44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 22, 2022 10:00AM
- Mar/22/22 11:29:18 a.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise to speak to the motion today.
I commend the sponsor of the motion for putting some concrete ideas on the table about how we could try to provide relief to Canadians who are living through very difficult economic times. That certainly has been a focus of the work of the NDP over the last number of years. I will not belabour the history of our attempts to make sure that working people and vulnerable people in Canada have what they need in order to live a life of dignity, but it has certainly been a focus of ours through the pandemic.
That is why I think we have seen a real willingness on the part of New Democrats to come to this place with the understanding that while we may not have liked the outcome of the election, we respect what Canadians did in building a Parliament with the expectation that parliamentarians would come here to work on their behalf and try to navigate the Parliament that they elected and try to come to agreement on concrete policy ideas that would make a difference in their lives.
That does not mean that every idea put on the table will find agreement in this place, but I think we are doing our job well when we take those proposals seriously and make counter-proposals in the event that we do not like the initial offering. I think Canadians enjoy seeing their parliamentarians engaged in that kind of work.
There is no question that these are difficult economic times. I had the opportunity yesterday to speak to some of the reasons that Canadians are having such difficult times and why, even sometimes in the face of good-news announcements about the economy, we are not seeing that news translating into financial and economic security for the many Canadians who are worried about losing their jobs in an economy that still needs more workers. We hear there is a labour shortage, but many Canadians are living with pretty serious job insecurity. They are already either out of work, working reduced hours or concerned about the future of their industry. That is true for industries that have been affected by the pandemic. We could think of the tourism and travel industry, the entertainment industry and others that are still reeling from the impacts of the pandemic and wondering what they might look like in the future.
It also because of climate change. Many Canadians see the impacts of climate and extreme weather events on supply chains and understand the need for the Canadian economy to become more sustainable if we are to prevent the worst scenarios of climate change. Canadians are right to wonder about their own individual place in that and the meaning of those changes for their families. That all comes back to what I said my opening remarks, when I said it is incumbent upon us as elected representatives to work in good faith to find solutions and create a path that gives Canadians a better sense of certainty about where the economy is heading so that they can better plan their individual futures and the futures of their families and neighbourhoods.
The question before us today is in light of rising prices in this intense period of inflation that we have embarked upon and what that means for Canadians who are struggling with income and job security and rising prices. What can we do to provide some relief? We have talked many times about longer-term things that the government ought to be doing. Certainly we need to see policy action in the housing market, but that situation is not going to change overnight. It would be very hard to affect the affordability of housing overnight, but that does not mean there are not things we could be doing right now to put us on the path toward lowering the cost of housing. We certainly need to see better action in that area.
It is sad that we are so far away from an effective housing policy in Canada, but one thing the government could and should be doing right now, and New Democrats are working hard to get the government to do it, is just ensure that the public funds that we do spend now to build affordable housing actually build affordable housing.
Of course, the definition of affordability in the national housing strategy has been a barrier to that, because the way the Liberals initially chose to define housing affordability has actually kept so-called affordable housing out of the reach of far too many Canadians. One thing we could do is change that definition to make sure that the projects that are receiving public funds do in fact create housing that is truly affordable for those who find themselves in the greatest housing need. That is something we could be doing in the longer term.
As well, the NDP ran on child care many times. We were always told by the Liberals that it was unrealistic and could not be done, that there was so much jurisdictional negotiating to do that the provinces would never get behind it and it was not the role of the federal government. Some Liberals may be nodding because they remember these lines from the 2015 campaign, when they repeated them ad nauseam. They may remember them from the subsequent Parliament, where for four years, in a majority government, they chose to repeat those lines rather than to get to work and do something. What we found, when they found the political will after years of pressure from the NDP, from civil society and from Canadian parents who knew better and needed the help, was that they were actually able to conclude those deals rather quickly. What is remaining is for them to cement that in legislation to make sure those things cannot be undone in the way that a Conservative government subsequently undid the Canada health accord arrangement. Then to their shame, the Liberals chose to perpetuate that by not convening new rounds of negotiations on a Canada health accord and instead went around signing bilateral deals.
Are there things the government could be doing to create a context in three, five or 10 years where some of the price pressure on Canadian households would be reduced? Absolutely, there are. Another important place where Canadian households are suffering is dental care, because too many Canadians do not have coverage or the money to be able to pay for dental care. Someone told me a story earlier today about how their brother, who had a decent job but did not have dental care, had to move back in with his parents as an adult because the money he had to borrow in order to get his mouth fixed meant that he could not live independently anymore and he was going to have to remain living with his parents for some time until his financial situation improved. The government can work on that area right now to bring those costs down for Canadians into the future, next year and the year after.
There is still the question of whether government could do something that would have a truly immediate impact, and that is the proposal we find ourselves discussing today. In this case, the Conservatives have proposed lifting the GST off of the price of gas at the pump. Again we have a concrete proposal that can provide immediate effect, but we have to ask whether this is the right proposal and whether it is going to have all of the right consequences.
I would first say that part of the issue I have with this proposal is that it really prioritizes reducing the price on just oil and gas. That is only one of the issues that are confronting Canadians in this difficult time. I think we want to try to find financial relief for Canadians that is not simply about putting more emphasis on oil and gas when we know, in the face of the climate crisis, that we need to de-emphasize the role of oil and gas in our economy. That is one flag that goes up in respect of this proposal.
Another flag that goes up from the point of view of equity is that while many Canadians rely on cars to get to and from work and to drop off their kids and pick them up from school, not all Canadians do that. There are other Canadians who are not using a car, sometimes because they cannot afford it and sometimes because they have made a choice to use other means of transportation, whether active transportation or public transportation. There are seniors who do not drive because their eyesight is not up to it and they have had their licence revoked or they have made the decision themselves not to drive anymore. These people are also experiencing these very real cost pressures, so if we are going to provide immediate financial relief, it is important to find something that can apply to as large a category of people as possible and is sure to capture the most vulnerable. That is not to say that it has to be limited to the most vulnerable, but it certainly ought to capture them. I think we have to look in the mirror and wonder if we are really getting that balance right. That is a very important consideration.
The other thing I would say is this: While I think that tax relief is a mechanism can sometimes be appropriate, I would like to propose an amendment near the end of my speech on this motion, and I would be remiss if I did not think that this motion coming from the Conservatives is part of a larger project to always find a way to simply blame government when we know that there are a lot of other things that are driving cost pressures.
High prices at the gas pump are not a new thing. Oil and gas companies have been finding ways and pretexts to raise the price at the pump for years. Sometimes they pertain to, in this case, a global crisis that is well outside the immediate control of the Canadian government, but sometimes a long weekend is good enough for them to jack up prices. Tax relief on the cost at the pump without any further guarantee that prices would remain low and that those savings would be transferred to the consumer raises the question of whether oil and gas companies would simply see this as another reason to raise their own prices in order to capture that extra bit of revenue, instead of having it go back to consumers. While I am glad to see a real proposal come out of the Conservative Party, and I might hazard to say it is the first in this Parliament, I think those are all reasons that we do not think this proposal is quite on the mark.
What I do think might be on the mark and still within the scope of this motion, because it is about providing tax relief on an energy product in the context of significant inflation, would be to instead see the lifting of the GST not at the price on the pump but on home heating, because that is something that applies to everyone. While I respect that driving one's car, whether it is for work or for other reasons, is well integrated into the lives of many Canadians, and this is true for me at home, there is a little more flexibility for people on how much they drive and how often they drive than there is on whether they heat their home.
If we are living in Canada in the winter, we are going to be heating our homes. It does not matter if we are a vulnerable senior who can no longer drive. It does not matter if we have made the choice to use public transportation or active transportation and it does not matter if we are using an electric car: We are going to be heating our homes. If we are serious about trying to provide widespread relief to Canadians and if we are serious about ensuring that this is not just another way to talk about oil and gas in Parliament because some people feel that makes the government feel uncomfortable or because it is a nice thing to say to lobbyists from the oil and gas industry when they come visit our offices, then I think a proposal around home heating is a better way to go.
Of course, this idea was touted for a long time by Jack Layton, and as far as we are concerned, it is a bit of unfinished business. There are a lot of other essential goods that the GST does not apply to because we recognize that Canadians simply cannot go without certain things and we think it is reasonable to withhold charging the GST on those things. I think home heating is another example of how that can be done.
There is another thing I would add, and I am going to speak from the Manitoba experience here as I am not an expert on public utilities across Canada. In the Manitoba context, if a public utility wants to raise rates, they have to go through a public process. They have to make submissions to the public utilities board. They cannot just wantonly raise their rates, unlike oil and gas companies at the pump.
By withholding the GST on home heating, not only would we have a tax relief measure that would apply more broadly across the board, but we would also have better assurance that companies will not simply make up the difference and take that revenue for themselves while charging the consumer more, because, at least in some parts of the country, the companies that might consider doing that would have go through a process of public review in order to raise the prices.
I think this proposal, which I am going to formally move shortly, is better in that regard. It is better in that it actually captures more people. I think it is more likely to provide real relief to some of Canada's most vulnerable, while also still providing meaningful relief to Canada's middle class, which is also really struggling through this time of inflation. It is a better proposal because we have more reason to expect that tax relief will not simply be eaten up by companies raising their prices. It is also a better proposal because it does not prejudice any one particular type of energy. There are people who heat their homes with renewable energy. There are people who heat their homes with electricity. There are different ways of heating a home, so this is not focused specifically on oil and gas.
It can also continue to benefit Canadians as we transition toward a lower-carbon economy. It is not a proposal that predicates tax relief upon the persistent use of fossil fuels. It recognizes that people are using fossil fuels to heat their homes. It provides tax relief to them anyway, but it does not build oil and gas into the tax relief remedy. I think that is important in the context of figuring out how Canada can provide meaningful help to Canadians in this difficult time, while continuing to honour our very real and important commitment to doing our part to ensure that climate change does not run away on us and cause even more hurt, turmoil and economic dislocation than it is already likely to do.
Those are all the reasons that I am glad to be having this debate in the House today. I have said before that the New Democrats are here to work in the spirit of collaboration with anyone here prepared to work with us to do things that we believe are in the best interests of Canadians. That should come as no surprise to anyone, particularly on this day, when I think the New Democrats have proven that we are prepared to work with people. We do that with eyes wide open. Our eyes would be similarly wide open in working with the Conservatives on improving this motion, and that is something that we are prepared to do. We will continue to be prepared to work with anyone in the House who is prepared to work with us to make a difference in the lives of Canadians. That is what we are here to do. It is what Canadians expect of us. It is not just what Canadians expect of the New Democrats; it is what they expect of every member elected to this chamber.
It is in that spirit that I move, seconded by the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, that the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the words “provide relief” and substituting the following: “to Canadians by removing the federal sales tax from the home heating bills of Canadian households”.
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- Mar/22/22 12:58:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in her speech, my colleague talked about the war in Ukraine, day care programs, and the guaranteed income supplement for seniors. We agree on one thing: We disagree with the Conservatives' proposal. We, too, disagree with it because it is a false solution.
What is not clear to me or to my constituents is the inflation piece, which affects the price of food, supply chains, the labour shortage, the housing shortage, and a bunch of other factors. Inflation seems to be here to stay.
What meaningful steps will the federal government take to address all these problems and offer people some reassurance?
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- Mar/22/22 1:13:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.
I still have the same big question mark over my head. I understand the desire and intention to reduce the burden on Canadians and Quebeckers in these times of crisis, but what I do not understand is that this effort is always going to be directed at the government and the taxpayer. Oil companies are raking in huge profits, and they are receiving huge government subsidies and support.
Why would the Conservatives' proposal not go directly in that direction? Why not force the oil companies to reduce the price at the pump, reducing their profits, so that they too can make their own war effort in times of crisis?
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- Mar/22/22 4:53:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I share her concern about the affordability crisis and the cost of living in our country. I do find, however, that the Conservative policy proposal is rather narrow in its scope. She mentioned that everybody needs a break and I cannot agree more, yet this motion only deals with people who drive.
There are so many people who are struggling with the cost of living who cannot afford to drive. The average cost of car ownership the last time I checked, which was several years ago, was $9,000 per year. There are seniors who do not drive. There are young people who do not drive. There are people who do not drive gas vehicles. None of those people benefit from this motion.
Why did my colleague and her party not consider a more broad initiative that would truly help every Canadian with the affordability crisis?
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- Mar/22/22 5:21:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one of the issues within the motion that I am sure Bloc members are concerned about is that the Conservatives' proposal could be perceived as something that would take away from provincial jurisdiction regarding the tax on gas in the province of Quebec.
Could the member add some further comment? The member made some reference to it, and I would be very much interested in how she perceives the motion from that perspective.
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