44th Parl. 1st Sess.

March 4, 2022 10:00AM

Mr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP)

Mar/4/22 10:34:56 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-8

Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate to be able to rise today and contribute to the House's debate of the Liberal government's bill, Bill C-8, which has been faithfully reported back to the House by the Standing Committee on Finance. The committee did consider one amendment to that, and of course today we are dealing with the report stage amendments brought forward by my Conservative colleagues. I very much appreciate the work done by committee members in examining this bill. I especially want to thank my colleague, the member for Elmwood—Transcona, who is the finance critic for my caucus and has been shouldering a lot of work at that committee. Bill C-8 is an act that would implement certain provisions presented to the House in the fall economic statement. It would be a gross understatement to say that the country, and indeed much of the world, have changed since mid-December. I know, from the feedback from people in my riding and people I work with here in the chamber, that the pace of change over the last two months has really left our heads spinning. We seem, as a country, to be lurching from crisis to crisis these days, and it is not giving people much of a breather to accept their changed reality. I am hearing a lot of accounts of the mental health stress this has put on people. It was back in mid-December that we were just, at the House, beginning to get a glimpse of how bad the omicron wave was really going to be. I remember the news reports in early December that there was some hope that the variant, which first emerged and was detected in South Africa, did not seem to have as much lethality to it, but of course that was blown out of the water by the concerns of how rapidly it spread. Even if a smaller percentage of people ended up going to the hospital, that small percentage, when we had the variant passing through our population so rapidly, did give rise to very considerable fears that our hospital system would be overwhelmed. Of course we had a change in leadership with one of our political parties in the House. We had the protests descend on Ottawa and many cities across Canada, which turned into an illegal occupation and blockades at our border, further putting strains on our relationship with the United States. Then, of course, beginning just a few short days after that ended, we now have a fully modern conflict raging in Ukraine, where unprovoked Russian aggression is now putting the lives of 40 million Ukrainians at risk. Here we are. The world has changed quite a bit. I do want to acknowledge that it is a frustrating time for so many people, especially in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. They are, like many Canadians, dealing with the inflationary pressures. They see the results in the price of food at the grocery store and the cost every time they fill up their vehicles. What people have also witnessed over the last two years is the fact that so many of the wealthy in Canada, and indeed many of our most profitable corporations, have seen their profits soar during this time. Many of those companies actually took pandemic benefits and were guilty of paying out dividends to their shareholders. It seems the hard-working families in my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford are working twice as hard as their parents but for less money. These pressures are putting families at the breaking point. That is why I have always been proud to be part of a party that stands for trying to ease that inequality in Canada and making sure the very rich in our country do pay their fair share. If they do not, that burden ends up falling on working families. In my riding, in the space of one year, depending on what part of the riding someone is in, we saw housing prices increase anywhere in the neighbourhood of 30% to 40%. That is in one year. With those stratospheric record levels of housing costs, of course many people were trying to sell their homes during that time to take advantage of the high prices. All of that selling in the Cowichan Valley also caused a huge crisis on rental availability, because when people are putting their house up for sale, usually the tenants are evicted as it is not really known if the new owner wants to inherit tenants or not. We also have the worst record in the G7 when it comes to combatting climate change. In my province of British Columbia, we saw a record heat wave in June. We saw wildfires consume so many communities right across the province, and then just a few short months later, we saw catastrophic floods that effectively cut off the Port of Vancouver, our busiest port, from the rest of the country. A smart government would be looking at this and looking at the evidence that these climate change natural disasters will keep piling up if we do not address them. A smart government would look at the economic toll this will place on our ability to raise revenue in the future. As for my Conservative colleagues, who like to proclaim themselves as fiscally responsible, they should not ignore the damage this is going to do to future tax revenue and our ability to help communities from coastal inundation, protect them from wildfire danger and stand up for our hard-working men and women in agriculture, who seem to be dealing with flooding and droughts at a much more precipitous pace. I know, from my time at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, of which I have been a proud member for four years now, that all farmers will tell us they are on the front lines of climate change. They need to have some recognition of the good work they are doing. They also need a partner in Ottawa who is going to help them take advantage and thrive through these very uncertain times. It is all about choices. With Bill C-8, I think there is a sense of regret. For me, it is a sense of regret for what could have been and what should have been. That being said, if through these measure, we are going to propose things like allowing small businesses to acquire equipment that will improve the quality of their indoor air, I think that is a solid investment. Just because we are starting to see some very hopeful signs of us getting out of this latest variant of COVID-19 does not mean there will not be future airborne illnesses. We want make indoor air quality much better, and we would if we were to make these targeted investments. I also like the idea of allowing for an increase in the school supplies tax credit and allowing us to expand that eligibility criteria to include the electronic devices that educators benefit from. A lot of people are struggling to make sure they can get by on those family budgets, so little measures like that, for many families, can actually go quite a long way. I am also interested in the proposal here in Bill C-8 about the refundable tax credit for the return of fuel levy proceeds to agricultural businesses. This has been an issue we have been seized with at the Standing Committee on Agriculture, because, especially when it comes to activities such as grain drying or even heating a barn, I am all for giving farmers an alternative that is not based on fossil fuels. However, what we heard, very clearly, at the agriculture committee was that the technologies that are free of fossil fuels are not yet commercially viable, and they will not be so for another 10 years. Therefore, if we are going to make sure we are trying to give that price incentive, we still have to ensure that a viable alternative exists for our farmers, which is why I am in favour of giving them these very specific and targeted breaks, so they can make it through with their bottom line. Part 2 of Bill C-8 would basically establish a 1% annual tax on the value of vacant or underutilized residential property. This would only be when the direct and indirect owners are non-residents or non-Canadians. Again, on housing, there are so many more ways that the government could have tackled this very big issue. I would say this is a good first start, but there is much more that needs to be done. I know the government likes to pat itself on the back with all of the things it has done with housing, but the proof is in the pudding. If we still see housing prices rise to these stratospheric heights, we have to measure the effectiveness of the policy against that reality. I will conclude here by saying that we do have a federal budget coming in the next number of months. I sincerely hope the government realizes that this is the time for bold policy action, to really make sure Canada comes through these uncertain and very challenging times.

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