Thanks, Mr. Chair. I am thinking about what I want to get on the record because I expect that there are a lot of residents out there listening and will watch what we have done and said here on this debate.

I reviewed what the Minister said in his opening remarks. We've got two pages here of what is an interesting defence of Cabinet's plan about how to make sure that this doesn't impact the cost of living. That's not what a carbon tax is actually supposed to be all about. The words "climate change" are found once in here with regard to the pan-
Canadian framework. Climate crisis is not in the Minister's opening remarks.

The purpose of a carbon tax is to encourage fuel switching, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and change our behaviour so that we can build a new economy that is not reliant on fossil fuels. That is not what this bill is about. That's not the approach of this government. That's not what the approach of this Minister has been since day one.

We have an opportunity to start to build energy self-sufficiency as part of a real plan on the climate crisis. That is not what this bill does, and I am sad to say that we have an opportunity, and it has been squandered.

I do support the committee's report. It highlights numerous instances where the committee tried to work with the department, the Minister, Cabinet colleagues, on developing a collaborative approach to designing a carbon pricing system for our residents. There were lots of requests for information back and forth, but nothing was really ever delivered. In fact, what we have is a bill that is set out in a way that it actually precludes committee and Regular MLAs from making any kind of meaningful amendments to it, which is very disappointing. This was not developed in any kind of a collaborative way. It really precludes us from having any meaningful input into it. That is not how consensus government is supposed to work.

The committee tried to work with the Minister and get more information and tried to work with the federal government. It was very frustrating in terms of getting more information about the federal backstop. The kind of information that is being put out by our government, by Cabinet, by the Minister, if you look, the description of the federal backstop is set out in the plain language summary, and there is similar information on the Department of Finance website. The stuff about the federal backstop, if you look, in very small letters here, it says that the information presented here is based on the federal approach for rural communities in New Brunswick, which is one of the problems with where the federal backstop is being implemented. All of these predictions about the federal backstop put together by our government are based on what is going on in New Brunswick. What does that have to do with us? We had an opportunity, as my colleague from Kam Lake said, to actually work with the federal government to develop a federal backstop that would work for us, and unfortunately, that opportunity was squandered.

To be clear, I support carbon pricing, but this is not the plan that is going to help us deal with the climate change crisis that's on it. The only firm thing in this bill is the carbon tax itself. Everything else is discretionary; rebates, grants, how the money is used. Everybody else is totally at the discretion of Cabinet moving forward. It's a made-by-Cabinet approach; it's not made-in-the-North approach. The only thing that this bill does is set out what the carbon tax is going to be, and that is what the federal government has already told us. Everything else is at the discretion of Cabinet.

That could change with a different Minister next time. The rebates, the grants, it is all going to be set out in regulation that nobody is going to have any input into necessarily. The only thing that this bill does is set what the carbon tax is going to be, and that is what the federal government has told us. The use of that money, and so on, is all at Cabinet's discretion, with no accountability, no requirements for reporting, no requirement to work with the public or Regular MLAs moving forward.

For those sort of reasons, that is why I cannot support the bill, because this is a made-by-Cabinet approach. I think that what we need to do is to send this back and let the 19^th Assembly develop a real plan for the climate crisis that is on us. This is not going to help us get there. Thank you, Mr. Chair.