Conservative government achieved reductions by regulating the coal-fired electricity generating sector, which effectively banned the construction of any new coal-fired units that use old technology.

It is true that we did not hit our overall targets, but it is also true that we did not compromise the economic well-being of hard-working taxpayers or the competitiveness of our economy overall. We worked to protect the environment at the same time as we worked to protect the economy.

We made progress. Emissions were reduced, in sharp contrast to the world's major emitters, who blithely signed the Kyoto and Copenhagen accords and then did nothing. I am talking about China, which generates almost two-thirds of global GHG emissions, and whose emissions are still rising. I am talking about the United States, India, Brazil and so many other countries whose representatives, along with this Liberal government, partied the nights away in Paris and signed the Paris Agreement with toasts of champagne and foie gras tasties.

That brings me back to the motion before us and its preposterous objective of deepening targets, which would risk our economic well-being and achieve precious little in global terms while the major polluting countries keep pumping out ever-increasing amounts of GHGs.

Again, the motion fails to acknowledge that Canada continues to fall far short of its emissions reduction targets.

We have proposed an amendment to the motion that would recognize the reality we face, that Canada is failing to meet its targets under the Liberal plan. It would demand that the Liberals table a real environment plan, not a revenue plan and not a tax plan, to lower emissions and achieve Canada's targets.

We know that small-business owners and their employees care about the environment and have implemented a wide range of environmental initiatives. However, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has just released a policy position paper that reveals that 87% of business owners in the four provinces where the federal carbon backstop tax is positioned say that they are opposed to the carbon tax and that the majority of these business owners will not be able to pass on their costs to consumers.

The CFIB numbers also show that small businesses will pay almost 50% of the carbon tax, with 50% paid by households. While the Liberals claim that households will get back 90% of their carbon taxes paid in rebate payments, small-business owners will get back rebates of barely 7% of their carbon taxes paid. With just about every aspect of the Prime Minister's climate change policy position, this motion has little to do with meaningful action and everything to do with desperate virtue-signalling politics.

The Prime Minister was elected, promising sunny ways, transparency, accountability, rainbows and unicorns, but he is running away from yet another scandal and trying to distract from it. He finished a dismal fourth in a British Columbia by-election. He is desperate and he is trying to find anything to change the channel.

The Liberals have had three and a half years to come up with a real plan for the environment. Meanwhile, Canada is falling further and further away from emission targets, even as the Liberals attempt to defend the carbon tax, which hits hard-working taxpayers and small businesses, while allowing at the same time massive exemption for the big polluters.

Again, climate change is real, climate change is a global problem, climate change is a global challenge and climate change demands global solutions. In contrast to the Liberals' failed plan, their high-carbon hypocrisy, in just a few short weeks, the Conservatives will lay out an environment plan that our Conservative leader promises will provide the best chance of reaching Canada's targets, the most comprehensive climate policy ever proposed by an opposition party in Canadian history.