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Madam Speaker, I want to begin by thanking the preceding speaker, the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay, and in fact, the whole NDP caucus for allowing me 10 minutes to speak in this very important debate.

I have been struggling today. I keep thinking to myself that people who live in glass houses should not keep an abundance of stones. Every time a Conservative speaks, I find myself thinking, “Do you not remember the last 10 years of cancelling all the carbon plans?” There was a very decent, workable plan in place in 2005 and 2006 that was cancelled within weeks of Stephen Harper becoming prime minister. Three different times, Canada’s carbon target was weakened. It has been referenced already that Stephen Harper put a cap and trade program into a plan that he never really intended to execute.

I do feel enormous empathy for the parade of environment ministers who suffered under that regime. I think they were all told that they would be able to deliver the plan. The current leader of the official opposition, who was the first minister of environment, said they were intending to reach Kyoto, and the rug was pulled out from under her. John Baird came along and said he had a turning-the-corner plan, that there would be regulations sector by sector. Nothing ever happened, except that we shamed ourselves in the world over and over again by obstructing global negotiations. That is something Canadians do not understand: how much, under the previous government, we did not just stand back, but we got in the way. Those are a few glass houses and stone moments that I wanted to get rid of before proceeding to a review of carbon pricing and what it means.

I did not get the chance to put this to the hon. member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa in questions and comments, but he said he had not heard anything about the Great Lakes. I remember distinctly that one of the Harper government budgets spent more money on barbed wire and fencing to go around the Great Lakes to make sure that terrorists were not getting access into Canada across the Great Lakes than for water quality. I just picked up the 2016 budget, and if we go to page 162, and several pages therein, we see there is finally a return to some Great Lakes policy; not enough, I have to say. I was part of the government back in 1986 to 1988 that put together the Great Lakes water quality strategy and a St. Lawrence cleanup plan, but at least there are some millions of dollars for the Great Lakes now.

It is really a rhetorical trick to have framed today’s opposition day motion around the idea that electricity prices in Ontario are what we can expect everywhere if we adopt carbon pricing. Electricity prices in Ontario currently are very high, but they have nothing to do with carbon pricing. The only way we could replicate it across Canada is if we could somehow impose on every province the bad energy decisions made by Ontario Hydro for generations in building nuclear plants that created billions of dollars of stranded debt.

If we look at the breakdown of electricity prices for Ontario, and I urge everyone to google it and have a look, the number one price is the cost of generation, of course. Then there is the cost of distribution. The next biggest price, over $1 billion a year, is retiring the debt. This is related not to green energy but to nuclear energy.

There has also been a great deal of nonsense about the B.C. carbon prices and the carbon tax there. I want to put that to bed. The hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill did not cite a reference on this one. She was referring to the Fraser Institute report, which claims, falsely, that the B.C. carbon tax is not revenue neutral. For those listening who do not know the term “revenue neutral”, it means that for every $1 of tax taken in on carbon, $1 of tax is reduced on small business and individual British Columbians.

It is working very well, and the B.C. finance department has completely rebutted the Fraser Institute, but of course, the Fraser Institute is funded by the fossil fuel industry, the Koch brothers, ExxonMobil. We can examine the source and not be surprised. The finance ministry of B.C. says that the carbon tax has actually not been revenue neutral recently. It is giving more tax cuts than it is getting in revenue. In terms of how British Columbians receive it, it is a very positive thing.

Let me turn to what a price on carbon is and is not. It needs to be said really clearly that a price on carbon is not the magic silver bullet. We put a price on carbon in Canada and we have not reached our Paris targets magically. We have not averted the climate crisis magically. We need a whole range of measures, a whole suite of measures. What a carbon price attempts to do is correct market failure, because in that perfect world on the blackboard of economics 101, everything has an input cost.

We have materials and labour. Pollution is free. It is an externality to the economic equation, but it is not external to real life. It piles up. Whether it is the Sydney tar ponds and toxic waste that had to be cleaned up at a cost of $400 million, or whether it is the future cost of cleaning up the oil sands tailings ponds, or whether it is overloading our global atmosphere with warming gases that threaten, and I am not using hyperbole here as this is actually what is at risk, human civilization itself, this is not a free good, so we have to put a price on it so our free market system can actually pay attention to it. It almost does not matter, in response to the member for Calgary Nose Hill, whether we have elasticity of price or not. There is such a demand for gasoline that we would have to put a huge carbon price on to affect the demand for gasoline.

That is not the point of a carbon price. A carbon price is to make sure there is a signal at almost any level that this will cost something. It is to try to create some incentive, but on its own it is not enough. We need regulations and we need other plans. We need to bring on renewable energy so that we can decarbonize all of our electricity. That is a top priority. Ontario did it first, but others need to do it.

What kind of institutions favour a carbon tax? Looney left-wing ones? No. The International Monetary Fund says that every country needs to put in place a carbon price and eliminate fossil fuel subsidies. This was a promise in the Liberal platform that we need to see executed. It has not happened yet. We still have fossil fuel subsidies for liquefied natural gas and dwindling but still in the oil sands. The World Bank also favours carbon pricing and the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies. It is the same for the International Energy Agency.

The first carbon price that was applied by any nation was by Finland in 1990, followed by Sweden in 1991. By the way, the carbon price in Sweden is now hovering at around $150 a tonne. Norway applied its carbon price as it began to develop its North Sea oil resources. It was at the point of becoming potentially a petro-state but decided not to go that route. It decided not to let its currency be linked to the money that it was taking in. Norway took in royalties. It also applied a carbon tax. It now has a sovereign wealth fund, so as North Sea oil dwindles, it will have a $900-billion sovereign wealth fund.

Guess whose advice Norway followed when it did that? That was the advice of former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed. If only Albertans had followed the advice of former premier Peter Lougheed, there would be a huge amount of money to adapt to transitions. They would not have put all of their money into the bitumen basket, all of their eggs into the bitumen basket, of shipping out raw bitumen but would have followed Peter Lougheed’s plan and had ancillary infrastructure for refining and upgrading.

Today’s debate is about the Liberals revealing numbers. Guess what, folks? I do not think there are any numbers, because no one can know yet. In the absence of any federal role on carbon pricing or carbon action under the Harper era, we have a patchwork, because provinces began to take action on their own. Frankly, I am no fan of cap and trade. It is open to fraud and it is a difficult system. But they had nothing else going on, so Ontario and Quebec decided to work with California.

British Columbia brought in the best architecture of a carbon price with returning every dollar collected to reduce taxes across the province. Gordon Campbell would not have been re-elected without having brought in a carbon tax. He fell later on because he never told anyone he was going to bring in a harmonized sales tax, but that is another issue. Carbon tax saved him. HST took him down.

Here we are in a situation where we have a patchwork. The federal government has stepped up and I think the architecture of what it is proposing is very good. It is backfill and infill. The federal government is saying it is not going to tax on top of what B.C. is already taxing, which is already at $30 a tonne, or Ontario and Quebec and California. It wants to make sure there is an even playing field for business certainty to send out that carbon signal.

We need a carbon price that is uniform across Canada, but we do not know that every province is going to design a revenue neutral tax. I wish they would. We do know that the federal government will return to every province all the money it collects from that province if by the time the carbon tax rolls around that province has not designed its own system.

Frankly, all the people in the Conservative caucus who are suddenly concerned that there is going to be an impact by doing something need to think about the situation. There is no hidden report. The report they want was prepared under the Harper administration. If they want transparency, they should help everyone work together to deliver a carbon price that is effective, reduces pollution, and helps us move into a 21st century green economy.

Garnett Genuis – Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Madam Speaker, there are many things I could say on this topic and that the member and I might disagree on in terms of the specific issue of a carbon tax, but I do want to ask her about the transparency component of the motion, because the motion speaks to the fact that the government should release data about who would be most impacted by the carbon tax. The member and I might disagree about a carbon tax, but at the end of the day, I think we should agree that Canadians have a right to access that information. They can make an evaluation based on the information out there about the pros and cons of a carbon tax if they have all the data in front of them.

Would the member agree that Canadians should be able to see the data about who is paying more or less, vis-à-vis the carbon tax, so that they can come to an informed conclusion?

Elizabeth May

Madam Speaker, I do believe in transparency. The specific document that the member for Carleton has found and he wants released was redacted because, as I understand it from other media commentary, it includes confidential advice to cabinet. That is the previous cabinet of the Harper government. It was prepared before the election, and who knows what form of tax it is imagining.

Where we are right now, we would have a series of hypotheticals. One hypothetical would be what if Saskatchewan developed its own carbon tax and it decided to go with $50 a tonne and it decided to put that $50 a tonne into renewable energy? The impact on Saskatchewan residents and homeowners would be entirely different than if the Government of Saskatchewan decided to put in a tax of $20 a tonne and make it revenue neutral.

We could ask the Department of Finance to give us a string of hypotheticals, because at this point the government of the day plans to bring in a very weak carbon price at $10 a tonne in 2018, and every province gets to do its own thing first, so we simply would only be able to guess at a series of options.

Kevin Lamoureux Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Madam Speaker, the leader of the Green Party is very much in tune with British Columbia, in particular the provincial government and the environment.

I am interested in the member’s perspective on the price on carbon and how she feels from a local point of view how British Columbia has moved forward with respect to its policy on the price on carbon.

Elizabeth May

Madam Speaker, I have been astonished by how popular it is. Regarding the carbon tax in British Columbia, and I do not want to make a political comment because it is only through the good graces of the NDP that I am standing here, it was a fatal mistake of the NDP provincially to run an “ax the tax” campaign against the B.C. Liberals when they first brought it in, because British Columbians actually liked it. Because it was revenue neutral, there was more money in our own pocketbooks to decide, “I know the price of gas will go up, so the next car I get will be a gas miser, not a gas guzzler.”

My local airport is the Victoria International Airport, a very well-run and friendly airport, by the way. I parked my Prius in long-term parking on Monday to come back to Ottawa, and I was thrilled to see that there are brand new plug-in electric vehicle chargers for free in the airport parking lot.

We see electric chargers all over the place. I think Salt Spring Island may have the highest per capita ownership of electric vehicles, and it is not people who can afford to buy a Tesla, by the way. They are increasingly affordable cars because people do not have to put gas in their cars at all.

Garnett Genuis Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Madam Speaker, I have a brief follow-up to my previous question.

The member said the incidence, depending on income group, will depend on how a product is implemented, but I do not think that would be the case if we are talking about a tax on carbon, because a tax on carbon is a tax on carbon. Of course, the rebate could be different. What we do with the money could be different. However, if we charge a particular tax on carbon, that will have the same impact. The way it will impact will depend on what carbon we use, not on other factors. Is that not correct?

Elizabeth May

Madam Speaker, briefly, no, because the impact is very dependent on whether the government is actually taking that money as revenue and keeping it or redistributing it immediately in tax cuts, so the effect on every household’s income is entirely dependent. That is why I strongly favour carbon fee and dividend or, at the minimum, revenue neutral carbon pricing so people have more money in their own pocketbooks.

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Goodness, as leader of the Green Party, I think any discussion of the climate crisis is relevant. However, it is not relevant to accuse the NDP of having a carbon tax in the context of the motion before us.

Tom Lukiwski: Mr. Speaker, the member made an earlier intervention this morning, which was ruled upon and latitude was given to us to continue, and so I will continue with my comments.

My question for the NDP is simply this.

The Deputy Speaker: The parliamentary secretary has the right to go ahead. It is a bit of a stretch, but obviously most of the time that has been used has been directly related to the topic before us. Go ahead.

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Hon. Peter Van Loan: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member says that we should not be allowed to speak about a carbon tax in the House now. Every member of Parliament is responsible to his or her constituents who, if they were faced with a $21.5 billion carbon tax, would have to pay that and their personal lives would be affected by it. Nothing could be more important for a member of Parliament than to stand up for constituents on issues like taxes. I cannot imagine why she would want to shut down that debate, other than she does not like it.

The Speaker: There have been previous Speaker rulings on what S. O. 31s should and should not be used for. I will go back and look at the particular S. O. 31 that the member has complained about and, if necessary, I will come back to the House after the Thanksgiving break.

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We should be talking about the science. We should, as Parliamentarians, regardless of party, be acting responsibly as the evidence piles up. Every day it seems there is new evidence, always more worrying. Climate change is no longer creeping slowly. It is galloping, spurred on by dangerous feed-back loops. The Arctic ice is shrinking in ways that spell danger for all of us, permafrost is melting threatening the release of vast deposits of methane (a very powerful greenhouse gas), oceans are acidifying, food production is threatened, and around the world lives are lost in extreme events from floods to fires to mudslides to tropical storms and tornadoes. We should be talking about how we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions as fast as possible in hopes of avoiding ever-more-likely runaway global warming. I don’t like thinking about- or worse, talking about, the worst case scenarios of global warming. But former French President Sarkozy was right: the survival of human civilization is at risk.

Those are not the words of the leaders of the mainstream parties. In the House, we get a Punch and Judy show of feigned outrage. Instead of talking about what we should be doing, the main parties are stuck in a Mobius loop of distortion. Yesterday, I couldn’t finish asking a question due to the heckling of the NDP caucus. What was the trigger for otherwise civil folks, many of them people I love, to act out so rudely? I had the effrontery to mention that there had once been a plan to meet Kyoto targets.

I did not do so to laud the Liberal record. The Liberal record is one of broken promises starting when Jean Chretien dumped the promise in the 1993 Red Book to reduce GHG by 20% below 1988 levels by 2005. I am cursed with a good memory. I remember the day we found out Chretien would not allow the federal, provincial, multi-stakeholder taskforce even to analyze carbon taxes as a possible mechanism to meet the Liberal target. I remember his trip with Anne McLellan to the oil sands to drop a few billion and promise rapid development. I remember feeling like I’d just been sucker-punched. But it is absurd for the NDP to want to re-write history to say there was never a plan. I was about to say in the House, that the plan came very late – in spring 2005. But, again, I remember the struggle to get the plan approved. The day to day battle with Natural Resources Canada leaks, undermining Stéphane Dion and Environment Canada with daily front page stories in the Globe and Mail attacking a plan that was not even public yet. It was not a perfect plan. I would not have designed it the way it was designed. But, according to reliable experts, such as Pembina Institute, if the plan had been implemented, Canada would have come very close to our Kyoto targets. Of course, less than a year later, Stephen Harper killed it and the billions of dollars in programmes that had been in the 2005 budget.

The NDP is right to call out the Conservatives for lies claiming the NDP supports a carbon tax. As Jeffrey Simpson points out very clearly in today’s Globe, the cap and trade carbon pricing advocated by the NDP is no different from what Stephen Harper once said he would do.

On the other hand, while the Conservatives keep accusing the NDP of favouring a carbon tax, and the NDP deny it, what gets lost is that we actually need carbon pricing urgently – as in a decade ago. And even with a carbon price, whether through the free market mechanism of cap and trade or through the more efficient means of a revenue neutral carbon tax, we will need far more in programs, regulations, job-creating initiatives in energy efficiency and renewables, to have any hope of playing a responsible role in the world. Greens favour a carbon tax as the best way to reduce GHG and put money in the pockets of Canadians. On the other hand, if a cap and trade plan was properly designed, I wouldn’t oppose it. This is not Lilliput with a war over which end of the egg gets cracked. It should not be a phony fight over mechanisms. We should actually be talking about doing something.

And that is what is not being discussed. The Conservatives are telling lies about the NDP wanting a carbon tax and the NDP are telling a lie that there was never a Liberal carbon plan, and the Liberal attacks on Mulcair over his comments on Dutch disease (a reasonable issue for him to raise) are also spin over substance. It’s all spin.

It would be easy to say “a plague on all their houses.” But global warming is a plague on all our houses. We have to stop the spin and focus on what matters. Science is divided on whether we still have time. For my children’s sake I refuse to accept that it is too late. I will keep telling the truth about who did what and when, but history is just that. We better start talking about what we plan to do. NOW!

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“I am saddened to see the Conservative and NDP Leaders slamming each other and accusing each other of supporting a carbon tax instead of trying to do something about the climate crisis. Harpers’s Conservatives need to finally acknowledge rapid climate change is a threat to us all. Mulcair’s NDP needs to clearly say that taxing carbon so other forms of energy are favoured is the way to go. That is what leaders do: be wise enough to see the entire picture and be courageous enough to put forward a policy that will bring real change,” said May.

“Thomas Mulcair should be ashamed for not defending a carbon tax system. British Columbia now has had such a revenue-neutral carbon tax in place for four years. The last time I checked, the economy of the province had not vanished. Not only that, but people in BC actually support the system. Someone has to step to the plate and support a carbon tax system. Only the Greens do that”, concluded May.

“A revenue-neutral carbon tax, like the one in BC, actually reduces income taxes while charging the true cost of pollution. Companies like Shell and Petro-Canada are now calling for a carbon price in order to allow rational decision-making and investment,” added Green Shadow Cabinet Member for International Affairs Eric Walton.

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Mark Milke, A Nation of Serfs

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Most Canadians do not like paying taxes, especially if they think that the taxes are unfair or do not deliver good value for money. People do not like wasteful spending by an over-bureaucratized government. Fair enough. However, about half of Canadians say that they would not mind paying more taxes for a cleaner environment, better health care and education, and to support people in need.

Taxation and spending policies shape society by sending signals about which sectors of society governments think are important. Over the last six years, both the Conservatives and Liberals have used our tax system to benefit large corporations, reducing federal corporate taxes. Back in 2000, the general rate of taxation on corporate profits was 29.1%. By 2006, when the Harper government came into office, the corporate tax rate had been cut to 22.1%. We all remember our budgets consistently posted surpluses at that time.

No longer. Canada moved into a deficit just before the economic meltdown in September 2008. Due to cutting the GST, cuts to corporate income taxes, and increased spending, the Harper government had eradicated the surplus just in time for a recession. For the first time since former Finance Minister Paul Martin under Chretien slayed the federal deficit – at enormous cost to health care and education – Canada started running deficits. Deficits can be managed, but debt erodes public revenue through interest payments. The debt has ballooned. The federal debt now stands at more than $600 billion. An astonishing 24% of that federal debt was run up on Stephen Harper’s watch. The cost of servicing that debt is $29 billion per year.

There is an alternative to borrowing from commercial banks and paying that $29 billion to banks. Many Canadians want to revisit the role of the Bank of Canada. Monetary policy could shift to reduce the high levels of interest-bearing debt.

Meanwhile, all through the recession, the Conservatives have continued to cut the corporate tax rate. In 2008, the rate fell to 18%. By 2012, it fell to 15% – the lowest tax rate on big corporate profits in the industrialized world. Canada’s tax rate on the largest and wealthiest corporations on earth is now half that paid by corporations in the U.S.

When the corporate tax rate was slashed, the spin from the Harper Administration was that the largest corporations in Canada were ‘job creators.’ The justification for eroding government revenues in favour of greater corporate profits was that it would result in a big boost in employment.

However, the evidence is now in. Corporations have not used the extra cash to create jobs. They have not re-invested it in the Canadian economy. In the words of Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of Canada, the money that would have gone to pay for critical infrastructure, veterans’ benefits, and environmental research is “dead money.” It has not created jobs. It is sloshing around in the bank accounts of Canada’s biggest corporations. It is an astonishing $629 billion – 35% of Canada’s GDP.

At the same time, the cost of living has increased. Canadians save less, carry more debt, and work more hours for the same money. Even before the current recession hit, people were having a harder time providing for their families and paying for a decent place to live.

The Green Party believes in reforming our tax system to make it fairer and more in tune with Canadians’ desire for a healthy environment, a sustainable economy, and a vibrant, caring society. It makes no sense to subsidize the wealthiest corporations on Earth – the oil companies. We must remove these perverse subsidies immediately, not in the slow ‘grandfathered’ approach of the Conservatives’ 2007 budget.

The Green Party will reduce taxes on things we all want, like income and employment, and we will increase taxes on things we do not want, like pollution that harms people and our environment.

Our ‘green tax cuts’ will be progressive, with a schedule that gives industry time to gear up or gear down. The ecological fiscal reform undertaken by Greens will include carbon pricing as well as taxes on cancer-causing substances and junk food that harms our children. And they will be revenue neutral because a tax shift is not a tax grab. Income and payroll taxes will decline and the changes will help, not hurt, less fortunate members of our society. In the case of Green carbon pricing, the funds collected will never enter the general revenues of Canada but will be redistributed in full to Canadians. This system is called ‘carbon fee and dividend.’ The fee is charged at the point of production and the funds are divided equally among all Canadians, received as a cheque for your share of the carbon dividend. Those with lower incomes will receive a proportionally bigger impact as the cheque received will be a larger percentage of their total income compared to those of higher income.

To set the right prices, we have to change to a ‘true’ or ‘full-cost’ accounting method that incorporates economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits in the national accounts. Using this method, products and services are taxed, and thus priced, according to the positive or negative impacts caused throughout their lifecycle. We have already done this with tobacco products. Such taxes help consumers make more rational choices.

There are other ways to put taxes to work improving our society. Our tax system must be designed to reduce poverty, encourage environmentally-beneficial activities, and generate more wealth for the 90% of Canadian families who are currently working harder without getting further ahead.

The Greens’ fiscal plan is straightforward: gradually reduce our debt, give clear tax signals that enable companies to pursue profits on a level playing field, and shift taxes to ensure that both revenue streams and expenditures meet social, economic, and ecological goals.

Green Party MPs will:

• Institute a full range of ‘polluter pays’ taxes, including a carbon fee and dividend designed to reduce the use of fossil fuels by sending a market signal to producers. All these taxes will be revenue neutral;
• Apply border adjustments to ensure Canadian businesses do not face unfair competition from polluting jurisdictions. In order to maintain a level playing field for Canadian businesses with respect to foreign competitors, carbon-based tariffs will be introduced against countries that  apply no carbon tax (or other equivalent mechanism to curb GHG emissions) or apply a lower rate of carbon tax than Canada. These border adjustments will also be distributed in the ‘dividend’ to Canadians;
• Return Corporate Tax rates, except for the Small Business tax rate, to the 2008 level;
• Eliminate personal taxes on incomes below the low-income cut-off (no taxes on incomes of $20,000 or less);
• Review the economic and fiscal implications of returning to borrowing from the Bank of Canada;
• Work with the provinces to increase taxes on tobacco and alcohol;
• Encourage use of Canada Revenue Agency’s online NETFILE tax filing system (which saves Revenue Canada money) by giving users an automatic $10 tax credit;
• Develop a specific tax-shifting schedule to provide tax incentives and direct rebates to businesses and individuals investing in the modern clean-tech economy (e.g. installing solar hot water systems, refitting homes and businesses to conserve energy);
• Provide increased tax breaks for Canadians who donate to registered charities.

(See Part 4: PEOPLE for more on family-friendly taxation, including income splitting)

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Our fiscal plan is straightforward. Use the tax system to help meet societal and ecological goals. Get the prices right. Allow business to pursue profit, with clear signals of environmental and societal objectives.

The Green commitment to Green tax relief will:

• Reduce income taxes, including a stop to the practice of over-taxing married couples;
• Reduce payroll taxes; and,
• Introduce a carbon tax, sending a clear economic signal that wasting energy and resources implies real costs.

According to an editorial in The Economist, September 9, 2006:

“Ideally, politicians would choose the more efficient carbon tax, which implies a relatively stable price that producers can build into their investment plans.”

The Greens will also eliminate large corporate subsidies and grants programs.

It makes no sense to subsidize the wealthiest companies on Earth to make the world’s most profitable product − a barrel of oil. The 2010 report of the International Energy Agency called for the removal of fossil fuel subsidies. Globally, they amount to over $300 billion a year, while renewables received approximately $30 billion. These perverse subsidies must be removed. It makes sense to reduce taxes on things we want – income and employment – while increasing taxes on things we do not want, like greenhouse gases and pollution that causes smog.

Canadian businesses want two things from their government: predictability and policy coherence. The Green Government will ensure that the rules are clear, the playing field is level and decision making is transparent.

Key societal goals:

• Ensure Canadians have more time for friends, family and community engagement.
• Send the right price signals to the economy. The days of cheap, abundant energy are over. A carbon tax will send that signal and generate the revenue to cut income taxes, allow “income splitting” and reduce the tax burden on small business.
• Eliminate perverse corporate subsidies. No more “corporate welfare bums.” No more unpaid “loans” to government granting agencies.

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