Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to stand up this evening to talk about a question I asked the Minister of Environment back in June.
I was concerned that the carbon tax plan was simply that, a tax plan, and it does nothing to benefit the world we live in. I pointed out that hard-working families in Alberta are struggling to meet the needs of everyday life due to the fact that the government has imposed not one but two carbon taxes on all Albertans.
At that point in time, I also asked the minister to point me to which flood, fire, hurricane or drought had been prevented by all of the Albertans having to pay the carbon tax. The minister could not point to a single flood, fire, hurricane or drought that had been prevented by us paying the carbon tax. In fact, many of these floods, fires and hurricanes caused increased expenses for many of our constituents, yet the government is just taxing them, making them poorer. The carbon tax only makes Canadians poorer. It does not do anything to ensure that Canadians could prevent the effects of climate change or work to mitigate those effects.
Common sense Conservatives have been bringing forward common sense ideas that would make life more affordable. We have been saying that we would work to fight against the effects of climate change by using technology, not taxes, because we think that humanity has the capability to solve the problems that we are faced with. We do not think that paying more taxes would be the solution to this at all.
The reality is that minister is just playing a shell game with the pocketbooks of Canadians. His carbon taxes, both of them, are putting Canadians in dire situations. We are seeing Canadians from across the board groaning under the weight of this tax-and-spend, high-inflation, high-deficit, high-spending Liberal government, which has caused inflation. Now Canadians are struggling with it.
The carbon tax is a cumulative carbon tax. It is not like the GST. The GST is a flow-through tax that the end user pays. The carbon tax is applied to every level along the way. The carbon tax is paid by the farmer who grows the crops. It is paid as he puts the crop in the ground and as he takes the crop out of the ground. It is paid as he trucks the crop from the field to his bin, from the bin to the processor, from the processor to the mill, from the mill to the bakery, and from the bakery to the grocery store. It is also paid as consumers drive to and from the grocery store. It is paid all along the way. That cost is borne all the way through all of this.
It is a cumulative cost. Not only that, it is compounded by the fact that on top of all of that, the GST is paid on the carbon tax, all the way along and all the way through. Everybody then adds their percentage on top of that. That is causing a massive amount of inflation.
The ECHO Society, an organization that takes care of the most vulnerable disabled people in my riding, has complained that their utility bill last year was $8,000, $2,000 of which was just the carbon tax. Why?
Why do Canadians have to pay this carbon tax when it does not stop the things that the government is talking about? Why will it not just scrap this carbon tax?