44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 2, 2022 02:00PM
- Feb/2/22 4:39:49 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by saying hello to my new team members: Meili Faille, who is a former Bloc Québécois MP, Anaïs Thibodeau and Mishka Caldwell‑Pichette, who are probably watching right now. A warm welcome to them all.
I listened closely to members' speeches on this bill to implement the federal government's priority measures. I found the speech given by the member for Joliette to be particularly interesting.
I have an opportunity to remind members that even though Ottawa may be shelling out billions of dollars during this pandemic, the government is still trying to avoid showing the leadership expected of it to help those doing their part to ensure a real economic recovery.
I salute the contribution of all the political actors who realize the challenges we face in the regions and who, like me, will demand recognition for the importance of these vast territories, Abitibi—Témiscamingue in particular, and demand investments befitting their people and their aspirations. What we want is a real economic recovery for the regions.
As an aside, I want to salute Patrick Perreault of Métal Marquis and the great leadership he has shown with the Table Métal Abitibi-Ouest. Faced with a serious labour shortage, the people in that group know how to be proactive.
Although everyone is affected by and dealing with the pandemic, people still have every right to expect the government to speed up measures that affect the public directly. Let us not forget that voters declined to give the Liberals the privilege of a majority government, and rightly so.
I want to make it very clear that the Liberals do not want to solve anything at the end of the day. They systematically refuse to acknowledge the ongoing problem that is putting a stranglehold on the finances of Quebec and the provinces.
Let us have a look at what is in the minister's economic update. The government is maintaining the Canada health transfer escalator at 3%, which is the legal minimum and below the annual increase in health care costs, until 2027. What are the actual needs when it comes to the health transfer?
Quebec and the provinces are unanimously calling for an immediate payment of $28 billion to cover up to 35% of health care costs, followed by a 6% escalator. This is what the provinces are talking about when they speak with the minister and her officials.
To put that in perspective, the Abitibi‑Témiscamingue region accounts for roughly 2% of the population of Quebec, so it should receive around $120 million in recurrent funding every year. The problems we are having, in obstetrics for example, could be solved with permanent funding from the federal government through a transfer to Quebec.
As I see it, the federal government's categorical rejection of the provinces' demands is nothing new. A lot of ink has been spilled on this subject. However, people now have a better understanding of the significance and consequences of Ottawa's inaction. People are seeing how worn out, inert and craven the Liberal government is.
Let us not forget that ordinary people, our heroes, are the backbone of the health care system. I commend the leadership of Caroline Roy, CEO of the CISSS of Abitibi‑Témiscamingue, and her entire team, as well as the nurses and all the health workers in Abitibi‑Témiscamingue and elsewhere. I thank them for their work and encourage them to keep going.
People are wrong if they think they will never understand what a fiscal imbalance is. The pandemic crisis has exacerbated problems in health care, and the on-the-ground impact of underfunding is very real. I am sure my esteemed colleagues will agree that the money should be in the provinces' hands, not in the federal government's coffers.
Now, where is the investment the government promised, the tens of billions it was going to spend to lay the foundation for a strong recovery and create wealth without falling back on the oil economy of the last century? How about accelerating investment in aerospace, green energy and forestry? Those sectors are important to Quebec.
I have asked myself the same question my colleague posed about the utility of the new tax and its impact on unoccupied buildings owned by foreigners, and I recognize that this overheated market needs cooling.
What the Liberals are serving up now are measures that were announced in the 2020 economic statement, in budget 2021 and in a public consultation carried out last summer that, may I remind the House, did not attract much interest.
It is worth noting that this is the first time the federal government has stuck its finger in the property tax pie. It is all part of the Liberal pattern of interference. The federal government should work with the Government of Quebec and the City of Montreal rather than encroach on their jurisdiction.
The government should not be allowing property owners to leave their units vacant and unoccupied during a housing shortage. This measure does nothing to help regions like Abitibi‑Témiscamingue, which is also experiencing an unprecedented housing shortage. The solution is investments in affordable housing and transfers to the provinces. Once again, the federal government is infringing on an area of provincial jurisdiction.
I would also be remiss if I failed to mention the needs of Abitibi—Témiscamingue residents. I live there, and it is a region blessed by nature. However, in order to live there and develop the area, we need to act now and make sure it is developed in a sustainable way. We will never succeed in solving our labour shortage issues if we choose to be content with strategies that do nothing meaningful to ensure the vitality of our region and our homes. That does not reflect the strong economy that we have in Abitibi—Témiscamingue.
We are in a position to capitalize on the emerging critical mineral economy, but I have some concerns. We want to process our resources close to where they are extracted. The current paradigm needs to shift. No more plundering our resources and sending them elsewhere in the world to be developed. We want these resources to be processed close to where they are extracted, in the mining regions.
The government needs to respond to our strategies to revitalize the forestry industry and develop new forest-based products.
We also have the right to promote our agri-food industry, what we process locally, and to make it easier to get our local products to market and ensure they can be competitive. What can be done to get more of the local products that our agri-food industry produces into the hands of a wider public?
Access to high-speed Internet is very important for SMEs and is critical to helping them go digital and claim their share of the market. There are apps available to them now, but they need access to high-speed Internet to use them. Some business owners are unable to access the tools to market their products.
According to the Agri-Food Innovation Council, small and medium-sized businesses in the industry cannot adopt some new technologies as quickly as their competitors in the United States and Europe because technological advancements rely on high-speed Internet access. GPS and videoconferencing are just two examples of this. People in urban areas take these things for granted, but people in many rural parts of Quebec and Canada do not yet have that luxury.
I think everyone understands what I am talking about. The government can make a real difference for the thousands of people in rural communities by adopting policies and measures that will enable economic undertakings to succeed.
On December 9, I spoke to the House in detail about the affordable housing shortage. The regions need money to build desperately needed housing. This is an unprecedented crisis.
The current housing situation in Abitibi‑Témiscamingue, in Quebec and in Canada is a perennial one caused by the chronic housing shortage, among other things. That is why building new homes is key.
We know that the need and the demand for housing will very likely continue to increase in the coming years. The government should therefore learn from the mistakes made in recent years and find innovative ways to stimulate the construction of housing, especially social, community and truly affordable housing.
I will now address one of the items in this budget statement. I believe that we need to get rid of fly-in, fly-out work and stop thinking of commuter workers as a magic bullet that will solve the labour shortage in remote areas. This system causes capital flight and does not attract new residents. I am really worried about this measure. Are we going to be able to let people develop resources in Abitibi‑Témiscamingue and then spend their wages elsewhere? Are we going to go so far as to pay for them to do that?
I think we need a new paradigm, one that encourages people to move to the regions and to settle in the area where the work is found. This measure seeks to expand the travel component of the northern residents deduction by giving them the option to claim up to $1,200 in eligible travel expenses. I am concerned that it will encourage specialized tradespeople to deduct their travel expenses from their income when they work in remote areas. In other words, this measure would cancel out much of the efforts being made by elected officials in remote areas.
This phenomenon is occurring at a time when the regions have a high birth rate. What kind of future will young families have in remote areas? Instead, should we not encourage people to move to the regions permanently to promote settlement and promote special status for Abitibi‑Témiscamingue in particular?
This could offer a long-term response to the labour shortage.
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- Feb/2/22 4:50:45 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to my colleague, if there is one thing I will never bother to whine about here, it is equalization. Quebec never gets its fair share of budgets. Meanwhile, billions pour in for southern Ontario's automotive industry and for oil and gas.
The issues raised by the automotive industry include the processing of the critical minerals required for electric vehicles. Where will the lithium from our regions, particularly Abitibi—Témiscamingue, be processed? Will it be done near the source? Will it create jobs? Money does not need to be transferred, but can we at least spend our own money that will be generated by creating salaries and jobs in the regions? The entire economic system needs to change.
Otherwise, there is only one solution: Quebec independence.
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- Feb/2/22 4:52:39 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology for the question. Regarding the health transfer, I want to note that when we talk about the fiscal imbalance on the one hand and the absence of $6 billion in health transfers to Quebec on the other, to me that amounts to the same thing. Quebec is being taken for a ride, and I will never allow that.
On the issue of the labour shortage, there are also some solutions. We agree that the budget statement does not offer any tangible solution to the labour shortage problem. For example, hundreds, if not thousands, of students from francophone countries are systematically rejected. There is a problem with the system right now, seeing as a certain “systemic discrimination” is causing these people to be rejected.
Back home in Abitibi—Témiscamingue, there have been four such cases. These people are part of the strategy to attract workers to address the labour problem. These are people who are coming to study here in specialized fields at our universities and CEGEPs and who will fill jobs in the labour market. We want to welcome them to our regions, but right now, Ottawa is preventing us from doing so.
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- Feb/2/22 4:54:58 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, I share my colleague's concern.
We absolutely need to focus on building social housing. We will have to find ways to fund it. I dream of seeing a new plan for figuring out how to maximize land use and build new housing across Canada. It is the challenge of the century.
We must ensure that everyone has access to affordable housing. One of the solutions for finding money is the fight against tax havens. That seems obvious to me. It is time to take action.
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