Liberal math, Three Little Pigs: Sparks fly during carbon tax debate

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OTTAWA — There were references to an online trend and a children’s fable in the House of Commons during the Conservatives’ attempt to force a federal election over the carbon tax on Thursday, but very little talk of the country’s environmental policies.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre triggered the debate when he introduced a “motion of non-confidence” in hopes of making the minority Liberal government fall to protest their planned increase on the price on pollution by $15 to $80 per tonne on April 1.

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The vote was set to happen on Thursday evening, but it was expected to fail given the supply-and-confidence agreement between the Liberals and the NDP, which forces New Democrats to vote with the governing party for all matters of confidence.

“This year, groceries are going to cost $700 more than they did last year for the average family. And in the middle of all of this, what does the NDP, and this prime minister choose? To raise taxes on food and fuel, on heat and homes,” said Poilievre.

“We cannot in good conscience stand by while this prime minister imposes more misery and suffering on the Canadian people,” he added.

NDP MP Charlie Angus mocked Poilievre’s threat of bringing down the government over the carbon tax and noted that it was not the first time that the Conservative leader had made a promise to slow down the work of the Commons without exactly following through.

“I’m going to huff, I’m going to puff and then I’m going to go off and have a fundraiser… while the poor backbenchers dutifully follow through,” said Angus.

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Last year, Poilievre said he would offer an hours-long speech to block the budget bill from passing. He also threatened to ruin Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Christmas with hundreds of votes, which resulted in a marathon vote that lasted 30 hours.

Poilievre had missed part of the marathon vote because he attended a fundraiser with the Montreal Jewish community. He is also expected to miss his party’s confidence vote on Thursday evening because he will be in Toronto for a Bay Street fundraiser.

“Will he show up tonight or will he be off fundraising with his lobbyist friends and leaving his poor schleps on the backbench to do the heavy lifting of bringing down the government and forcing an election?” asked Angus during Thursday’s debate.

Poilievre shot back: “Showing up for work means showing up for the people you work for. And I’ll just say I’ve been more in his riding in the last two years than he has.”

Later, Conservative Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsman compared the government’s rationale for a carbon tax to “Liberal math” — a term inspired by the internet phenomenon of “girl math,” which is an invented set of rules to justify impulse buying.

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“Liberal math,” explained Lantsman, is “like some bizarre fantasy telling Canadians that less is more, and they are somehow better off.”

“Canadians don’t live in Liberal land. They live in the real world. They look at their empty fridges at home. They look at the price of gas at the pumps. They don’t do Liberal math; they do real math. The real math is getting harder and harder every day,” she said.

Angus said he had to elbow his way through the Conservatives in the opposition lobby because they were too busy filming videos on their phones about their motion.

“They were going to huff, to puff and they might blow the House down tonight but ‘please send us money to our addresses as quick as you can’,” he ridiculed.

Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux accused the Conservatives of having abandoned its progressive heritage but set off Conservative MP Rick Perkins who claimed it was a “classless” comment to make while former prime minister Brian Mulroney is lying in state.

“I’ve been a member of his party since I was 17 years old. I knew Brian Mulroney. Brian Mulroney was a friend of mine. He’s lying-in state and repose. That was the most classless statement I’ve ever seen in this House,” said Perkins.

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Eventually, Green Party co-leader Elizabeth May had had enough: “Could we ever have a serious discussion in this place about the actual climate crisis?” she asked.

May suggested convening a committee of the whole, once MPs get back from the Easter break, to hear from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other scientific experts to “raise a conversation that doesn’t involve rhyming slogans.”

Liberal MP Mark Gerretsen said he thought it was “an absolutely fabulous idea.”

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