44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 14, 2021 10:00AM
- Dec/14/21 5:18:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, at the risk of repeating myself, there was an election at the end of the summer.
There was certainly no need for that election.
We wondered why the election was called, what purpose it served, what were the priorities, what should be asked and what should be changed. Today, we are right back where we started: The Liberals have a minority government. Again, the people did not have enough confidence in the Liberals to give them a majority. In Quebec, we kept the same breakdown and the same number of seats for each party.
Instead of calling a pointless election, we could have carried on working and sitting. We could have followed through on support measures. We could have followed through on everything that was in the previous budget, the one tabled in April 2021. We could not do any of that because of the election. Then we were subjected to what I would call an insipid throne speech. What was the next logical step? What vision did the throne speech have to offer? In the wake of a so-called necessary election, there was nothing new under the sun.
Today we got the economic and fiscal update. We were expecting it because it was promised in the last budget. We were told there would be one in the fall. Quite frankly, the economic and fiscal update was a bit lightweight compared to what we are used to, both in the number of pages and the measures and vision within it. I suppose that was to be expected given the unnecessary election and the vacuous throne speech.
Two months after the election the Liberals called, the government has run out of steam. It is exhausted. It has no ideas, no new proposals. This is ridiculous, unprecedented and discouraging.
Five days ago, all the provinces got together for the Council of the Federation. United, they asked Ottawa to deal with the health care problem. They want a meeting. It is urgent; it is a priority. This is not a frivolous ask, anything but. As the Parliamentary Budget Officer's analyses remind us year after year, when it comes to spending and the budget, the problem is with the provinces. That is true. Why is it true? The reason is that Ottawa has not been paying its fair share for a long time. Ottawa is not spending enough money on health care.
The Conference Board of Canada, the Council of the Federation, the Parliamentary Budget Officer and all the provinces are saying that, the way things are going, the provinces are heading towards a tax wall, while Ottawa's fiscal situation will be exceptional, despite the extraordinary expenses incurred during the pandemic. Health care spending is increasing, and Ottawa's transfers are not keeping pace.
The provinces repeated all of this five days ago. What was Ottawa's response? The government is basically telling them to take a hike. Why do I say that? It is because, based on the projected numbers and budgets, there is no increase relative to what is being requested. Until 2027, there is no increase. The government is on the warpath, and the provinces are being challenged. They need health care funding, but they will get nothing.
The document is about 50 pages long, not including the annexes. Two or three pages are devoted to the speech, and about two and a half pages are used to explain why the provinces will not get a penny more for health care. The Liberal logic is that extraordinary spending was needed during the pandemic, so they feel they have done enough. Since the provinces have benefited, they will not get a penny for health care until 2027. The government's logic is to say that it paid the wage subsidy and indirectly helped the provinces because the people who received the wage subsidy pay taxes to the province. I want to believe that this was necessary and important spending, but it does nothing to address the fundamental problem. The federal government needs to pay its fair share of health care spending. Nothing has been resolved, and war has been declared on the provinces. This is unacceptable and we strongly condemn it.
Furthermore, there are few measures in the update, although there are some that we applaud, in particular the measures for working seniors who receive the guaranteed income supplement.
My colleague and I have been raising this issue since the summer. We wrote to our respective counterparts on the government side during and after the election and as recently as this week. The government said that it would solve the problem. We proposed solutions, such as including the CERB as employment income when calculating the GIS, or recalculating the amount for the current year for those who were not supposed to receive the CERB or who received too much money and now have to pay it back. To resolve this situation, Service Canada and the CRA really should sit down together and talk.
The government listened to our suggestions and responded that technical considerations ruled them out. In the economic update, the proposed solution is altogether different from what we suggested. We are disappointed because we had some good solutions. That said, we do not have the inside track, and since we do not have access to the inner workings of government, we may be unaware of certain considerations because we do not know what they are. For example, there may be some software that cannot process this information, even though it seems quite straightforward.
Throughout the pandemic, the government responded in the same way to all the measures we suggested. That said, the government is nonetheless proposing a solution, which is a payment to make up for the loss of income, as seniors will no longer receive the CERB after one year. It is a big, rather odd band-aid approach to solving the problem, but it might work. The stumbling block here is the time frame.
As my colleague from Shefford knows, seniors in these situations are facing serious challenges. We hear horror stories in our ridings. Some seniors are having to leave their homes, sell their furniture and move. They sometimes have to stop taking medications and go to the hospital, where their medications are covered. They cannot afford medication because of the drop in their income. These are actual, real-life situations.
The government has proposed to solve the problem by sending them a payment, but not until next May. This situation has been going on since the summer, so that would mean that seniors will have been struggling with this issue for nearly a year. What will happen to them? We are very concerned about this. We will certainly do everything we can to get this payment out quicker, because there is a serious need. This wait is neither reasonable nor acceptable.
We also spoke out about the fact that the government created two classes of seniors, which is unacceptable. Seniors do not like it. We are calling on the government to fix this by increasing old age security by $110 a month for all seniors. It is a simple, concrete and effective measure that would support seniors whose income is not adjusted to inflation, which is currently hitting record highs.
There was not a single word about this, however. There are still two classes of seniors, and the government did not propose a single meaningful measure to combat inflation, aside from child care, which does not exactly make up for the increase in grocery bills. We are still very worried about seniors. We appreciate that a solution was proposed to the problem with the GIS and the CERB, but it comes too late and is flawed.
As I said, the budget was pretty slim. Our in camera meeting began at 11:45, and I would say we had covered pretty much everything by 1 p.m. Members of our party had to stay in camera until 4 p.m. Thank goodness people had some good jokes to tell to help pass the time.
It was our understanding that one element of this budget, as detailed in annex 3, would be in the notice of ways and means we would be voting on. During questions and answers in camera, we were told that the notice of ways and means contained nothing else. That is what I told reporters. By the time I returned to the House, the notice of ways and means had been tabled. It was 92 pages long and included the digital services taxation issue. I was surprised to see that, and I will get back to that in a minute.
That is a good thing, but the fact remains that annex 3 of the economic update includes a measure to tax residences, dwellings, condos and homes of foreign owners who do not occupy them. This is a token measure to slow housing inflation, curb speculation and make housing a little more affordable. The idea is to create an incentive so that non-residents and non-Canadians find it less appealing to buy housing in Canada that they do not intend to occupy and therefore contribute less to the economy.
We agree with that principle. Yes, we have to be careful, and, yes, all the housing units have to help people. The Bloc Québécois has major reservations, however, because this is a property tax. I am sure the federal government's reasons for collecting a property tax are noble, but the tax would supposedly be temporary. What has history taught us? Every time the federal government pokes its nose into a new tax field, no matter how small or temporary, there is no going back. The government has kept increasing this form of taxation every time.
Among the various forms of taxation that exist, such as consumption taxes, income tax, corporate taxes and many others, there was one tax field that was not yet occupied by the federal government, to my knowledge: property tax. This is essentially managed by municipalities, under provincial legislation. For instance, Quebec gives municipalities the power to levy property taxes.
Ottawa had been staying out of it, until now. However, according to annex 3 and the budget, Ottawa wants a cut. We have serious concerns, because this leviathan always tends to have an unquenchable thirst for tax dollars. We will certainly have to revisit this. I would remind the House that the principle is interesting, but seeing Ottawa interfere in this area of taxation is really worrisome for us in the Bloc Québécois.
During the election campaign, we kept hearing the same complaint from small and medium-sized businesses day after day. My colleague from Bécancour—Nicolet—Saurel could attest to that more than anyone here. I am talking about the labour shortage. We thought that with an economic and fiscal update in the last week before the break, the Liberals would take the bull by the horns and come up with some solutions.
During the election campaign, the Bloc was the political party that proposed the most solutions, in particular to address productivity, to make it easier for seniors to return to part-time work by putting fiscal measures in place, and to accelerate the whole immigration process, for both temporary and permanent workers.
I could go on like this, talking about innovation and increasing productivity, and so on.
Other than that one line that says that the government is investing in immigration to try to speed up the process, everything else in the document just says that the government will propose something in the coming year. However, today was not the time for the government to say that it would come up with something in the next year; it was the time for the government to say what action it would be taking. Our party has put forward a number of solutions, and the update was an opportunity for them to be put into practice. That did not happen and we are speaking out about it. We are very disappointed.
As I was saying, this feels like a government that is exhausted and out of breath, that no longer has any ideas and proposes nothing, barely two months after it was elected. That is worrisome.
Another thing that concerns us is the issue of inflation. The document contains private sector forecasts. For this year, they say they expect a rate of 7.6%, which is higher than what we are seeing now. Prices could continue to rise if these forecasts are accurate. Now, on the bright side, the rate will come back down as early as next year and the problem will resolve itself in subsequent years, which was our read on the problem.
We would have expected the government to be more focused on this issue. We need only consider low-income households or, as I was saying earlier, seniors whose income is not indexed to the cost of living.
In rereading my notes, I see that many small measures were announced, such as an increase in the tax credit for teachers and ECEs purchasing supplies for children, up from 15% to 25%. That is fine, but the government could have brought in better measures.
There is one thing I would like to address. In April, the budget that we had been waiting for for two years was finally tabled. That budget contained a lot of announcements about money and measures, and it was thick and wide-ranging. The government pushed it through. It contained some worthwhile measures, notably those pertaining to support measures, the recovery and the green recovery. We said that we would pass it.
After the budget came Bill C-30, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 19, 2021 and other measures, which incorporated a small part of the budget. We adopted that one as well, figuring that we would wait to see what came after the budget.
Nothing came after the budget, however, because the government called an election. The Liberals campaigned on measures that were in the budget that we had adopted, but today's update, which was presented after the election campaign, does not incorporate those measures. They are gone, which means they were nothing more than election promises that were only useful on the campaign trail.
The budget presented last spring contained 52 legislative measures and 100 pages of tax measures. Most of them did not end up in Bill C-30 and are not in today's update either. With this update, the government is therefore telling us that everything it announced in its last budget was only there to get the Liberals re-elected and to win a majority. It did not win that majority, however, because we wanted to keep it a minority. It is trying again with this budget.
That is the message being sent. It is very worrisome. The government seems to have no vision. I cannot get over it. This is my third election, and it is the first time that I have seen Parliament's return delayed, since we had to wait two months to come back. The ministers were late getting appointed. The Speech from the Throne was short, and there was not much in it. It was also boring, especially in the way it was read. I will refrain from being too critical about that, but it is true that the person who read it has to be held responsible.
The update is the logical next step in all this, having been tabled by a government that acts because it is forced to, but that is tired and breaking down. It needs a bit more pep.
If the government is out of ideas, the Bloc Québécois has plenty. It has energy too. The government needs to listen to us because we are going to propose some legislation to bring in.
Let us start with resolving the issue of health. Polls show that it is the top priority. We do not want conditions imposed on the provinces, we want transfers. That is what the provinces are calling for. The government needs to fix this because it is urgent, and so is the situation with seniors.
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- Dec/14/21 5:39:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will start with the end of my colleague's remarks. Interprovincial barriers are subject to negotiations among the provinces and fall under their jurisdiction. The Bloc Québécois wants to respect their areas of jurisdiction, but Ottawa is always insinuating itself into areas under provincial jurisdiction or, as in today's economic update, areas under municipal jurisdiction.
We would like the federal government to respect its obligations properly in areas such as borders and health care funding.
Sustainable health care funding requires adequate funding. The Bloc Québécois understands what the provinces need and supports the Parliamentary Budget Officer's studies, which state that, if we want sustainable health care systems, we need equity, and that can be achieved only if Ottawa transfers the money unconditionally. That is very important.
Not every member in the House is in favour of a sustainable health care system. The Minister of Finance certainly is not, because her update does not include any increased funding for the health care system. We are still at 3%, which is below the rate at which costs are increasing, while what the provinces and everyone else want is to make up the shortfall and get to 35% funding, plus an annual escalator of 6% to maintain the increase. That is what is necessary, and that is what is needed.
With this economic update, the Minister of Finance and this government are now declaring war on the provinces. We have chosen our camp, and it is the camp of the people and health care funding, not the government's camp.
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- Dec/14/21 5:42:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague from Kitchener Centre. This update offers absolutely nothing for the environment. Last spring's budget did include some measures, and we even expected to move on from the pandemic and into the recovery by greening our economy to achieve net-zero emissions, which would mean a major environmental shift. The Bloc Québécois has all kinds of ideas for this, such as a green finance plan to get the private sector involved and encourage it to finance this shift.
In the end, once we rose for the summer, we saw announcements across Canada all summer for all sorts of projects that often had nothing to do with the environment. We certainly did not see the green economic shift we had hoped for. This update is a continuation of the government's intentions: if a slogan works on the campaign trail, the government is all for it; if not, it cannot be bothered.
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- Dec/14/21 5:44:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona, with whom I have the pleasure of working on the Standing Committee on Finance. I have seen how hard-working and brilliant this member is, as we have sat intensively over the past week. He is motivated to serve the public, he does it for the right reasons and he is very talented. I salute him.
My colleague raises some good points. A solution with respect to the GIS and the problem with CERB is being proposed here. Based on the answers we got from officials in the briefing, it seems to address the problem, although it is different from the solutions we had considered. However, the time frame is still a major concern. Officials told us that the payment would be sent in May, but we see that as an unacceptable delay. We will obviously keep an eye on this.
There is nothing in the update about self-employed workers in the cultural sector. What was announced is another measure in response to what we asked for more than a year ago. The Bloc Québécois is reassured by what the Minister of Canadian Heritage said at committee. We obviously look forward to seeing this targeted program, which will be presented by the government and the Minister of Canadian Heritage. It was a core condition for our support of Bill C-2, which deals with the extension of wage subsidies.
Even though the minister made links to Bill C‑2 in her speech, the update is not Bill C‑2. The two should not be confused.
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- Dec/14/21 5:47:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question and her comments. She is clearly committed to the people the Bloc Québécois defends, and seniors in particular. I was very touched by what my colleague, the member for Shefford, said.
I would say to her that the government is doing things piecemeal. It gave a little, hoping to do the bare minimum and still save face.
With respect to the working-life income replacement rate in retirement and the increase to account for the impact of year-over-year inflation on seniors' purchasing power, it is clear that things are getting worse.
We want a long-term solution, and we will be here to keep an eye on this file. I am out of time so I will stop there.
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