MPs have been again in Ottawa after a six-week break for the vacations, and any vacation spirit that remained had shortly dissipated by the point query interval began
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OTTAWA – Tensions flared on the prickly situation of the carbon tax because the Home returned from its break Monday, with Conservatives accusing the Liberals of being “pathologically obsessed” with the tax, whereas Liberals mentioned the Tories needed to take rebate cheques out of the fingers of Canadians.
MPs have been again in Ottawa after a six-week break for the vacations, and any vacation spirit that remained had shortly dissipated by the point query interval rolled round.
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Conservative MP Andrew Scheer mentioned the prime minister’s ears should nonetheless be too full of sand from his Jamaican journey to listen to the “outcry from Canadians affected by his carbon tax.”
That led to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland asking the place Conservatives have been planning to chop the federal finances.
“The query was concerning the carbon tax and why the prime minister is so pathologically obsessive about it,” mentioned Scheer in response.
Freeland accused the Conservatives of shedding “crocodile tears” when speaking about Canadian households, and mentioned that their celebration had voted in opposition to nationwide child-care and dental care applications, which she mentioned made folks’s lives extra reasonably priced.
And by attacking the carbon tax, she mentioned, Conservatives wish to take carbon-tax rebate cheques out of the fingers of Canadian households. “That can harm Canadians,” she insisted.
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Conservative MP Rachael Thomas accused Freeland of being out of contact with folks struggling to maintain up with the price of residing.
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“If she may solely come down from her excessive horse and enter into the on a regular basis lifetime of Canadians, she may perceive. Not everybody lives in downtown Toronto and has entry to the luxuries that she does,” mentioned Thomas.
Freeland mentioned that “it’s definitely the case that the overwhelming majority of Canadians shouldn’t have entry to the luxuries that the chief of the Opposition enjoys,” referring to the home, chief and employees offered to Conservative Chief Pierre Poilievre .
“Folks residing in glass homes must be extra cautious about throwing stones,” she mentioned.
Poilievre instructed his caucus on Sunday that axeing the carbon tax stays his precedence, and that his first order of enterprise could be to make sure the adoption of Invoice C-234, which extends extra carbon tax exemptions to farms.
The invoice in its unique type would lengthen carbon tax exemptions to pure fuel and propane for farmers to dry grain or warmth and funky barns. Nevertheless it was amended to take away all however grain drying from that exemption by Liberal-appointed senators in an in depth vote in December.
Already, the Conservatives, the NDP and Liberal MP Kody Blois have mentioned publicly that they might reject the Senate’s amendments and help the invoice in its unique type.
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“We imagine that farmers are confronted with some severe challenges, and so they don’t have an alternative choice to a number of their practices that they interact in. There isn’t any actual various for them that could be a decrease carbon various,” mentioned NDP chief Jagmeet Singh.
The Bloc Québécois had beforehand voted in favour of C-234 within the Home of Commons final 12 months, however expressed some concern that rejecting the Senate’s amendments would solely result in a legislative sport of “ping pong,” because the invoice must be despatched again to the Senate.
“C-234 was within the Senate for a very long time. Will it come again?” requested Bloc MP Yves Perron.
Perron argued that adopting C-234 as amended would be certain that farmers are exempted from the carbon tax not less than for grain drying. Work may then start on adopting new laws to make sure exemptions for heating and cooling barns.
Kevin Lamoureux, who serves as parliamentary secretary to the Home chief, gave no indication that the federal government could be supporting the invoice, arguing that farmers are those experiencing the results of local weather change “in a really actual and tangible approach.”
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The Home chief’s workplace nonetheless mentioned that it could be “untimely” to take a position on the result of C-234, as the talk solely began on Monday.
In the meantime, the federal authorities is contemplating a rebranding train of its local weather motion incentive funds despatched to Canadians to offset the price of the federal carbon tax, in keeping with a senior authorities official who spoke to the Toronto Star.
The hassle contains probably a reputation change for the rebates, or getting banks to higher label the quarterly funds despatched by the federal government.
These reported efforts have been instantly slammed by Poilievre on X (previously Twitter).
“Regardless of how a lot lipstick the Liberals attempt to placed on a really ugly carbon tax pig, it doesn’t change the very fact (that) Trudeau’s carbon tax is a really pricey, ugly, hungry pig,” he wrote.
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