SoVote

Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Dec/14/21 4:42:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, alongside low-income advocacy groups, seniors advocacy groups and affected seniors themselves, the NDP has been pushing for months now for action on the GIS clawback. We see some indication now of the approach the government intends to take, but it raises some questions. The solution we were advocating for was to not count pandemic benefits in the eligibility calculation for the guaranteed income supplement. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that would affect about 88,000 seniors and would cost about $434 million. The government is instead proposing a program it says will affect about 200,000 people at a cost of about $742 million, and says it will be a one-time payment. It is unclear if seniors will be paid back for the income they lost. It is unclear if their monthly payments will be restored, so that they continue to have the monthly income they need to pay rent over the next number of years, or whether they are just going to be receiving a cheque. Could the minister provide some clarity to these seniors? Some of them have lost their homes and have been waiting for an announcement on what their life is going to look like going into the future. How is the government going to determine how much is paid to each individual senior; how is it going to roll out the funds; when is it going to happen; and how is it going to help ensure they have the money they need to get back in an apartment and pay rent for the next 12 months, instead of getting just a one-time “thank you very much and sorry for the inconvenience” from the government?

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Context: House Hansard - 17 - Dec/14/21

Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Dec/14/21 5:43:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I know the issue of self-employed workers in the arts and culture sector is one that the Bloc Québécois talked about at length during the debate on Bill C-2. We in the NDP talked a lot about seniors and the guaranteed income supplement. We heard a little bit about those two issues in the economic update, but it was very vague. We did not get much in the way of details. I am a little concerned that what the government has in mind may not be an adequate solution for seniors who have already had their guaranteed income supplement taken away. I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on the vague program announced for arts and culture workers. Is he confident that the Liberal government will do a good job of implementing such a program?

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Context: House Hansard - 17 - Dec/14/21

Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Dec/14/21 5:49:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Canadians are currently grappling with extremely serious economic challenges. They are paying more for food and housing, and they are having trouble finding work. At the same time, some employers are having trouble finding workers. Canada is at a crossroads. We want to figure out how to bring about a just post-pandemic economic recovery. We also have important questions about the climate crisis. We want to figure out how to bring about a just transition for the climate and for workers. What we need right now is leadership. The economic update was an opportunity to showcase the government's leadership, but what we got was a defence of the status quo. This is not an innocent status quo; it is a status quo that works very well for the wealthiest but makes the lives of ordinary working people more difficult. We wanted the government to propose solutions, but there are none to be found in the economic update. The NDP believes that when it comes to the big economic issues, it is very important that the basis of our analysis be the most financially vulnerable people, or the workers who have a little bit of money but are wondering if it is enough to pay all the bills, considering the pressures of inflation. We are at a crossroads in this country, just as we are in the world. Depending on the day, the Liberals will tell us that we are out of the pandemic, the economy is back to normal and everything is good, or, when it suits their purpose, they will tell us what most people already know to be true, which is that we are not out of the pandemic. Some things are better, but many things are still very bad. People are still looking to find their way, whether it is collectively, at the level of their country, province, city or community, or individually. They are looking to find how they will fit into what will become the new economy as we come out of the pandemic. To be sure, this is because of some of the pressures we are still facing around supply chains and other things that have been caused by the pandemic, but it is also an economy that was already going to change because of climate change. We have seen so much evidence. I look to my colleagues from B.C. who are seated around me. They know all too well the real cost of climate change, and the economic consequences and real financial cost of not dealing with climate change. Here we are, at that crossroads, trying to figure out what this recovery from the pandemic is going to look like, and how to transition into a sustainable economy that can mitigate, as much as possible, the impact of climate change. New Democrats believe that, in all of this pain and all of these challenges, is an opportunity to build the infrastructure and the framework for a more just economy and a better Canada. We need an economy that recognizes it is wrong to have an economy in which, and we just heard this from the Parliamentary Budget Officer last week, 25% of all the wealth produced in this country goes to just 1% of the population and where 40% of all the people in this country are asked to share just 1%. That was not always the case. That is getting worse and worse. When we see the government defending a status quo that is creating those kinds of outcomes, Canadians have to know it is not just defending 25% of the wealth going to 1%. It is defending the trend line that continues to see more of that wealth going to fewer people. While Canada's economic pie has been growing, the proportion that goes to the 1% at the top has been growing much faster, leaving less for the rest of us. As we come out of the pandemic to the extent that we have, which is not anywhere near as far as the government sometimes likes to pretend, and as we venture into this uncertain future with so many more extreme weather events as a result of climate change, we need to make sure we are getting the principles right that will ensure that everybody gets to partake in a prosperous future, not just the people who already own all of the important assets. The word there is “capitalism”. We have had less and less regulation of the market and less and less fair taxation, which has allowed the people who own assets to continue to own more and more. Unless there is a way to rein that in, eventually we will get to a point where what is shared among the rest of us is not enough for most of us. That is why I am very proud to be the finance critic for a party that is talking about a pandemic excess profits tax. The tax recognizes that while many businesses have suffered through the pandemic, some have done extraordinarily well compared with their pre-pandemic performance, and it would make sense to ask them to pay a bit more on that extra they have made to help with some of the things we need to get the rest of the way out of the pandemic and to build a just future. That is why I am proud to be the finance critic for a party that ran on imposing a 1% wealth tax on fortunes of over $20 million. That is not a lot of people, but it is a lot of money that could do a lot of good. It is money that would go to people who benefit from the investments that we all make in public infrastructure. It is right and good that, when they receive such a disproportionate amount of the benefit, they pay proportionally more to create infrastructure and to do things that protect people at the bottom. There has been a lot of talk in this place about inflation over the last three and a half weeks. The fact of the matter is that the money that went to the financially vulnerable is not what is driving inflation. It was not the CERB payments and it was not the wage subsidy payments. People bought groceries. They paid bills. They fixed their cars. The people who were on the wage subsidy got 75% of what they were used to making. I do not know how it would cause inflation when people have a 25% decrease in their salaries. Let us not pretend that the help that went to people who needed it was the cause of the inflation here. That matters because those folks are still hurting and they still need help. It is why it was wrong of the government to cut the CRB with just two days' notice. It is also why it is wrong for the Liberals to be dragging their heels on promises such as a Canada disability benefit. That is something that they promised a while ago now, and is something people living with disabilities who are not able to work need in order to be able to live life with dignity. It is why the government should be doing the same for seniors on the guaranteed income supplement. We have talked a bit about the clawbacks, but I want to talk about the fact that even when it is not being clawed back, the guaranteed income supplement does not provide enough for a person to live at the poverty line. It is still below the poverty line. That is all part and parcel of working toward a time in Canada when we can have a livable basic income for everyone who needs it. We got close with the CERB. It was an interesting time. That is why it is such an important moment. We could say that these were just temporary things: we are out of the worst of it now, and we are going to drop all these people like bricks again and get back to the status quo that led us to the point where 1% of people own 25% of the wealth. It could also be an opportunity to say that we learned how to do things differently and that it was an important moment in our history and, notwithstanding some of the very real problems with the way programs were delivered, the principle is an important lesson for our future. Today, the Liberals could have taken some real action on one of the structural things driving inflation in Canada right now, which is in the housing market. Anyone knows. Whether it is somebody trying to get into the housing market or parents who are contemplating the futures of their children, everyone is worried about the housing market, and we know that a record number of mortgages now in Canada are actually held by investors. There are things the government could seriously consider, such as a moratorium on allowing real estate investment trusts to acquire more property while the market is so hot. The government could create an acquisition fund so that non-profits in the business of creating social housing and other forms of affordable housing can compete with some of these investors in the market to snap up buildings and land as they become available. Those are some of the things it could do now to help bring down the temperature in the housing market and create some hope for Canadians for the future so that even if they cannot afford a home tomorrow, they know we are on a trajectory that will allow them or their children to afford a home in five to 10 years. There is nothing in the statement that talks about that. There is a little bit of poking around the edges, but we are in a difficult time that calls for real leadership and real measures. When we talk about affordability, what is one of the biggest cost pressures for Canada's seniors? It is the price of prescription drugs. The Liberals promised an answer to that as long ago as 1997. The temptation is to get tired of talking about it because we talk about it so much and nothing happens. However, that would be a victory for the Liberals, who have cynically promised it so often, and it would be a victory for the pharmaceutical industry, which would like nothing more than for the NDP to shut up about pharmacare so that it can get on with making money without having to worry that one day we are going to do right by Canadians, organize our purchasing and make sure that everyone is covered and they actually save money. I hope I get to see the day when we do that with dental care as well. When we talk about what to do to create employment and fight inflation, there are opportunities when it comes to the climate challenge as well. We ought to be out there helping people retrofit their homes to make them more efficient and transition the way they heat their homes so they get off fossil fuels. If we do this in the right way, particularly for lower-income households, they could realize savings in their monthly budgets. That is an investment we absolutely have to make if we will ever have a hope of realizing our emission reduction targets. It could provide some tangible financial relief to households that are struggling right now. What better time to do it than now? However, we do not see anything on this. This is also about committing to a large-scale, ambitious retrofit project and a real nation-building project that is not about building a pipeline but about building the other critical things we need, like a western power grid that would allow for solar and wind energy produced in Alberta and Saskatchewan to work collaboratively with the hydro energy we have on both ends of our western region. That could create a lot of jobs. An ambitious retrofit program, together with that, could create a work forecast that would allow employers in the trades to plan well into the future while working with the government to train a whole generation of tradespeople who are working on environmentally sustainable infrastructure and helping us reduce our emissions. They could have good, well-paying jobs that are building the future economy of Canada. What better time to do that than now? However, there is hardly a mention of the climate crisis in this economic statement. One would think it has not happened. There is much-needed money for our brothers and sisters in British Columbia who are hurting after the severe weather events there, but that is just a response to what has happened. As we heard earlier in the House, the only proactive thing the government talks about is coming up with another plan. I do not know how many times we will have to hear about the next great plan the Liberals will come up with to finally start reducing emissions while we are an embarrassment in the OECD with the highest emissions increases. Stop it with the plans. Pick something and do it. This has been researched to death. When we talk about inflation we are also talking about supply chains. In particular, we are talking about the exposure of supply chains not only to things like the pandemic, which we saw, but also to the climate crisis. We saw that in B.C. One of the inflationary pressures in Canada right now is the Port of Vancouver, which was decimated by the extreme weather events there. One solution that the government might adopt, when we talk about supply chains and trying to reduce the extent to which Canadians are exposed to that kind of international pressure, is to actually talk about things that we want to make here. We heard we had a hard time getting personal protective equipment and other essential medical goods during the pandemic. There were a lot of Canadian companies lining up to say they could do that work here. They would have loved nothing more than to train Canadians to do that work in their facilities. They said they could could scale up, but all they needed was for the government to choose to invest in them instead of giving more money to the multinational companies that have been offshoring their manufacturing for decades. They wanted the government to invest in them, in Canadian success stories, because they knew they could do it. However, that was not the path the government chose. There is nothing in here talking about how we could reshore some important manufacturing. I just went to Washington. They are contemplating things there, and Canada is going to be collateral damage in its efforts to reshore. We are at a disadvantage in a place like Washington because we cannot talk about our automotive strategy. We cannot talk about what we are going to do to ensure that future generations of Canadians get to work in a high-paying, highly unionized sector, which is incidentally not a coincidence, in Canada because we do not have a plan. Instead, we keep reacting to what other people are doing. That means the U.S. is going to continue to drive the agenda, and we are going to have to continue jumping up and down to get its attention to try to be at the table. What would be helpful would be to be able to say, “This is Canada's plan.” There is a lot of talk these days about producing batteries for electric vehicles. If Canada is going to get serious about that, we are going to need partners. China is knocking on the door. Germany is knocking on the door. The U.S. should be knocking on the door. I would love for the government to be able to show them a national automotive plan for Canada that is working and continuing our long-term partnership with the United States, as well as one that would see Canada partnering with China or Germany. That would allow us to say, “This is our preferred option, to continue the well-integrated automotive sector we have, so don't cut us out.” I believe that would have been a far more effective argument in Washington, but we refused to plan. I am from Winnipeg, where the aerospace industry is important, just as it is important in the province of Quebec and other areas. We do not have a national plan for that. We saw our government scramble in the pandemic, not knowing really what to do. Aside from the wage subsidy, which the Liberals were unfortunately not open to taking advice on how to close the loopholes so it ended up being abused in a number of ways, there was no sense of urgency that it was important that Canada maintain passenger air service, even though we are one of the largest countries in the world, with the most distance to travel. We even need it for this place to work, and for people to be represented in the House of Commons, so each part of the country requires a well-functioning passenger air service. That is a fundamental strategic asset for Canada, yet the government had no plan and continues to have no plan. There are the one-offs of doling out money here and there, but there is no cohesive strategy for how such a integral sector will be maintained and how its benefits will be maximized. Those are just some of our reflections on this side of the House about the fall economic statement. As I think members can tell, the real problem with it is that it is not unlike the Speech from the Throne. We had this election because the government said that we were at a pivotal point in our history, there were big decisions to be made that would go above and beyond what we were already doing in the House of Commons, and it had to get a mandate, which is meh. That is what we got out of that $600-million election that nobody, except for the Prime Minister, wanted. We saw it in the Speech from the Throne, and we have now seen it in this so-called fiscal update. It is just not good enough for the moment we find ourselves in, when more Canadians are struggling to get by while people at the top are taking a larger share of the economic pie. It is not good enough when Canada is a laggard in reducing its emissions and our housing market is getting out of control. The government has no real proposals about what to do about it all. Let us look at other countries. New Zealand, for instance, has brought in a policy stating that people who already own a home will need a larger down payment if they purchase a second home, and so on and so forth. This is to discourage people who are in the financial position from snapping up properties and ensure more people are able to acquire a family home. That is just one example of a government that is clearly serious about doing something and is being creative. We see some creative work at the municipal level in the city of Vancouver by the mayor, who is a former NDP MP. He is doing some interesting work in trying to figure out how to enable more density on residential lots, and not so developers can take all that money. They will get some of it. The guys at the top always seem to be worried they will not make any money. There is a lot of money to be made while one pays one's fair share. We are not talking about them not making any money, we are talking about them making a fair amount of money and ensuring they are reinvesting in the communities and the infrastructure that allows them to make that money in the first place. It is about ensuring that the people who live in the communities around their developments are able to live in dignity even if they cannot buy the premium apartment on the top floor. That is what we are talking about. I think most Canadians can get behind that vision for Canada, but it is not one that will happen spontaneously on its own. It is one that will take some leadership. It is one that will take good public administration and good public policy instead of the kind of chaotic mess we have seen over the last number of weeks with a government that can hardly get its own legislation through the House. We are here to try to hold the government to account. We are here until we are the government, which I hope happens soon, to try to help its members be their best selves. It can make a big difference in the lives of a lot of Canadians. We see that with the guaranteed income supplement. We have an announcement today that is the result of a lot of public pressure. It was not a negotiated solution. We know that because it is not the solution we proposed. However, it is some kind of solution, but we have yet to see the details. We are hoping it is going to actually help and it is going to help quickly, but we need more. I wish the Liberals would stop hanging on to it for the big reveal. Some people are living in their cars, waiting for that reveal, when they would much rather be in a home. Let us get past the suspense and the buildup and let us get to the project of getting those people back in a home, as they were just four months ago before the government decided callously to claw back their GIS benefit. That is why this is a very dissatisfying economic statement. For Canadians listening, if they do not take anything else away from this speech, there are people in this place who are thinking about real actions the government could take. We are not all just here to blow steam. We are also here to do a real job and to try to find the policies that will find their way to them and make a concrete difference in their lives. We are here to continue to apply that pressure and ensure those things really happen instead of passing by in a sound clip on the news and then people thinking the issue is settled. We are here to remind the government these issues are not settled. They will not be settled until there is real action. That is what we are here to push for, and we will keep pushing. We will keep pushing for some of these concrete things to be in the Liberals' budget. They missed the opportunity on the Speech from the Throne and they missed it in the fall economic statement. Let us be damn sure to have some of it in the budget.

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Context: House Hansard - 17 - Dec/14/21

Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Dec/14/21 6:13:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would talk about the folks in my riding who also work in the tourism industry, an industry that is 85% women, who are independent travel agents who work out of their basement or home office. There is nothing in there for them. The government should not pretend. It should not pretend, because we have heard this again and again. The fact is we support getting help in the way the government says it wants to help certain businesses. It is not that we do not want the help to be there for them, but this divide and conquer strategy of the Liberals hives off certain groups and delivers help to them while abandoning other groups like independent travel agents and like a lot of people who are working in the arts and culture sector. They are still waiting on some kind of program, but all the government had to do was include them in the Canada worker lockdown benefit without the requirement for a lockdown. There are ways the government could be delivering help to a lot more people who really need it. Bill C-2 is about the basic structure of Canada's recovery, and it is a complete failure from that point of view. The government should stop pretending that we are somehow against helping the few people it wants to help, when we are clearly making a statement about the nature of the recovery and all the other people who need help but for whom the government is not there.

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Context: House Hansard - 17 - Dec/14/21

Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Dec/14/21 6:16:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I certainly do share those concerns, and it is part of why the NDP has been such a loud and consistent advocate for seniors who have seen their GIS clawed back. That is why we have been talking for a while about trying to get the guaranteed income supplement level up to the poverty line so our most vulnerable seniors are not legislated into a life of poverty. When it comes to housing, I mentioned in my remarks some of the initiatives we have been contemplating. I would be curious to hear some concrete measures from the Conservatives that might help. They are good on the critique right now, but on the solutions we have not heard a lot that would make a big difference, including on inflation. There is a lot of talk about the impact of inflation, and we share their concern about that. The Conservative finance critic is very adamant that we need to not talk about things like a dual employment mandate, like they have in the States, or have more interesting mandate ideas like they have in New Zealand, which asked its central bank to consider housing prices in the way it sets monetary policy. Instead, he was very focused on the 2% inflation target, which is what is going to cause the rise in interest rates that his leader was just talking about earlier today. Those interest rates in the current economy, given how stretched Canadians already are, will also cause a real crisis for those who were able to buy into what is a really hot market. They are not going to be able to sustain their home if we see massive interest rate hikes, which is what it means to doggedly pursue a 2% inflation target. There are some big discussions we need to have here. Conservatives have been big on the critical side lately, but I think they really need to get their act together on proposing some solutions, because that is where the dialogue on that side of the House is falling apart.

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Context: House Hansard - 17 - Dec/14/21

Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Dec/14/21 6:19:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. One of the reasons I first ran to become a member of Parliament in 2015 was that I thought the Harper government's position of keeping the annual health transfer escalator at just 3% was unacceptable. At the time, the current Prime Minister also said it was unacceptable. Once he became Prime Minister, however, he decided to adopt the Harper government's policies as his own. Health transfers need to be increased. The NDP has been calling for that for a long time.

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Context: House Hansard - 17 - Dec/14/21

Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Dec/14/21 6:21:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am happy to acknowledge that it is a real talking point of the Liberal Party, as was the national housing strategy, which continues to be a dream of the NDP. However, we found that when the time came to deliver the money and actually get the work done, the government was not able to deliver. I had also asked for an ambitious program, and by that I mean one that gets the work done. When I start hearing in my community that people are amazed at how many homes are getting done in their neighbourhoods and that people are upgrading their homes and changing the way they heat them, then we will have arrived, not just when we are hearing in the House of Commons that 700,000 applicants are expected in a country with 40 million people. I noticed the member used the term “applicants”, and there are a lot of weasel words in this place, so I wonder how many of those “applicants” are going to see a successful delivery of the program. I will believe it when I see it. I recognize that the Liberals are talking that way, just as they have talked about pharmacare for decades now. When people in my communities start telling me how happy they are that they, their friends and their relatives are able to retrofit their homes, that is when I will know we have arrived.

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