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Feb/1/22 12:21:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what we do understand is that the focus on the pandemic has left many health questions unanswered and unaddressed in Canada, suicides being one of them. I know multiple colleagues have addressed the issue of the three-digit suicide prevention hotline. Certainly that is an exceedingly important thing. Again, we know that when all we do is focus on one thing and use subject matter experts and we have failed leadership of government, then it makes it very difficult to attack all those other very important issues that exist for a government. Therefore, we implore the government to look at the end of this pandemic and how we are going to live in an endemic world where COVID exists.

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Hon. Ed Fast (Abbotsford, CPC)

Feb/1/22 12:22:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate the fact that my colleague referenced the historic floods that took place in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia. The devastation is unprecedented. It is my riding. These are my farmers, my businesses and my residents who are struggling to recover from this. He also mentioned New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and I am glad he did because the problem of climate change-related weather events is critical. We are going to need very significant investments in the many billions of dollars across Canada to protect Canadians against these weather events. I would invite the member to comment on the investments that will be required to be made, especially in his neck of the woods, and why it is important that we make these investments now and not wait for another disaster to happen before we take note of what is happening around us.

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Mr. Stephen Ellis

Feb/1/22 12:24:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Abbotsford and send my condolences to his constituents. I understand the remediation that now needs to take effect. What is, as I said, jaw-droppingly astonishing to me is that there is a study that exists in my neck of the woods that I cannot get and that the government, as I previously mentioned, tells me to get from the government of New Brunswick, even though we as a federal government funded part of that study. Why does the government continue to study things to death and have no action? I also find it absolutely fascinating that no one from the government side has any comments or questions about this kind of action that we see all too much of: too little, too late, no action.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Feb/1/22 12:24:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the debate on the Speech from the Throne so many months from when it was delivered. I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Kitchener Centre. What a pleasure it is to work with him in the House, and I wish I could be there in person. I will be soon, I hope. I was in the House the day the Speech from the Throne was delivered, back on November 23. It was a wonderful thing that our Governor General delivered, for the first time, a throne speech not only in our two official languages but also in Inuktitut. I had the great honour of knowing Her Excellency from many of her previous incarnations, including when we once served on the board of the International Institute for Sustainable Development together. She will be a fantastic Governor General, and I was very pleased to be here in Ottawa to hear her Speech from the Throne. As the Governor General noted at the time, on November 23, we were still in the throws of the devastating events that hit British Columbia. The hon. member for Abbotsford was just speaking of the devastation from the flooding and the landslides in the Fraser Valley. This extended into my own riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands, but the most devastating and catastrophic impacts were clearly more in Abbotsford and up through the Fraser Valley. Every land route to reach the Lower Mainland was cut off by these extreme weather events. When the Speech from the Throne was delivered, we were only 10 days from the end of COP26, the global climate negotiations, which were not a dismal failure but they certainly failed to succeed. COP26 did not do what was required in this desperately pressing moment. When I read the Speech from the Throne now, as two months have passed, I am struck by how the words are wonderful, but the actions promised are inadequate to meet the spirit behind the words. I will address several elements, and my other colleague from the Green Party, the member for Kitchener Centre, will address other critical issues we are very concerned about. I want to address the reconciliation theme within the Speech from the Throne, the vaccination questions and of course the climate crisis. In no area have the promised actions lived up to the strong words that speak to the multiple crises that face us. Let us start with the challenge of reconciliation. Many members in this place have quite appropriately mentioned that we are still in the throes of the discovery of the missing children. These are children taken forcibly from their homes and their families over a period of more than 150 years and forced into situations that were unimaginably horrible for those little children, many of whom did not return home. We have to face this. We have to continue to support first nations communities in a national program, which was required of us by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission years ago, to find out what happened to every single indigenous child taken from their home who did not return, to find out what happened, how they died and where they are. Every family needs to get a report, and that continues to be a priority. With the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry, we were told very clearly that many things must be done to protect indigenous women, who are at greater risk of being murdered. We have not done those things. One ties in very closely to the climate crisis and to many other aspects of the things this modern, industrialized country fails to do well, and that is ground transportation. The missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry stated that people are more vulnerable when they are low income and there is no public transit where they live. Their choices are basically to hitchhike, which is not a choice. We need to restore Via Rail and bus service across this country. We also need to ensure the settlement announced in January between the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society and the wonderful, heroic Cindy Blackstock be real, be made real and to stay on top on that. We applaud the $40 billion set aside, but as Cindy Blackstock has said, it needs to be monitored closely to really deliver. On international vaccines, I want to again raise, as I have before in the House, that we understand now from this pandemic that we will not end it. We know what comes after omicron. Someone mentioned what comes after omicron. It is pi. That is the next letter in the Greek alphabet. That is the next variant we are going to get. We must vaccinate everyone on the planet, make this place our home as a human family and stop being a living petri dish to see how many new variants we can get. We should be vaccinating around the world, but Canada has avoided and not answered the question: Will we support South Africa and India in asking for an exemption from the patent protection of the World Trade Organization? Under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, or TRIPS, we can get an exemption so that vaccines are more available around the world. Turning to climate, one would think that a person in the Green Party could not be unhappy with a Speech from the Throne that says, “Our Earth is in danger” and “This is the moment for bolder climate action.” Again, they are great words, but in the pages devoted to talking about the climate crisis, there is no mention of what our Paris commitment is, nor that we should hold global average temperature as far below 2°C as possible and attempt to hold to 1.5°C. These numbers in themselves I think cause people's eyes to glaze over: 1.5°C does not feel like a real number; it sounds small. I want to remind members that in this last year, nearly 600 British Columbians died, according to the science, in the heat dome in four days. My own stepdaughter nearly died and she is in her early thirties. She nearly died because the temperature in Ashcroft hit 50°C. These are killer extreme weather events. As I said, 600 people died in British Columbia in four days. This was an extreme event, and the same day that the temperature kept going higher and higher, in Lytton the town centre virtually burnt to the ground in minutes. The fire truck did not even get out of the fire station. That town, by the way, has still not been helped and is still not being rebuilt. We know that wildfires have spread over hundreds of thousands of hectares in British Columbia. Then, of course, in November we had atmospheric rivers that knocked out much of our infrastructure, again killing people and hundreds of thousands of livestock and animals. The heat dome in late June and early July was estimated to have killed one billion sea creatures along our shorelines. These events happened at a 1.1°C global average temperature above what it was before the industrial revolution, so 1.5°C is not some safe place that only dreamers can hope we hold to. It is where we need to be to hope human civilization hangs on. We are on track after COP26 to be much closer to 3°C than 1.5°C. Canada's target remains the weakest in the industrialized world, and we seem to have substituted what we need to do and what we must do to ensure our children have a livable world, which is 1.5°C to stay alive, with net zero by 2050. That creates the false impression that getting to net zero by 2050 holds to 1.5°C. It does not. It only holds to 1.5°C if the pathway to net zero by 2050 goes through 2030 with emission cuts that go down dramatically. They must go down. Canada's target range of a 40% to 45% cut is completely inadequate to meet the global demands on us to pull our fair share of the weight to reduce emissions to hold to a livable planet. Likewise, in the Speech from the Throne, there is no mention of banning the export of thermal coal. There is no mention of the just transition act. There is no mention of the right to a healthy environment, nor of bringing back the Canadian Environmental Protection Act amendments that were in Bill C-28, which died on the Order Paper when the unnecessary election was called. With the 30 seconds I have remaining, I say to all members in this place that I cannot vote for the Speech from the Throne for all of its wonderful words if the future of my grandchildren is not protected. We have to say it loudly. We have to be honest. We have to be clear. Maybe we have to tell everyone to just look up because we do not have much time. We must ensure the current government takes heroic action to save this planet and all humanity.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Feb/1/22 12:35:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would be interested in the member's thoughts with respect to the greener homes program, an initiative allowing residents in her community, in mine and throughout Canada to apply for a grant of up to $5,000 to make their homes more energy efficient. One would argue it is good for the environment and good for job creation and improving our housing stock. I would ask her to share her thoughts on that specific program.

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Ms. Elizabeth May

Feb/1/22 12:35:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I cheered for that program when it was first announced by Stéphane Dion, the former environment minister, in 2005. Former finance minister Ralph Goodale had it in his budget. It is great to see it back and it is great to see it expanded to include such things as putting on solar panels, but it is far too small. We really need to be restoring housing stock and municipal, institutional and commercial buildings as well. Every building in this country needs a retrofit and needs it as fast as possible, so the program needs to be expanded dramatically.

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Ms. Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia—Lambton, CPC)

Feb/1/22 12:36:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for her continued passion on climate change. One of the things I have noticed, though, is that—

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Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne

The Deputy Speaker

Feb/1/22 12:36:36 p.m.
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On a point of order, the hon. member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles.

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Mr. Luc Desilets (Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, BQ)

Feb/1/22 12:36:50 p.m.
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Point of order, Mr. Speaker. With all due respect, it seems to me that there is an imbalance in the way you are recognizing members in the House versus those who are participating virtually. I have raised my hand several times now, and I do not know if we are in your blind spot or what, but I would like to be treated fairly. All MPs are equal. Nobody wants this situation. We would all like to be there in person, but now other parties are getting an advantage because they have far more members present in person than we do.

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The Deputy Speaker

Feb/1/22 12:37:25 p.m.
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I thank the hon. member for his intervention, and I can assure him that I do see all the members. I am trying my best to involve all members who are online or here in the House, and to ensure that all political parties are well represented. Some of the Bloc Québécois members in the House sometimes get up at the same time, so I do my best. The member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles will be next in line to ask a question. The hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton.

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Ms. Marilyn Gladu

Feb/1/22 12:37:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, I thank the member for her passion. She is calling for us to accelerate our efforts to address climate change, but I would say that the government has not even met its existing 2030 targets. It is not on track. I do not know how many of the billions of trees it has started to plant, but it seems there is nothing but rhetoric coming from the other side. Would the member agree?

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Ms. Elizabeth May

Feb/1/22 12:38:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is a tough one. I cannot agree that the government has done nothing. It is putting in place programs and measures that at least should get the direction right. We often say, and this is true, that the Government of Canada, regardless of which political party is in power, has never hit a target it set. However, it is worse than that: It has never gotten the direction right. So far, no matter how many commitments are made to reduce emissions, they continue to go up. I think we are going to begin to see emissions coming down, but that is not nearly good enough because the measure of our success is not whether we have fooled enough people to win another election. The measure of our success is whether we have met what the science demands of us to hold within a carbon budget. The window is rapidly closing on holding on to a livable world, and that is why I will give the government credit for doing something. However, I cannot claim it is doing nearly enough.

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Mr. Luc Desilets (Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, BQ)

Feb/1/22 12:39:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am always happy to listen to the Green Party member talk about climate change and other files, and climate change is what her speech was mainly about. I know she is a compassionate and intelligent woman, and I would like to hear what she thinks about increasing health transfers so that they cover 35% of expenditures. All of the provinces in this country are calling for that. They need that increase in order to cope with the current situation. Along with the environment, health is at the top of the agenda.

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Ms. Elizabeth May

Feb/1/22 12:40:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the Bloc Québécois member for his kind and generous words and for his question. I think we also need to talk about the health threats resulting from climate change. I mentioned the people who died as a result of the heat waves. I agree with the Bloc Québécois that the federal government and the provinces need to collaborate more to protect our public health care systems. Our provincial public health care systems have been under increasing stress since the pandemic began two years ago, and the crisis continues to grow.

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Mr. Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre, GP)

Feb/1/22 12:41:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak with respect to some reflections on the Speech from the Throne. I would like to focus on our priorities where there is the opportunity to work constructively with the governing party and, in fact, with all parliamentarians to make progress. These are the priorities the government has put forward in the Speech from the Throne and those I have heard about time and time again from folks in my community in Kitchener. I would like to start with housing. In the Speech from the Throne, the governing party speaks about being committed to working with partners to get real results. I want to start with what that looks like in my community. In the last year, we did a study on the number of unsheltered folks, which has now risen to over 1,000 people living rough and unsheltered, which is three times as many as in the last point-in-time count study. When we look at those who are hoping to purchase a home, we find that back in 2005, the cost of purchasing a home in Kitchener was three times higher than the median annual income. In 2021, that rose to 8.6 times higher. The possibility of purchasing a home, and I know this is the case for so many across the country, is increasingly becoming completely out of reach. For those on the wait-list for affordable dignified housing, that wait-list is now upward of almost eight years. Can members imagine waiting eight years to get access to housing? I spoke with a woman this past summer who said she was lucky to get access to affordable housing, but there is mould in her unit, and she knows her landlord has no incentive to do anything about it. We need to be addressing not just the affordability but also the quality of dignified housing. Homes should be for people to live in, as opposed to commodities for investors to trade. To do that, we will need to address the rules of the game. For example, we need to get back to investing in non-market, subsidized, public and co-op housing. Back in the early eighties, for example, 8% of new rental units constructed were co-op housing. I lived in a co-op myself over many years and had the experience of what quality and dignified housing co-ops can be. If we look at 2020, we see that fewer than 1% of rental units constructed were co-op housing. We could look at taxation. For example, there are investors who are merely purchasing a property to speculate and take many years to eventually flip a home. We could put in place a graduated tax on those house flippers and use the revenue to reinvest in more affordable housing. We could be looking at what BMO has also called for, which is putting an end to the blind bidding process. I look forward to working with the government to make progress, meaningful progress, on addressing the cost of housing. In the throne speech, there was also talk of addressing the cost of living, which made reference to the Canada child benefit and to addressing child care. While I celebrate those initiatives, we also need to recognize a group of Canadians who are disproportionately living in poverty. They are Canadians living with disabilities. In fact, the word “disability” was not in the throne speech once at all. We know the governing party had previously introduced legislation and introduced the Canada disability benefit. This benefit would uplift up to 1.5 million Canadians who are currently living in poverty. We know Canadians across the country support it, as 89% of Canadians already support the Canada disability benefit. Back in Kitchener, for folks with disabilities who have access to the Ontario disability support program, the shelter allowance they are receiving is $497 a month. How many apartments could someone afford in Kitchener on $497 a month? The answer is none whatsoever. This is why we need to be focused on a moral imperative to lift up Canadians living with disabilities and ensure they have access to a dignified life across the country. With respect to mental health in the throne speech, there is talk of focusing on mental health in the same way we focus on physical well-being because they are inseparable. I could not agree more. We are in the midst of a shadow pandemic with respect to mental health and that is why we need to see increased commitments to mental health funding while recognizing the overdose crisis we are also in the midst of as a result of a poisoned drug supply. In Kitchener, we had 99 preventable deaths across the Waterloo region last year alone, which is the second-highest number we have had. There are groups, including the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, who are making clear calls for decriminalizing simple possession while also working towards a safer supply. These are the policies that were not mentioned in the throne speech that I would encourage the governing party to consider, recognizing the shared interest in making progress on mental health and addictions, and saving lives across the country. This brings me to the final point. To echo comments heard earlier from the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands with respect to addressing the climate crisis, we have to simply follow the science. We are past the time for talking about whether one plan is better than another party's plan. The fact is that does not matter. All that matters is whether we choose to hold on to the possibility of keeping within the maximum of a 1.5°C increase in global temperatures. This is true for people across my community, young and old, who are together saying that enough is enough. We have a moral imperative to ensure we provide a safe climate future for our kids, our nieces, our nephews and our grandkids. In the words of Greta Thunberg, “Either we do that or we don’t.... Either we prevent 1.5 degree of warming or we don’t.... Either we choose to go on as a civilisation or we don’t.” We have that opportunity today. We could be saying that maybe this is not the right time to be investing $18 billion in subsidies to fossil fuels or purchasing and expanding a pipeline to further export more emissions around the world. Instead, we could be using those same funds, such as the funds that were announced just last month for an emissions reduction fund that actually increased oil production. We could also use this new tax credit for carbon capture and storage. Each of these is just another subsidy to fossil fuel interests that we could be repurposing to make the choice to invest in a just transition for workers on the front lines. We could be using these, in respect to comments earlier, to build on the Canada green homes grant. The $5,000 a month is a great start. Let us retrofit every building in the country and create millions of jobs as we do it. Let us take the kind of action we all know is required if we are going to be honest about the science and follow through. My aspiration is to continue to work with all parliamentarians in this place and recognize that we have that shared interest in listening to the folks in our communities who are calling out to rise past the partisanship and whatever one party has called for versus another, and simply be honest about what scientists, young people and indigenous leaders have been calling out for. Whether that relates to the cost of housing, the mental health crisis, lifting folks out of poverty or addressing the climate crisis, we have to not just do some good, but go at the pace scientists tell us is required.

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Mrs. Julie Vignola (Beauport—Limoilou, BQ)

Feb/1/22 12:50:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on something my colleague talked about at the beginning of his speech, namely social housing. There is a desperate shortage of housing that is not only affordable, but also economically viable for most families. We talk about affordability meaning 10% less. I am not sure whether it is the same in his riding as it is in mine, but corporations, sometimes foreign, are building condos that go for $2,500 a month for a two-bedroom unit. Even with an affordability framework and 10% off, is that viable? The answer is no. What solutions would my colleague propose to ensure that our fellow citizens have access to sustainable and truly affordable housing?

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Mr. Mike Morrice

Feb/1/22 12:51:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Beauport—Limoilou for her important question. I will switch to English so that I get the words just right. It is so important that we talk about not only the investments but also the policies required for not just affordable housing, but dignified and quality housing. I look forward to a longer conversation with her and other colleagues to talk not only about the investment but also the policies required. I mentioned some on taxation, for example. I also mentioned co-op housing and other options around public and subsidized housing to ensure that they are truly affordable, as well as dignified.

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Feb/1/22 12:52:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Kitchener Centre for his focus on climate and housing in his speech. I am certainly hearing from folks in Elmwood—Transcona who are struggling to access housing that is within their budget. I am also hearing not just from people who are struggling at the poverty line who cannot find housing, but also from folks who in their time had good middle-class jobs and were able to afford a home for their family. They are now unable to imagine how their children will be able to afford a home. I wonder if the member can speak a little to some of the actions that the government could take to try and cool the housing market. Some actions were even in the Liberals' own platform, but we have not seen them moving on that with a sense of urgency so far in this Parliament. Also, it is clear that we need a massive investment in not just affordable housing, as the definition of which too often puts housing still out of reach for people, but also in rent-geared-to-income housing. I wonder how we could use a major capital campaign to build those units, and do it in a way that is responsive to the climate crisis, ensuring that it is done in a way that creates the most possible housing within reach for the people who need it in a way that creates the least possible emissions.

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Mr. Mike Morrice

Feb/1/22 12:53:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Elmwood—Transcona for the question and for his advocacy in this place, particularly for seniors. To the questions the member asked around housing, and I did not have a chance to mention this in my speech, but seniors across the country, who are often living below the poverty line, are looking at the rising cost of housing with anxiety. They are wondering whether they will be able to continue to afford the housing they live in. The member asked about policies the government could take. One example, which the government has talked about, is a vacancy tax. We could put in place a meaningful tax on homes that are purchased by investors who have no interest in anyone ever living in them. While the government has talked about a 1% tax on non-resident, non-Canadians, we have examples across the country, in Vancouver, for example, where it is far broader. With these kinds of measures, we could use those funds to reinvest and, to the point around climate and other opportunities, provide no-interest loans and ensure that low-income Canadians have access to the funding required for energy upgrades to reduce the energy poverty across the country as well.

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Ms. Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia—Lambton, CPC)

Feb/1/22 12:54:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for covering so many great topics in his speech. I want to talk about affordable housing because in Sarnia we have an affordable housing crisis. Because of the lack of action on the part of the Liberals, we are now seeing an increase in homelessness. I wonder if the member could comment on what that is like in his riding. Is he seeing the same thing?

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