Official Hansard
Madam Speaker, it is always a bit daunting to rise after my colleague from Joliette, not only because he always does his research, but because people often mix us up. Could it be because of the names Joliette and Jonquière? I do not know. Maybe it is the beard. In any case, there is one easy trick for telling us apart: The member for Joliette has long hair and he is a communist, which I am not. The Conservative opposition day concerns the affordability crisis. As I was looking over the motion this morning, I thought it would be worthwhile to revisit the notion of crisis. As members know, my former passion was philosophy. More specifically, Hannah Arendt’s Crisis in Culture and Edmund Husserl’s The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology come to mind. Both of them came up with a fairly exhaustive definition of the notion of crisis, which I believe could assist our discussion today. If one wanted to give a very simple definition of the notion of a crisis, one might talk about a decisive moment or a turning point. Anyone who has a heart attack knows full well that that is a decisive moment and a turning point. The same is true in the case of appendicitis, because at least it can lead to a diagnosis. That is often how it is presented in the social sciences and philosophy. It means getting a diagnosis, but it also means discovering all the flaws that exist, whether in a social system, a political system, an economic system, a religious system or a scientific system. That is what the notion of a crisis allows us to do. If one wanted to diagnose the crisis we are currently experiencing, a fairly straightforward conclusion would appear pretty quickly. What is causing runaway inflation today is a combination of geopolitical conflicts, which are putting pressure on energy prices, as well as the trade dispute with the United States. I think everyone would agree on that diagnosis today. However, let us take a closer look at the federal government’s diagnosis. Take, for example, the tariff crisis, which has had a significant impact on inflation. As we know, two sectors have been particularly hard hit by the tariff crisis: the aluminum and forestry industries, which are facing tariffs of 50% and 45% respectively. These industries have still not received any support. Together with forestry industry representatives, we proposed to the government a program to offset countervailing and anti-dumping duties. Everyone would have been happy if the government had put that program in place, but the government turned a deaf ear. It is the same thing with aluminum. Until just recently, the forestry industry was asking the government to help forestry companies, which are really struggling. They have yet to see a single penny from the programs that have been put in place. The government agreed to lower the threshold to $1 million, but these hard-working people have still not seen a penny from the federal government’s support program. It is the same thing with the aluminum industry. What would have helped in these extremely difficult circumstances? Negotiations with the United States. We have made compromises, such as the concessions we made in the area of culture, but we have not gotten anything in return. Until very recently, I kept hearing many people in government say that we need to use more Quebec aluminum. I would tell them that it was a great idea, but that we were missing a crucial piece of equipment: a rolling mill. Eventually, the penny dropped and they realized the problem was more complicated than they originally thought. Aluminum ingots cannot be used in their raw form. They must undergo initial processing in a rolling mill. However, Canada does not currently have one. We rely on facilities in the United States. We are at their mercy. The government is starting to look into this. I find the government’s diagnosis of the tariff crisis highly problematic, and I will explain why. What has the government done in response to the tariff crisis? It has rolled out the red carpet for the oil and gas sector. Just look at all the tax breaks announced in recent budgets. There is a lot of talk about projects of national interest. There is the new pipeline that the government wants to promote as a project of national interest. Who does it actually serve? It is important to get the diagnosis right when we are in a crisis. I want to remind the House that, unlike the aluminum and forestry sectors, the oil industry is one of the few sectors that has not been affected by the tariffs. For a sector with no tariffs in place, the government’s diagnosis is that it could use another pipeline. Does the government think that building another pipeline will generate more wealth that will improve housing accessibility, grocery affordability or seniors’ benefits? I am not really sure. When we take a closer look, it is clear that this approach makes no sense. It makes no sense because the government’s stated rationale for building a new pipeline is to reduce its dependency on the United States and develop new markets. Let me ask a fairly simple question: Where do our energy exports go? Fully 91% of our crude oil exports go to the United States. Last year, 91% of our exports went to the United States. In committee, I asked representatives from international trade and deputy ministers if there was a plan, if there was any intention to bring that percentage down and if the pipeline would be used to develop new markets in Europe or Asia. They had no idea. Their plan is to build a new pipeline that will primarily serve U.S. interests. When we look at where our exports go, it quickly becomes clear that most of them go to the United States. The government’s response was to say that it will build a pipeline for a tariff-free product to help the Americans while we are in the midst of a tariff crisis. This raises another fairly simple question: Who owns the oil companies? Who stands to profit from this? It turns out that 80% of the major oil companies are foreign-owned and 60% of those are American-owned. In other words, 60% of the big companies that want us to pay for pipeline infrastructure are owned by Americans. They do not want to pay for it themselves. The federal government’s response is to build a pipeline that will support American energy security and benefit Americans. The numbers are alarming. I feel like I am always saying the same thing, but I will say it anyway. From 2021 to 2024, we are talking about $131 billion in profits for the oil sector. Of that $131 billion, $80 billion went to major shareholders in the oil and gas sector as dividends. That amounts to $12.5 billion leaving Canada every year, with most of it going to the United States. What is the message here? The government is saying that even in the midst of a tariff crisis, we should help the greedy oil and gas industry. That way, maybe they will be able to make even more money. Let me remind members that the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project cost $34 billion, and now they want to build a new pipeline that will cost $43 billion. It is absolutely outrageous. What is the smart thing for the federal government to do? In times of crisis, the public interest demands that we support the most vulnerable, not the greedy oil and gas industry, but the most vulnerable. Earlier, my colleague from Joliette—Manawan spoke about seniors. The public interest would require that we invest in the social safety net as well as in health care and education. The Quebec government’s share of health care funding is now 42% of its budget. The federal government would rather invest in the oil and gas sector than transfer money to the provinces to support the health sector. Supporting the health sector also means supporting mental health, which could even help tackle the difficult issue of the homelessness crisis. That is obviously not what the federal government is choosing to do. What did the federal government decide to do in response to the crisis? It decided to invest in gas and oil. I really want my colleagues to think carefully about this. If all that money were used to invest in transfers to the provinces, to increase old age security, to invest in education and to support our most vulnerable, I think we would be much better off. We would be able to build homes and meet people’s needs instead of meeting the needs of the greedy oil and gas sector. I am out of time, so I cannot even get into the fiscal imbalance. I will sit down before I lose my temper.
