SoVote

Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.)

Dec/1/21 3:55:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I congratulate you on your reappointment as Assistant Deputy Speaker. I have always enjoyed my time in the House when you have been in the chair, and I look forward to many more opportunities to come. I am very excited to talk about the ambitious plan this government has laid out in the throne speech. I will be totally honest that when I set out to develop the themes of my speech on this earlier today, one of the themes I was quite passionate about in the previous Parliament and looked forward to engaging on today was resolved through a unanimous consent motion just moments ago. I hope that Canadians understand the historic nature of today. Today is the day this Parliament came together and gave unanimous consent. Every member in the House agreed to pass such important legislation to ban conversion therapy. I look forward to the legislation moving to the Senate and then finally receiving royal assent, so it can be enshrined into law. Then such a horrific practice will be part of the Criminal Code, banned and outlawed in Canada. I know it is hard to change one's mind from time to time on various pieces of legislation. I know it is hard to change people's minds when they become entrenched in a position on an issue. However, I know a number of Conservatives, in particular, did change their minds, and I want to thank them. I want to thank them not just on behalf of myself and other members in the House, but, in particular, on behalf of Ben Rodgers. Ben Rodgers is a survivor of conversion therapy. He is from my riding of Kingston and the Islands. When this debate was in the House in the last Parliament, I had the opportunity to read into the record his story. He has been an advocate for bringing about this ban for a very long time. To do this in such a fast-tracked manner in the House, I know that Ben would want me to thank members on behalf of himself and other survivors, and not just for Parliament coming together and doing this but for those who were able to change their minds on this issue. There are two other issues in the throne speech that I will focus on with my remaining seven-or-so minutes, and they are extremely important and pivotal in terms of the future of our country. Those issues are child care and the fast-tracking of electrifying our country. First, as it relates to child care, there was a previous commitment in the government's budget to bring in $10-a-day child care throughout the country. This is not an easy to do in a country like Canada because of the various jurisdictions, the way our country works with the provinces and the way we are constitutionally set up. Indeed, it takes time to go out and work with the provinces and jurisdictions to bring in the necessary agreements. However, because various provinces may have already started their own or had their own versions, like Quebec, which was much more progressive than some other provinces, the deals that need to be reached and the agreements that need to be formed will not be unilateral and the same for every province and jurisdiction. However, the work that has been ongoing for about a year now has truly started to pay off. All but four jurisdictions, of which there are two provinces, have signed on. Some of those jurisdictions will start to see the benefit of $10-a-day child care, such as Alberta, on January 1 of next year, a month from now. In fact, my understanding is that Saskatchewan has put something into its agreement where it will make this retroactive to July 1 of this year. People will get the $10-a-day child care retroactively. Why is this so important? I have talked about this on social media. I have seen people put stuff out there, saying that they had to pay to put their kids in day care, so why should other people not have to pay for it. When we look at it like that, we look at this as though it is a handout, which it is not. This is about investing. This is about unlocking economic potential, as much as it is about helping individual families. There are a lot of households out there where one spouse, usually the woman, has chosen to stay home because it just makes more economic sense than having a child in day care that costs $50 to $60 a day. It just does not make economic sense. By doing this, we will see more people spend $300 to $350 a month to put a child in day care and more people saying that both spouses can get into the work force now. What will that do? It is not just going to generate economic activity within the work force. It is going to generate taxes and more opportunity for the government to pay for such an ambitious program. I am really glad that after decades of this being talked about, and after getting very, very close in 2006 with Paul Martin, we are finally seeing this come to fruition. As this is a day of celebration, I will not mention the manner in which that died, as I have done so a number of times in the House before. After talking about this, and after pressure from other progressive parties in the House, such as the NDP, who should get credit for applying that pressure when needed, we are finally seeing this come to fruition. Despite the fact that we are partisan here, and we might get caught up in debates over whose idea it was, who implemented it or who made it better, at the end of the day, I hope we all take great satisfaction in knowing that this is going to change families and change participation in the work force. This is going to be extremely meaningful for Canadians. In the last couple of minutes I have, I would like to switch quickly to the electrification of our fleets and our infrastructure throughout the country. We are putting a big emphasis on electrifying vehicles right now. It is extremely important to do that. We know why. We understand the science behind climate change. We understand that we need to move as quickly as possible toward electrification. Yes, there are problems, because the naysayers out there say that lithium needs to be extracted by dozers and mining equipment that are using petroleum products. I get it. I do not disagree. If we are being honest, that is the case right now, but I also think that we have to be honest about where the electric vehicle is. A fair comparison of an electric vehicle right now would be to compare it to the Ford Model T. It is in the very beginning stages of its evolution and opportunities to advance technologically. My wife and I bought our first electric car in 2012. It was a Chevy Volt, a hybrid plug-in. We would get 40 kilometres on it, which was really more like 30. We would drive around a little bit and then the gas would kick in. It was a good start, but by no means was it going to be a solution in the long run. We now have a Chrysler Pacifica, which is a minivan. After plugging that in we get about 60 kilometres, so we can do the majority of our travelling throughout the city using electricity. If we go out of town, we still have that backup gas. More recently, we purchased a Hyundai Kona, which is completely electric. We get about 450 kilometres on a charge, and I have been driving it to and from Ottawa every week. I have noticed an uptick in electric vehicles right here on the Hill, because when I started plugging in, in 2015, I would be one of one or two cars in the maybe eight slots available in the parking lot next to us. Now, when I showed up on Monday morning, there was no availability, so people are changing. The evolution is happening and we are moving toward electric vehicles. There is a role for the government to play in this and that is to incentivize people to do so, as we saw the Ontario government had done in collaboration with the federal government previously. We need to do more of that. I am very happy to see that in the throne speech, and I am looking forward to accelerating that transition toward electrification.

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Context: House Hansard - 8 - Dec/1/21

Mr. Mark Gerretsen

Dec/1/21 4:07:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have heard during question period some of the questions regarding this. I will say that, back when we had the whole issue with the former president of the United States and the tariffs being imposed on Canadian products, the way our government, in particular a key group of people within the government, was able to react to that and position itself to negotiate led to us coming out better, in my opinion, than we were going into it. Am I concerned when I hear language like that from the United States? It is absolutely concerning. Do I have confidence that our team will be able to navigate through this, in a way that would be of benefit to Canadians? I do.

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Context: House Hansard - 8 - Dec/1/21

Mr. Mark Gerretsen

Dec/1/21 4:09:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this government and the Prime Minister have always, even back in their days in opposition, prided themselves on listening to scientists and using data and science to inform the decision-making process. Perhaps one particular word was not found in the document, but I think it would be a far stretch to try to link that to the fact that this government does not believe in science. I have said it before, and I will say it again: If we do not learn from this pandemic that we need to make sure we are able to manufacture vaccines in Canada, then I think we, as Canadians, have quite frankly failed. I believe we will see Canada come forward. We will be able to ensure that we do not put ourselves in the position we were in at the beginning of this pandemic when we were not able to manufacture our own vaccines. Getting to that point was the doing of a number of different governments.

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Context: House Hansard - 8 - Dec/1/21

Mr. Mark Gerretsen

Dec/1/21 4:11:02 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-2

Madam Speaker, the recent bill we were discussing, Bill C-2, specifically addresses the issue of the hardest-hit sectors in the pandemic. If businesses have been hard hit and have still not been able to recover, they should look into the legislation, and the programs that will come through that legislation, which is before the House.

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