44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 22, 2022 10:00AM
- Mar/22/22 11:10:30 a.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, to pick up on the theme of love, I have a love for our country, Canada. The government needs to provide many support programs, whether they are for seniors, such as the 10% increase for those 75 and older or the GIS increases or the many other types of programs that the government needs to provide to support real people in tangible ways.
I wonder if my colleague could continue his thoughts on how important it is to have revenues to provide these programs, and how the revenue comes from a multitude of sources, including oil and gas.
100 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/22/22 11:11:13 a.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right.
I rarely agree with my colleague from Winnipeg North, but I agree with him. We need revenue to support seniors. I can easily find some revenue for him. If we stopped supporting the oil and gas industry, we would have some revenue.
From 2015 to 2017, $111 billion was allocated to support the most polluting sector in the world. We must reconsider this. From 2018 to 2020, $78 billion was allocated. Maybe if we ended all these oil and gas subsidies, we could use that money to do something more logical, by which I mean increase health transfers.
I invite members to think about that. That is a good starting point.
120 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/22/22 11:52:05 a.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague.
I listened intently to what he said and there are a number of items we agree with. We were all elected to Parliament to represent our constituents and to work collaboratively through partnership to make lives better for Canadians. As we all know, revenue comes to government from so many different sources, and government needs revenue to provide support for seniors, families and people of different abilities, and to continue the great programs for early childhood education and all others.
Can you please comment on increasing sources of revenue? How can government work better on that to provide Canadians with affordable housing and all the services they deserve?
118 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/22/22 11:53:08 a.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to comment on your behalf.
I would refer the hon. member to our opposition day motion from yesterday. We proposed a 3% surcharge tax on industries that have done very well in the pandemic, whether it is big banks, box stores or oil and gas companies, which are the beneficiaries of these incredible increases at the pump. That is just one proposal that we managed to table yesterday.
However, there are many things we think the Liberal government ought to be doing on the question of tax fairness. We ran on a wealth tax. I think that is a far more fair way to raise revenue, rather than asking the middle class, which is already struggling, to pay more in taxes to fund these things. That is another way we can fund something like temporary relief from the GST on home heating.
We should be working to close the agreements we have about tax havens given the PBO has said we are losing $25 billion a year in revenue there. Beyond the 3% surcharge tax that was proposed yesterday, we need to be looking at an excess profit tax for the companies that did extraordinarily well during the pandemic on top of their normal healthy earnings and profits.
There are absolutely a lot of ways we could be raising revenue in Canada. There are other jurisdictions that have shown far more leadership on this, both in closing tax loopholes and in ensuring that the wealthy pay their fair share. It is high time we did that, and we will continue to be a voice pressuring the government to do those things in the months and years ahead.
282 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/22/22 3:53:16 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I very much agree with my hon. colleague that Canadians are experiencing a dramatic hardship due to the high cost of living, whether it is for food, housing, services or, as this motion speaks to, gas at the pumps. As the member said, we are facing record-high gas prices. The problem I see with this motion is that it would do nothing about the excessive profits being made by oil and gas companies. We know that companies such as Suncor just made net profits of $4.1 billion. Someone is profiting enormously from prices of gas at $2 per gallon.
Instead of doing this, would the member agree that we should impose a tax of 3% on profits over $1 billion, as the NDP has suggested, and redirect that revenue to everyday Canadians?
136 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
