Mr. Speaker, I am going to be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Kingston and the Islands.

I am proud to rise to speak in this place on behalf of the constituents of Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill. However, I am not proud of the behaviour of the members of the official opposition, who are wasting taxpayer money on filibusters, feigning concern for issues they otherwise dismiss, such as environmental progress, and preventing real progress on issues that matter to Canadians. I will try to address some of the disinformation that has been put forward by them as they use up the time available in this place to avoid doing the real work that needs to be done for Canadians.

Let me start with one fundamental flaw in the Conservatives' arguments, and they do it repeatedly. It has been done since I have been in this place. They have an inability to understand the difference between correlation and causality. This is from a first-year statistics course that perhaps they missed. They continue to say that because something happened during the same period of time as something else, it was caused by that. We know that is not the case. Many things happen during the same period of time but are not caused by that thing.

Today, we heard a member opposite state that Canada's economic challenges are caused by the price on pollution program. The Conservatives constantly state that food prices are higher because of the carbon levy. It is simply not true. The misinformation they continue to spread has turned many Canadians against fighting the great fight against climate change, an existential threat.

Young people are discouraged. They hear us talk in this place in a way that does not address the concerns that are giving them great anxiety. Trevor Toombs, an economist, the Bank of Canada and many independent studies have indicated that this program is not responsible for the high inflation we have experienced. At most, it accounts for 1%, and much less by most studies.

Economists know and I believe the Conservative Party knows that the COVID pandemic, the post-COVID economy, supply chain issues and the conflicts around the world have caused global inflation. The inflation we saw was not just in Canada, but around the world. Although I wish that every country around the world had a price on pollution program, that is not the case.

Leah Taylor Roy

$508,256.00