44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 4, 2022 10:00AM
- Feb/4/22 12:33:16 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House, especially today to speak on Bill C-8, An Act to implement certain provisions of the economic and fiscal update tabled in Parliament on December 14, 2021 and other measures.
Canadians are worried and frustrated. They want a plan for the recovery. They want hope, and that is not what they got from the economic and fiscal update tabled by the government on December 14, 2021.
Canadians can feel the middle-class dream slipping away, and this economic statement and fiscal update did nothing to address what is causing them to feel that way. If anything, it exacerbated it. It did not help the young families moving from Toronto and Peel Region, predominantly, to Flamborough—Glanbrook, who are worried about the startling increase in the cost of living. It did not help the small business owners who were struggling to stay afloat, nor the farmers who are putting food on our tables, nor the seniors. There are many seniors' villages in my constituency. Many seniors built this country, and are living on fixed incomes.
Allow me to focus on four things this afternoon in this discussion of Bill C-8: one, the ballooning cost of living; two, the housing crisis; three, disrupted supply chains; and four, the lack of a coherent plan for the economy.
Let us talk about inflation. Canadians are feeling the pinch at the grocery store, at the gas station and on their home heating bill. Canadians have never felt more pessimistic about their financial futures. Take Gary from Stoney Creek Mountain, who is a senior living on a fixed income. He wrote to my office recently. He was gravely concerned because every month he sees more of his income being spent on food and fuel. Seniors such as Gary, who have worked their entire lives and who helped to build this country into what it is today, deserve to enjoy their retirement years. That is something that the reckless policies of the government are robbing them of.
Inflation is at its highest point in 30 years. Earlier this week, the Governor of the Bank of Canada suggested that inflation could remain as high as 5% for the first half of the year in 2022. That 5% does not actually tell the whole story, because the price of chicken is up 6%, beef is up almost 12% and natural gas is up 19%. As to gas for our cars, we saw the highest price ever in Hamilton and the GTA this past week. It is up 33%. Those are the things that families need and depend on every day.
What makes matters worse is that the government refuses to take any blame. At first it told Canadians that it actually was not really a problem, then members of the government threw up their hands and said there was nothing they could do about it. Young families in my riding who are paying $1,000 extra for groceries this year deserve a better answer that.
Talking of issues affecting young Canadians, which the government pretends to care a lot about, home prices across the country are up 25%. The Realtors Association of Hamilton-Burlington, in my area, announced yesterday that the average home price in Hamilton is now over $1 million. Under the government, my constituents have seen the housing bubble grow to be the second-most-inflated in the world. It is up 85%. How much can young Canadians see these prices go up under the government? It is no wonder that so many people under 30 years old have completely given up on the dream of ever owning a home.
Another issue I would like to address is the impact of disrupted supply chains. That is having a great impact on our economy from coast to coast, and on our trade. It is not something that was sufficiently addressed, and there were no solutions sufficiently provided in the fall economic and fiscal update. We know there are complicating factors, such as port congestion and exploding container prices. Of course, there are labour shortages everywhere across the supply chain, as well as increased inputs for all facets of production.
On top of this, the government’s dismissal of the truckers is exacerbating the problem. How can we make a dent in the supply chain backlog when a number of truckers are off the road? They are outside the walls here. They are frustrated and want to be heard, yet there is no dialogue. There is no olive branch from the government.
Here is what it means to farmers and producers in my riding who cannot get trucks to get their products to market. I will give two examples of the calls and conversations I have had in the last few weeks.
Ray, a farmer in Flamborough, grows organic grains. He grows organic corn and soybeans and mills them for feed that is provided to chicken farmers in Pennsylvania and upper New York state, who in turn sell their organic chickens to restaurants in New York City. It is a great opportunity for all because each of the participants along the supply chain earns a premium on the product, which the consumers of New York are willing to pay. It is good for everyone, but Ray is frustrated, as he cannot get trucks to get the grain out of his bins. If he cannot get the grain out of his bins, he cannot get the revenue to buy the seed he needs to plant the crop this spring for his crop this year, and he needs that cash flow.
Ray told me the whole process of trucks on his farm is contactless. The drivers are in their cabs, the process is all electronic and they do not even have to roll down their windows. It is another example of disruptions in the supply chain that are taking place across the country, which were not sufficiently addressed in the government's fiscal and economic update. The response really has been a shoulder shrug.
Another example is a large greenhouse operator in my riding, Jan. He also said he needs trucks to get his product to market, which is perishable. On top of the labour shortages that he is dealing with, the dramatic cost of freight has increased, the input costs have increased and the packaging costs have increased, and he cannot ship by truck. This economic and fiscal update offered no hope to Jan and the other producers across Canada. Urgent action is needed.
A glaring omission in the fiscal and economic update was any concrete plan for the economy. Where is the plan for economic growth? We can see the plan to spend another $71 billion that we do not have, but where is the plan to grow the economy to pay for that, to create the prosperity this country needs so we can have more money to buy more goods and alleviate inflationary pressures and to have the resources we need to invest in health care and ICU capacity, which we know from the pandemic has been clearly lacking?
It should worry all of us that the OECD published a report the same week as the fiscal and economic update that said Canada would be the worst performing industrialized economy in the world in a decade from now, 2020 through to 2030. That is shocking. The OECD is saying that Canada will have the slowest growth of all the world's industrialized economies. That is worse than Italy and Greece. With all due respect to my Greek and Italian friends, they are perennial underperformers. That is not where Canada should be.
What is even more worrisome was a report that came out in January that said Canada has had the weakest private sector investment in our economy in years. Where is the business confidence? Where is that growth potential for the future that we need? It is private sector investment that is going to grow our economy, not government spending. The fact that the fiscal and economic update ignored that does not encourage us. It is yet another reason to vote against Bill C-8.
No one works harder than Canadians, none of our OECD competitors have smarter people or people with more ingenuity and we have a great country blessed with resources from coast to coast, so the problem is not us. The problem is not Canadians. The economic headwinds we face are a problem of the government that is leading us. Bill C-8 does not offer any hope to change that. There is no plan to really unleash Canada’s economic potential in this particular piece of legislation. We can do better.
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- Feb/4/22 12:43:44 p.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, I lived in Alberta for nine years. In fact, my wife is from southern Alberta, so we certainly share that in common. I gave a couple of examples of farmers and farm groups in my riding that have been impacted by this, so I empathize with them.
In terms of some of the acts we have seen from the protests, I personally condemn those. I did that on Facebook over the weekend. My grandfather fought the Nazis as part of the Dutch resistance in the Netherlands, and certainly we abhor and condemn these actions and the acts that took place at the National War Memorial. A member of the military from Hamilton, my hometown, was there, Corporal Nathan Cirillo. He gave his life to the country during the shooting in 2014.
The point we are making is that the government needs to have a dialogue with the truckers, those who are legitimately there protesting peacefully. We should have that dialogue so we can end the protest, end the lockdowns and clear the backlog.
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- Feb/4/22 12:46:16 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, it is great to address my neighbour, and absolutely we will find a coffee shop. I am not sure there is one along Milburough Town Line, because there are really just fields there, but that is fine. I will make the trek to Milton. It is a great community.
I am always interested in working productively and collaboratively with all members of the House. In fact, one of the first meetings I had as a member of Parliament was with my neighbour and colleague, the hon. Filomena Tassi, who is the Minister of Procurement and is in the riding next to mine.
An hon. member: Uh-oh. Rookie.
Mr. Dan Muys: Sorry, I should rephrase. She is the hon. member for Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas.
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- Feb/4/22 12:47:24 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, I work collaboratively with all other MPs in the Hamilton area. We do so on a regular basis when we work together.
I thank the member for the announcement of rural broadband in Flamborough—Glanbrook. There is a lot more work to do. I made that point yesterday in the House. While 47 is great, there are 8,000 rural homes, my own being one of them, where internet is insufficient. Let us work together and keep that going.
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- Feb/4/22 12:48:43 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, I have lived in Alberta and Quebec, and I understand that Canada is a complex country. We need to respect our provinces and our federal government. I take that to heart.
To her question about housing, I raised in my comments that housing is something we need desperately in my part of the world. We are short 110,000 homes in the Hamilton area simply to catch up, so I certainly encourage all of the investment in housing that can happen and await the government's housing strategy.
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