Mr. Speaker, the Liberals keep bending over backwards for their friends in oil and gas. The Globe and Mail has multiple sources confirming that the Minister of Finance was considering a windfall tax on oil and gas in this budget, but then backed down in the face of strong lobbying from oil patch executives and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

If anyone was wondering whose side the Liberals are on, they are clearly not on the side of Canadians, who are facing unprecedented climate disasters, with wildfires, flooding and multi-year droughts. They are clearly not on the side of future generations, which deserve a climate-safe future, a future where ecosystems are not collapsing, where our food systems are not threatened. They are not on the side of farmers or indigenous communities, who are on the front lines of the climate crisis. They are on the side of big oil and gas. When the oil and gas lobby asks, there is almost nothing the Liberals will not do. They will buy a pipeline. They will water down key climate policies. They even invited oil and gas CEOs to help them craft their climate plan. That is like inviting the fox to help design the henhouse.

Once again, when there is a sound policy to tax the excess profits of oil and gas companies, something that the majority of Canadians are in support of, to disincentivize price gouging and fund climate solutions that would make life more affordable for Canadians, the Liberals side with the CEOs, who are fuelling the climate crisis while raking in record profits. As for the Conservatives, they cannot even agree if climate change is real. Canadians are getting delays and disappointment with the Liberals, and climate change denial with the Conservatives. Consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments have put us in the position we are in now, where we have missed every single climate target.

When will the government implement a windfall tax on oil and gas? It is time to choose: Will the Liberals stand with Canadian families or will they continue to side with big oil?

Laurel Collins

$573,531.00