75-Minute Debate (4 May 2023)

From Hansard (4 May 2023)

To view this section on video, click here and start play at 11:21:40 AM.

 

Federal Carbon Tax and Affordability

The Assembly was debating the following motion moved by Marv Friesen (Sask Party - Saskatoon Riversdale):

That this House condemns the April 1st carbon tax increase that is continuing to make life less affordable for Saskatchewan residents, businesses, families while directly targeting those who can least afford it; and

That this House further condemns the federal Environment minister’s theoretical social cost of carbon emissions.

Mr. Keisig: — Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I’m happy to be on my feet today and discuss the motion brought forward by my colleague from Saskatoon Riversdale. He did a really good job of explaining the carbon taxation scheme, but I really want to talk about this social cost.

On April 19th, the federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, announced a social cost of carbon emissions. Well, as soon as I hear the word “social,” I get very concerned. It’s very tough to quantify any numbers or results in any of the social sciences.

A quick search showed that the federal coalition government is proposing a social cost of carbon at $261 a tonne. In 2011 the federal government scientists had a social price of $25 a tonne. Amazing how things changed in 12 years, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I just want to just go back in time a little bit, Mr. Deputy Speaker — 1990. Saskatchewan farmers, this time of year, they’re about to hit the fields and put the crop in. The scientists at the time showed that farming practices emitted 553 000 tonnes of carbon. Fast forward to today. With the same 41 million acres of cropland, Saskatchewan is sequestering 12.8 million tonnes.

Two very significant things happened over that timeline, Mr. Deputy Speaker: market forces and improved agronomic practices virtually ended summerfallow; and the invention, innovation, and adaptation of zero-till farming. These could not have happened without the resourcefulness of Saskatchewan inventors, small business, and producers. It’s critical to note, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that all of these changes happened with virtually zero government intervention.

So let’s use the federal coalition government’s figures, Mr. Deputy Speaker: 12.8 million tonnes, $261 a tonne — it comes out to 3.3 billion. Divide that by 41 million acres; that’s $80 an acre that every farmer should be receiving.

Let’s even go a step further, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Saskatchewan has over 100 million acres of forests in the far North. Studies vary, but I mean that is literally a massive carbon sink for which Saskatchewan people get absolutely no credit for, which we should.

There is absolutely no trust, Mr. Deputy Speaker, between Saskatchewan people and the federal coalition government of today. They promised the carbon tax would not go over $50, then after the election they changed that to $170 a tonne, and now they’re forecasting this social cost of $261 a tonne.

So let’s just do some math. Fuel costs at $65 a tonne, it works out to 14 cents a litre. At $261 a tonne would bring fuel prices up to 56 cents a litre just on the carbon tax. I can remember being a kid and buying fuel for less than 56 cents a litre. As much as the members opposite criticize us incessantly on cost of living, with this form of taxation everyone’s cost of living is going to go way up.

So at the SARM [Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities] convention in March, Mr. Deputy Speaker, there was a speaker there, Sylvain Charlebois. He’s a Dalhousie University professor, and he specializes in food distribution and policy. He gave a very informative presentation and a very scathing report on food inflation caused by the coalition government’s carbon tax. And I want to quote something out of a newspaper article: “Not one study looked at how the carbon tax will be impacting food affordability.”

How in good conscience can any government implement a tax regime without doing their due diligence, Mr. Deputy Speaker? Not one study on the basics that we all need three times a day. It’s something that we have to debate.

And while we’re also speaking about the societal costs of carbon taxation, we have to talk about the cost of electricity. The clean electricity standards, they’re talking about dictating the end of coal by 2030 and natural gas by 2035. Our coal fleet is reaching end of life, but there is still Shand, and Boundary dam 3 can still function well into 2040. How many hundreds of millions of dollars will SaskPower lose closing these plants prematurely? Who is picking up the bill for that? It shouldn’t be Saskatchewan people.

We also have 10 natural-gas-fired electrical generating facilities running now, and there’s a brand new one, Great Plains power station. It’s going to come online in 2024. These plants have a 30-year lifespan. By 2035, they’re still going to have 15-or-soodd years left. So if we shut them down, Mr. Deputy Speaker, who’s going to pay for that? That’s into the billions and billions of dollars.

Why should Saskatchewan citizens absorb these costs based on nothing but ideological reasons?

So this week, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference was on in Regina, and I went several days. There are some really excellent presenters. And there was one presenter there, he was talking about the geopolitical forces at play globally. Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine caused other European nations to start their coal plants up again. And he gave a really good presentation talking about China and India’s very ambitious plans of building more coal-fired electrical plants.

And we have a federal government that wants to close existing facilities. There’s no common sense involved in any of these decisions, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Maybe the members opposite can provide some insight into this since they’ve supported the carbon tax from the beginning. I really, like I often wonder like how do you look your constituents in the eyes?

An Hon. Member: — How do you look in the mirror?

Mr. Keisig: — Oh, very well. You know, when people approach them and talk about how much the cost of living has increased from the carbon tax, I know every single member on this side of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, can look Saskatchewan’s people in the eye and let them know that their position on a carbon tax has been clear forever. We 100 per cent oppose the carbon tax.

Talking about the societal cost of the carbon tax, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I would be remiss if we did not talk about our youth. So Last Mountain-Touchwood is a very rural constituency and all of the kids have to be bused in to school. Our school divisions do a great job and they are in charge of all the busing and all of the accompanying expenses.

The first year the carbon tax, strictly on diesel, was almost just under a million dollars, 2019-2020. Fast forward 2022-23, the school year was two and quarter million. Rural students pay far too much in carbon tax to get to school, and there is no alternative available. Just think of what that funding could do for all of our educational institutions. What societal costs are we putting on Saskatchewan students when these funds are going to the federal coalition government instead of into their schools?

The carbon tax is putting students at an inherent disadvantage by taking funds from their education, money that could be going to invest. Our youth are our future, and this tax is robbing students of their educational dollars. This tax is not benefiting anyone or anything by any means. It is single-handedly causing Saskatchewan residents to struggle to afford basic necessities.

So the federal coalition government is attacking families, students, farmers, business owners, hard-working Canadians. And yet — I have to read a quote into the record, Mr. Deputy Speaker — the member from Saskatoon Nutana said “We know it’s time for ambitious climate action using all of the tools at our disposal, including the most cost-effective regulatory and market-based approaches, such as placing a price on carbon.”

And she also stated the carbon tax is no longer up for debate. So we shouldn’t debate whether people must choose between heating their home or feeding their families? Teachers, students, and parents should be very upset at the $37 million of educational dollars being handed over to cover the carbon tax.

Many proponents of carbon taxation, including the member from Nutana, like to use the term “price on pollution.” And they talk about how many economists support it to reduce emissions. But their claim is horribly flawed, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It only works if there is an alternative choice, and there is no alternative choice for transportation in today’s society.

So, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I’m almost out of time. On this side of the House, our position is very clear, and I think the members opposite owe it to Saskatchewan to be clear as well. I am supporting the motion put forward by the member from Saskatoon Riversdale and look forward to hearing the member opposite’s comments. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

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Following 65 minutes of debate, there is a 10-minute question and answer period. The following section begins at 12:04:15 in the video link provided above.

Ms. A. Young: — Thank you very much, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You know, people come to this building. Real people come to this building. People who aren’t in politics, they come and they want to be heard. They want to feel that, when they come to the government and talk about an issue, the government is going to take them seriously and hear them out and consider and care about it.

So, Mr. Speaker, to the member from Last Mountain-Touchwood — I know he’s a union guy: were you able to look the steelworkers in the eyes yesterday?

Mr. Keisig: — Thank you for the question from the member opposite. It was a great meeting with the steelworkers. We had a fantastic conversation. We talked about all of the great job that is done at Evraz, how that is a carbon-neutral steel mill, and all of the environmental benefits that we are gaining by cleaning up so many of the abandoned farmyards. And that is the message that we are going to tell to the province, to the country, and to the world. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

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The following section begins at 12:06:20 in the video link provided above.

Mr. Wotherspoon: — Mr. Speaker, of course we’re opposed to the federal carbon tax and we’ll keep pushing on that front, Mr. Speaker. But to the member from Last Mountain-Touchwood: why on earth does he think it’s fair for his constituents and the businesses to have the PST stuck on construction labour, Mr. Speaker, the PST that they added as a government?

Mr. Keisig: — Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Saskatchewan people have always been very aware of economics. In my constituency, they are a large majority of small-business owners and they understand that you have to pay to have the services that we all provide and that is a fair form of taxation that we have to implement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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