SoVote

Mar/31/22 10:16:26 a.m.
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moved: That, given that, (i) excessive government spending has increased the deficit, the national debt, and fuelled inflation to its highest level in 31 years, (ii) taxes on Canadians continue to increase, from the carbon tax to escalator taxes to Canada Pension Plan premiums, (iii) the government refuses to provide relief to Canadians by temporarily reducing the Goods and Services Tax on gasoline and diesel, the House call on the government to present a federal budget rooted in fiscal responsibility, with no new taxes, a path to balance, and a meaningful fiscal anchor. He said: Mr. Speaker, I want to let you know that I am splitting my time with the member for Mégantic—L'Érable. Excessive government spending; deficits as far as the eye can see; the largest national debt this country has ever seen, in fact doubled in a short six years; inflation running rampant; skyrocketing housing prices; seven years littered with broken promises: that is the record of the failed Liberal government. The motion before us today is hoping to right the ship somewhat. As members know, next week on April 7, the Minister of Finance is going to be tabling in the House a budget that is intended to chart the pathway forward for this country when it comes to our finances and how we spend taxpayers' money. Given the fact that the last six years of the Liberal government has been such an unmitigated financial disaster, we would like to make some suggestions for what it could do to actually restore some sanity and probity into our fiscal situation here in our country. Let me begin by talking about what Canadians have come to expect. Over the last two and a half years we have been fighting the COVID pandemic. Rightfully Canadians have been concerned about their health and the health of their neighbours, so we were asked to be vaccinated. Remember that? We were told if we were vaccinated we would not pick up the COVID virus. Of course, now we find out that is not true. I am triple vaccinated and I have not had the COVID virus. My wife is triple vaccinated. After she was triple vaccinated, she got the COVID virus and we live together, so the health authorities had that wrong. I support vaccination, but the Liberals told us if Canadians got vaccinated we will have life return to normal. Lockdowns will be gone, mandates will be lifted and life will be back to normal. What happened? It was quite the opposite. We are still under lockdowns. We are still under vaccine mandates at the federal level, which is the Prime Minister's responsibility. Now we are faced with an even greater challenge and that is inflation. Today, our inflation rate is somewhere in the order of 5.7%. House prices are up a whopping 30% in just this year alone, so how does the government expect young Canadian families who have this dream of home ownership to ever fulfill that dream? Millions of Canadians have lost that dream of home ownership. We have seen gas prices at the pump go up 32% since February of this past year, 2021. Of course, those gas prices continue to climb in my region of Abbotsford and the greater Vancouver area. Some gas stations were charging $2.09 per litre of gas and right now there is no prospect of that going down at all. In fact, the prospect is that those prices will keep going up. In order to address that issue, we as Conservatives, presented solutions. One of those solutions was tabled in the House a week ago, which was to, temporarily at least, lift the GST on gasoline purchases. Give Canadians a break. We had a debate in the House and guess what. Our NDP-Liberal friends voted against relief at the gas pumps. We brought forward another proposal, which was, why do we not lift the carbon tax? Let us get rid of the carbon tax and give motorists a break. We know the NDP-Liberal coalition is opposed to that. In fact, it is the government of high taxes. Inflation is being driven by a number of factors. I have already mentioned taxes. Every time the current government raises taxes, whether it is carbon taxes or the rising GST revenues that it gets because of the rising gas prices, every time it imposes an escalator tax like it did for alcohol and every time it raises CPP premiums, that is a burden on Canadians and it is driving inflationary pressures in Canada. However, it gets worse. Less than a year ago, the Minister of Finance was given a mandate letter from the Prime Minister in which she was instructed to engage in no more new permanent spending. Do members remember that? It was a directive to the finance minister for no new permanent spending. Guess what happened. Today, we are looking at pharmacare. That is new permanent spending. We are looking at dental care. That is new permanent spending. We are looking at transit. We are looking at numerous new spending programs, including child care for example. It goes on and on with broken promises. By the way, in the most recent mandate letter, less than a year after the original one that prohibited new permanent spending, suddenly the mandate letter had no reference at all to new permanent spending. It is a government that loves to virtue signal on finances, on deficits, on debt and on spending, but it never delivers. It gets worse. April 1, tomorrow, is April Fool's Day, and of course the Liberals are going to treat Canadians like fools. What are the Liberals going to do? They are going to increase the carbon tax by another $10 per tonne. Do members know what that means? For those provinces that have the carbon tax backstop it means another 11¢ at the pump. That is on the current Liberal government. They cannot blame that on anyone else. It gets worse. Do people remember the last budget, a year ago, when the Minister of Finance talked about the stimulus that she was going to pump into the economy to get the economy going? The economy was already starting to grow and bounce back, but she insisted that she needed over $100 billion of additional money to pump into the economy. Guess what happened. There was so much money pumped into the economy that it has caused inflation, especially in the housing market. As I already mentioned, in one year alone, there was a 30% increase in housing prices. How are Canadians supposed to cope with that? How are Canadians supposed to cope? We are facing an inflation crisis. We are facing a tax crisis crisis in this country. We are facing a spending crisis in this country. That is why today we are calling upon this finance minister, this Prime Minister and the NDP-Liberal government to do the right thing, which is to rein in spending. In this coming budget next week, we are calling on the government to make sure that there is a clear pathway toward balanced budgets, where we return to living within our means. That is what responsible governments do. We have not seen that for the last six years. We are solution-oriented. We are asking the government to come up with a defensible, firm fiscal anchor that has a clear pathway to a balanced budget in the medium term. In the motion before them, members see that we are asking the government to address inflationary pressures, to address taxation that is going through the roof and to address the needs of Canadians. Canadians are really struggling. They have lost their dream of home ownership. They cannot pay for gas for their cars to take their kids to hockey lessons, to school and to music lessons. They cannot afford life anymore. They cannot buy groceries. My goodness, we are living in one of the richest countries in the world and the current government has made it virtually impossible for many families to even afford groceries. I am asking the government to do the right thing in its upcoming budget. I am asking it to find a pathway to balance, restrain spending and control the urge to spend. I know Liberal tax-and-spend is the way of this country whenever we have a Liberal government. However, I ask the Liberals to listen to us. We are solution-oriented.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Mar/31/22 10:26:36 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, how quickly my friend has forgotten. It was not that long ago when we had a national election and the leader of the Conservative Party was going to actually keep a carbon tax. He supported a carbon tax. What the Conservative Party of Canada supported was a price on pollution. Not only did the Conservatives promise that, but in part of their platform they were actually going to spend more money than what we were proposing to spend. Does my friend opposite not realize that, if we are saying one thing during a national campaign, there is a certain expectation that Canadians might believe what we are saying during the election? Now they are taking a flip-flop not on one or two issues but even on a basic understanding of COVID, as the member said regarding getting vaccinated once or twice and getting a booster. It does not mean that we cannot get infected, but what it does is it minimizes the effects. I am wondering if the member could maybe provide his thoughts on being consistent.

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Hon. Ed Fast

Mar/31/22 10:27:57 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are entirely consistent. The Parliamentary Budget Officer recently issued a report that showed that the carbon tax revenues the Liberal government raises far exceed the rebates it sends back. Virtually every Canadian in this country pays more in carbon tax than they get back. Our plan in the last election was a carbon savings account, not a carbon tax. The member obviously did not read the platform document. We, of course, did, and it was a carbon savings account in which every single dollar Canadians paid would come back to them by way of a formal investment in their carbon savings account. The least I would expect from our Liberal friends is the truth.

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Mr. Jean-Denis Garon (Mirabel, BQ)

Mar/31/22 10:28:56 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague began his speech by misinforming the public, when he implied that the vaccine is not effective because booster doses are required. I would suspect that my colleague has been vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, influenza, hepatitis B, pneumococcus, meningitis, measles, rubella and mumps. All of these vaccines require booster doses. Does my colleague understand what a booster dose is, and does he intend to stop pushing misinformation to Quebeckers and Canadians?

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Hon. Ed Fast

Mar/31/22 10:29:27 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I did not even mention boosters in my speech. What I did say was that I support vaccines. I am triple vaccinated. I have no problem being vaccinated, but I do respect those in Canada, unlike our NDP, Liberal and Bloc colleagues, who differ in their opinions on that. However, I believe vaccines can dramatically reduce mortality and serious illness, and I encourage Canadians to get vaccinated, but it is time to lift the vaccine mandates. We have had them for a long time. A lot of Canadians feel they have lost their freedom as a result, so on top of all of that, we now have the problem of inflationary pressures created by the Liberal government. It is time to get inflation under control. It is time to get spending under control.

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Mar/31/22 10:30:30 a.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, I understand that is the Inuktitut word for “Speaker” on this National Indigenous Languages Day. I wanted to go back to some remarks of the member. During his speech he talked about the Conservatives' previous motion to lift the GST at the pumps, and he would know, from listening to debate on that day, that New Democrats were prepared to entertain the idea of some temporary tax relief for Canadians. We moved an amendment to say that, instead of providing that relief at the pumps, we ought to provide it on home heating. I presented some arguments as to why we thought that was a good idea. It was an opportunity to build a broader consensus here in the House on their motion. Conservatives declined, but I did not hear in that debate the reasons why. I wonder if the member might like to offer the reasons they declined to consider tax relief on home heating that day.

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Hon. Ed Fast

Mar/31/22 10:31:21 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are the party of lower taxes; that is why we brought this forward. One of our colleagues today introduced a bill in the House to eliminate the escalator on excise taxes on alcohol. We are the party of lower taxes. I can tell the member that, when we had the debate on the GST, we were so disappointed that the NDP refused to support us on that. It was a simple measure that would have lifted the GST on gasoline purchases, because GST, unlike many other taxes, is a tax upon a tax. Can members imagine that? Canadians have to pay that. That is why life is getting more and more unaffordable.

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Mr. Luc Berthold (Mégantic—L'Érable, CPC)

Mar/31/22 10:32:10 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on April 7, the NDP-Liberal government will table its first budget. This is happening at a time when Canadians are facing the highest rate of inflation in the past 30 years and when groceries are going to cost Canadian families an average of $1,000 more a year. As my colleague from Abbotsford mentioned in his excellent speech, the cost of gas is at $2.09 a litre in the Victoria area. The cost of living is hitting record highs and families are having trouble making ends meet. Today, the Conservatives are going to ask the NDP-Liberal government to present a fiscally responsible budget, a concept that the Liberals may have forgotten about. The Conservatives are asking the government not to impose new taxes and to propose meaningful fiscal anchors to return to a balanced budget. That is what Canadians need right now. They need solutions, a serious plan from the NDP-Liberal government, in order to fight against the inflation that is affecting families, young people, seniors and workers. Everyone knows that Canadians are tired of paying and that 60% of them are worried about not having enough money to feed their families. Seven out of 10 Canadians say that their finances are a source of stress and frustration, but this government has not yet presented any real solutions to address the inflation crisis. In fact, the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is only making the crisis worse. I remember the 2015 election campaign very well. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government likes to bring up the Conservatives' election promises. Well, I would like to remind him of the election promise that the current Prime Minister made in 2015 in order to get elected. He said that his government would run only small deficits of merely $10 billion and then return to a balanced budget when the 2019 election rolled around. That was the first big promise that was broken. Who would have believed that Canada's deficit in 2015 would surpass the trillion-dollar mark? One trillion dollars, that is 1,000 billion dollars. As my colleague from Abbotsford so aptly said in his speech, not even a year ago, the mandate letter for the Minister of Finance indicated that no new permanent spending would be introduced in the budgets. Perhaps it became clear to the Prime Minister that spending was going through the roof. The Prime Minister changed that requirement in the minister's most recent mandate letter. There is nothing about introducing new permanent spending. Since the last election, this government has held meetings behind closed doors to reach an agreement with the NDP. The meetings must have started very early on, most likely before the ministerial mandate letters were written, so we are worried that next week's budget will include many new spending categories and a record number of encroachments on areas under provincial jurisdiction. As a matter of fact, the Minister of Health announced as much during a press conference last week, when he talked about the five strings the federal government is attaching to higher provincial health transfers. That confirmed the fears of Quebec's premier, François Legault. In response to the NDP-Liberal coalition announcement, he said: “The federal government has no jurisdiction over how much money we should be spending on long-term care, how much we should spend on mental health, how much we should spend on hiring more nurses.... They have no jurisdiction over health care management.... We have two very centralist parties—the Liberal Party of Canada and the NDP—that want to impose their vision on all the provinces. I think they will run into a wall”. The provinces said where they stood beforehand, and the government was aware of their position. Even so, on Friday, the government set out five conditions for talks with the provinces about provincial health transfers. That is not surprising from an NDP-Liberal government. That is why we have concerns about the upcoming budget. Canadians need real solutions. The Prime Minister is only making the crisis worse. He has racked up debt and increased the tax burden on Canadians. He is going ahead with a new tax on alcohol. On top of that, the government is coming at us again with a 25% increase in the carbon tax, effective tomorrow. This means that gas will cost more. If gas costs more, then everything that is transported by gas-powered trucks will cost more. If everything costs more, then the government will collect even more taxes. Yes, if things cost more, Canadians will pay more taxes. The government has created an inflationary spiral in order to have additional revenues to supposedly cope with the looming crisis. What is it going to do with the additional revenues? It is not going to relieve any of the pressure on Canadians' wallets. The government's alliance with the NDP means that it will further increase spending. It will spend even more using money belonging to Canadians who are struggling to make ends meet. Putting any money back in the pockets of Canadians will therefore be impossible. This is unbelievable. How many young professionals have given up their dreams of owning a home, as their parents and grandparents did? The cost of inflation has driven housing prices up by more than 32%. This makes owning a home almost impossible. The dream of young families to become homeowners has turned into a nightmare. Rather than addressing Canadians' concerns, the agreement between the Prime Minister and his NDP deputy prime minister has had the opposite effect. While businesses and consumers expect inflation to continue to rise, some experts have said that the new coalition could further undermine Ottawa's credibility in its commitment to fight inflation. That is a fact. The Liberals are tied to the NDP. What is more, if I may say so, the days of financially responsible prime ministers, the days of Jean Chrétien or Paul Martin, are over. Today's Liberals are not the same. For years, Liberals made it their duty to do everything they could to return to a balanced budget and responsible management—we can give them that—but that is no longer the case now. How many Liberals were consulted on drafting the next budget or on the agreement with the NDP? Not a lot of them were. I am sure that there are a lot more financially responsible Liberal MPs than we might think, than the Prime Minister might think. It is not for nothing that he had to find some new backers through his government coalition with the NDP. He needed support. Indeed, given the budgets he wants to table, he would have surely lost the support of many of his backbenchers. Ultimately, Canadians are the ones who will foot the bill for this alliance. After years of deficits and fiscal imbalances, the Prime Minister will have to resort to taxes to fund his excessive spending. The perfect example is that he is refusing to remove the carbon tax, which will go into effect tomorrow. The motion moved today is calling on the government to present a federal budget with a meaningful fiscal anchor and to limit government spending. Instead of spending money on partisan projects, it is time for the Prime Minister to invest in important sectors such as broadband connectivity in the regions. This will make it possible to accelerate the arrival of foreign workers and help our economy. I am asking all my colleagues to vote for the motion moved by my colleague from Abbotsford.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Mar/31/22 10:41:58 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, consistently over the last number of years in its budget presentations, the government has been there to support Canadians in very real and tangible ways. Just the other day, we had an announcement here in Ontario that the Province of Ontario was going to join the child care plan. The day care plan is now a truly national program that will enable more people to get into the work force. We have seen very progressive programs implemented. The concern I have with the Conservatives today is that they say we should reduce the deficit and give tax breaks. In order to accomplish what they suggest, there have to be serious, severe cuts. Will the member opposite be sincere with Canadians and tell us exactly what it is that the Conservative Party of Canada is proposing to cut? We cannot have it all ways.

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Mr. Luc Berthold

Mar/31/22 10:43:10 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I never thought I would say this in the House, but I miss the Liberals of old. I miss them a lot, it is true. I have two quotes that will directly address what the parliamentary secretary just said. I will first quote Paul Martin when he presented his budget in 1995: For years governments have been promising more than they can deliver and delivering more than they can afford. That is exactly what they are doing. My second quote is from a former Liberal prime minister: He said, “Good intentions are not an excuse for maladministration”.

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Mr. Yves Perron (Berthier—Maskinongé, BQ)

Mar/31/22 10:43:53 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is mind-boggling. We do agree that the inflation issue is an important and fundamental problem and that we need to do something about it. However, the Conservatives have proposed a simplistic, I would even say populist, solution to reduce all taxes. Do our colleagues in the Conservative Party know that in June 2021, the G7 countries agreed to start imposing a 15% minimum tax on tax evasion? This could bring in billions of dollars for us. In 2020, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that a special tax on the massive profits that corporations, like the infamous oil companies that the other side is always defending, bring in, could add $7.9 billion to the federal treasury. Those are the kinds of things we need to do. We agree on the substance of the issue, namely that we need to help people. However, the Conservatives' messages are frankly twisted and full of misinformation, and they want to stop taxing major corporations that are earning a profit. That does not make sense, and they are trying to serve their own political interests here. I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on this. Does he realize that if we adopt the Conservative Party's motion we are giving up on taxing the corporations earning massive profits, which could help our people?

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Mr. Luc Berthold

Mar/31/22 10:45:15 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are the party that wants to lower taxes for all Canadians. I am proud of that. I am proud to say that I stood up in the House to vote in favour of a motion calling for the GST to be temporarily suspended to provide immediate relief to all Canadians. Now is when the crisis is happening, and now is when families are having a hard time making ends meet. The hon. member can claim that there is disinformation out there, but the only fact I can give right now is that the Bloc Québécois voted against reducing the GST. That is the truth.

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Mr. Matthew Green (Hamilton Centre, NDP)

Mar/31/22 10:46:05 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there have been some cockamamie economics coming from the recent Conservative-PPC coalition. They are clearly summarized in this motion, which erroneously seeks to establish government spending as the sole cause of inflation. It would like to pretend that the only other cost pressures faced by Canadians are taxes and not stagnant wages. I want to zero in on one particular problematic element of this motion. The text of this motion mis-characterizes CPP as a tax, when in fact it is a deferred wage and a meaningful way for Canadians to plan for retirement. Could the hon. member, whom I have known to be previously a very reasonable man, please clarify whether he believes that pensions and planning for retirement are indeed a tax?

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Mr. Luc Berthold

Mar/31/22 10:47:01 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am still a reasonable man, and I thank my colleague for his comments. Why am I reasonable? What we are asking the government to do is to give Canadian taxpayers some relief today, because now is when they are having to make tough choices in the grocery aisles, wondering whether to buy a piece of meat this week or do without and feed their children baloney. That is what we are asking for. All of the price hikes happening right now due to inflation are taking a toll on Canadian families and our economy. The government can act now to help families a little. I am therefore asking it to do that, and I think that is very reasonable.

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Mr. Terry Beech (Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Lib.)

Mar/31/22 10:47:53 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to take part in today's debate. It is also great see you in the chair. I appreciated our time together on the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. I also want to thank the member for Abbotsford for presenting today's opposition motion, which gives us this opportunity to further exchange ideas on important issues such as making life more affordable for Canadians, combatting climate change, prudent fiscal management and strong fiscal anchors. I have always believed the quality of any decision is directly proportional to the quality of the debate. It is my hope that through the robust exchange of ideas we perhaps can find common ground and pursue policies that will benefit Canadians today as well as in future generations. I understand that much of the time the role of the opposition is to oppose the government of the day. However, there is also the opportunity for the opposition to propose workable solutions or even work collaboratively with government to move our country forward. In that spirit, I will start my speech today by addressing some key points on this motion I think we can agree on. I would like to start with our government's commitment to strong fiscal anchors. In 2015, we inherited a significant deficit. This was not just financial; this was a social deficit as well as an environmental deficit. There was also a deficit in hard infrastructure. We promised to invest in the future of Canada by incurring further small deficits while targeting investments in economic growth. In our first four years, we made significant investments in housing, transportation and indigenous reconciliation. We grew the economy while reducing poverty and unemployment to all-time historic lows. We lifted 1.3 million Canadians out of poverty and began to tackle climate change in a serious and meaningful way. We grew the size of the economy while reducing our debt-to-GDP ratio every single year. This was an enviable financial position that was built on fiscal prudence. This position would allow us to invest further in the growth of our nation or prepare us for any economic shocks that might come in the future. While we could not foresee a global pandemic or a war in Europe, when it comes to the finances of our country, if members will allow me to lean on my previous experience in Boy Scouts, it is always prudent to be prepared. The fact is that not only did we enter the pandemic with the lowest net debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7, but we also increased our relative financial advantage throughout the crisis. Our focus on keeping Canadians healthy has translated to better economic outcomes. Even though our economy lost three million jobs at the depth of the crisis, we have successfully recovered 112% of these jobs, while the United States has only recovered 90%. The truth is that we remain committed to the fiscal anchors we outlined in our 2021 budget. This means reducing our debt-to-GDP ratio and unwinding the COVID-19-related deficits. I remind all members of the House that despite the federal government taking on more than 80% of pandemic-related costs, we were able to maintain our debt servicing cost to less than 1% of the size of our economy, which is a number six times lower than where we stood as recently as the mid-1990s. Our prudent fiscal management was noted when Moody's and S&P reaffirmed Canada's AAA credit rating. Perhaps on the issue of strong fiscal anchors, there is an opportunity for us to find some agreement. It would also be prudent to address inflation and our government's commitment to affordability. Make no mistake: Our government cares about tackling global inflation and we care about making life more affordable. In fact, in two speeches I gave just last week, I outlined many of the very real solutions our government has put forward to make life more affordable. With regard to the recent Conservative motion to temporarily cut the GST on gasoline and diesel, I argued that this was an elegant, simple but wrong solution. Gas taxes represent a small portion of the price consumers pay at the pump, so cutting them would be ineffective in protecting Canadians from these strong global market forces. In fact, daily changes in gas prices can be greater than the 5% tax cut previously proposed. In some regions, we have already seen that level of decline without having to sacrifice the revenue that funds programs like child care, OAS benefits and the national housing strategy. Instead of continuing to find new ways to ignore climate change and subsidize the oil and gas sector, I would recommend that all members of the House focus on building a fair tax system that makes life more affordable for all Canadians. The opposition motion charges our government of excessive spending during the pandemic. While it is true that the cost of the pandemic was significant, it was more than reasonable for the federal government to use our strong fiscal position to take on this burden. We did this so small businesses, Canadian workers and family household budgets did not have to. While Conservatives may see these investments as frivolous or unnecessary, I would expect the nine million Canadians who were able to feed their families and the 450,000 employers who were able to keep 5.3 million employees on the payroll would disagree with their position. The motion alleges that taxes on Canadians continue to rise, but this ignores the fact that we lowered taxes for the middle class multiple times. It ignores the fact that we reduced small business taxes from 11% to 9%. It ignores the fact that we increased support for families and low-income workers through programs such as the Canada child benefit and the Canada workers benefit, which have helped lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. It ignores our increased GIS and OAS supports for seniors and it certainly ignores the fact that our most important benefits increase with inflation. To further offset the impact of inflation and make life more affordable for Canadians, we have increased the basic personal amount that Canadians can earn before paying federal income tax. When this measure is fully implemented next year, single individuals will pay $300 less in tax and families will pay $600 less every single year. With respect to the price on carbon pollution, which is falsely characterized in today's motion and often in the House, the reality is that we will continue to return the direct proceeds from the federal carbon pollution pricing system to their province or territory of origin. Our climate action incentive gives payments directly to households, and these payments actually represent more than the increased costs households face from the federal price on pollution. Going forward, the federal carbon price will continue to be revenue-neutral for the Government of Canada. The Conservative plan would allow energy companies to line their pockets while offering no real guarantee of savings for Canadians at the pump. Climate change is real, and so are the costs. We are only starting to realize the staggering costs of doing nothing, not only with regard to floods and forest fires in B.C. but also right across Canada. The Conservatives choose to ignore these costs and they choose to ignore the benefits of being an environmental leader. Our climate plan is not just good for the planet; it is good for the economy. It will help Canadians create good-quality, high-paying jobs while producing clean technologies that we can export all over the world. The demand for climate solutions is only going to increase, and our plan leverages this opportunity for all Canadians. A price on pollution is the most effective and fair way to protect Canadians from the very real costs associated with climate change while incentivizing Canadians and businesses to make sound ecological decisions. This is in staggering contrast to the plan the Conservatives presented in the last election, when they suggested incentivizing Canadians to use more gas. That was the bank account program the member was talking about in his previous reply. I would be very interested in having a more thorough discussion on contemporary Conservative climate policy, if one exists. At their last convention, they could not agree on a resolution that simply stated that climate change is real. Their last platform admitted that they would not pursue meeting targets of the IPCC, and their position has only regressed further since the last election. Just this week, I heard Conservatives in the House doubt that carbon pricing is even effective. In B.C., one of the first jurisdictions in the world to implement carbon pricing, we know that in the first five years, carbon usage per capita decreased significantly in British Columbia, while it increased by more than 3% in the rest of Canada. British Columbians should be proud of their leadership on this issue. British Columbians should also be suspicious of any federal Conservative promise to eliminate the tax. This is because the carbon price of British Columbia is administered by the province, so removing the federal backstop would not change anything. In fact, it would mean British Columbians would continue to put a price on pollution, while other, primarily Conservative, jurisdictions would not. A more thoughtful approach, in my humble opinion, would be to encourage the provincial government in B.C. to return the carbon price to revenue neutrality. This is a position that I would hope the member for Abbotsford and I could agree on. The opposition motion suggests that there should be no new taxes in the upcoming budget. However, the opposition also knows that a main tenet of the federal backstop is to gradually and consistently raise the carbon price. To adopt this motion would mean abandoning a core piece of Canada's climate change strategy. This on its own should be reason enough to oppose this motion. We also know that some businesses have done extremely well during the pandemic and that our government has committed to increasing taxes on profits of over a billion dollars by 3% for banks and insurance companies. This measure, which speaks directly to building a fair tax system, also runs counter to the motion that is being proposed today. The motion also highlights the escalator tax and the Canada pension plan premiums. I want to assure Canadians that the escalator tax is reasonable, predictable and fair. We are talking about one-fifth of one penny on a can of beer. That means that if one purchases a can of beer today, one would have to wait almost five years before seeing a single penny of increased taxes. With regard to the Canada pension plan, our government worked diligently with premiers to secure the financial security of our next generation of retirees. This agreement ensures that future pensioners will have access to more generous benefits. However, I think is important for us to agree that the Canadian pension plan is not a tax, and it is unfortunate that the Conservatives have repeatedly chosen to characterize it in this way, a point that was raised by my NDP colleague in an earlier intervention. The Canada pension plan is an essential part of Canada's social security framework, and it is critical to providing Canadians with a dignified retirement after a lifetime of work. Certainly the Conservatives cannot be suggesting that we should reduce the retirement security of future generations. Perhaps they are; after all, this is the same party that increased the retirement age of 65 to 67, robbing seniors of thousands of dollars right when they needed it most. Of course, it is not just seniors who are more secure. Families now benefit from our $10-a-day community-based early learning and child care system, which will make life more affordable for families, create new jobs, get parents back into the workforce and grow the middle class while giving every child a real and fair chance at success. Of course, the federal Conservatives oppose this plan as well. While I have covered a lot of ground on fiscal policy today, I think the importance of a strong monetary framework would be worth mentioning as well. A strong monetary policy framework is crucial for keeping prices stable and keeping inflationary pressures in check. This is why, last December, our government and the Bank of Canada announced the renewal of the policy targeting inflation at 2% for another five-year period. This renewed framework will keep the bank focused on delivering low, stable and predictable inflation in Canada. Canadians and Conservatives are right to be concerned about inflation, but we have to make sure that we address it in a way that recognizes the underlying causes. While inflation in Canada is 5.7%, I would remind members that inflation is a global phenomenon and that Canada's rate of inflation continues to be lower than the United States, the OECD, the G20 and the G7. Supply chain challenges, climate change, energy prices and the war in Ukraine are all contributing to inflationary pressures, aside from the challenges of reopening the global economy in the ongoing global pandemic. These are indeed significant challenges, but I am truly optimistic that Canadians will endure to overcome them. We know that there are more businesses open today than there were before the pandemic. We know that the GDP has fully recovered, and so has employment. We know that our trade surplus has hit 13-year highs. We also know that Canadians' health outcomes are among the best in the world. Of course this is good news for families that avoided unnecessary deaths, but it is also good news for our economy, which has performed remarkably well, given that we have recently faced the greatest economic shock since the Second World War. I hope that I have thoroughly responded to today's opposition motion. We will continue to maintain strong fiscal anchors and exercise prudent fiscal management. We will maintain a strong, independent and stable monetary framework. We will continue to cut taxes for hard-working Canadians while ensuring that the wealthy pay their fair share, and we will continue investing in Canadians' highest priorities while growing our economy and making sure that all Canadians have a real and fair shot at success. While we may not agree on everything in the motion before us, there are many things we do agree on. It is my hope that by working in good faith with our government's official opposition and with all members of this House, we will be able to continue to put forward legislation that will help Canadians today as well as help future generations. That is what I am expecting to see in the upcoming budget, and it is exactly what I expect from all members in this House.

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Mr. Stephen Ellis (Cumberland—Colchester, CPC)

Mar/31/22 11:01:38 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for his comments, although I do find that they are exceedingly distressing. Out in the lobby, I was just speaking to Joanne. Joanne is a Canadian who lives off $881 a month. Joanne has to live in a room with her mother and her stepfather. Joanne does not have any dignity. She has no privacy; she has no way to get a job; she cannot afford gas; she cannot afford to live by herself; and she cannot afford food for herself. I cannot believe the audacity of the member opposite in standing there and espousing these unbelievable promises and ineptitudes that do not ring true with any Canadian. I want him to answer for Joanne and I want to understand how he thinks that Joanne is going to live off $881 a month.

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Mr. Terry Beech

Mar/31/22 11:02:32 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am happy to inform Joanne and this member that in fact our government has introduced a strong anti-poverty strategy. That strategy actually reduced poverty rates before the pandemic to all-time historic lows. In fact, it lifted 1.3 million Canadians out of poverty through programs such as the Canada child benefit and through more generous investments in the OAS and the GIS, for example. These are all measures that are helping to make life more affordable for Canadians. They are also measures that Conservatives always voted against. At the end of the day, Conservatives are poor fiscal managers. It took only two Conservative governments to rack up more than 70% of all of the debt that had accrued in the first 150 years of Canada. The fact is that when Conservatives are in power, they cut taxes for the wealthiest and they cut services for everyone else, with disastrous consequences for the economy.

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Mr. Denis Trudel (Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, BQ)

Mar/31/22 11:03:29 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when we are talking about inflation, it is difficult to ignore the housing crisis. A recent study by Scotiabank, which is not exactly an organization fighting for more social housing in Quebec, found that Canada would need 1.8 million housing units just to reach the G7 average. A recent report by the National Housing Council, which oversees the big national housing strategy that was launched by the federal government five years ago, said that only 35,000 housing units had been built. We need 1.8 million housing units, but only 35,000 have been built. In Quebec, 50,000 people are on a waiting list for low-income housing. My colleague from Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques is fighting for housing in his riding. The vacancy rate is 0.2%. There is no housing to be had even in Rimouski. My colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot is also very involved in the housing issue. The housing market in Saint-Hyacinthe is extremely tight. In the budget that is coming on April 7, will the government actually be making major investments in housing? The crisis is serious. It is affecting all of Quebec, but it is particularly hard on the most disadvantaged, women fleeing domestic violence, seniors, and people with mental health issues. This is one of the major crises of our time. On April 7, will the government take the crisis into account and make the necessary investments?

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Mr. Terry Beech

Mar/31/22 11:05:00 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I truly appreciate the question from the member opposite. I think the more time we can spend working together on solutions for solving the housing crisis, the better off Canadians will be. We believe that all Canadians deserve a place to call home. That is why after 30 years of the federal government being essentially absent from the housing file, we created an unprecedented $72-billion national housing strategy. In the last election, we actually promised to do more, and while there were dozens of promises, they fell under three major tiers. The first was to create more supply. The second was to treat housing more like a place to live than as an investment vehicle. The third was to find new pathways for Canadians, especially first-time homebuyers, to find a way to secure affordable housing. I expect that the budget will reflect some of those promises, and I am sure there will be plenty of opportunities for us to work together on this important issue.

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Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP)

Mar/31/22 11:06:01 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today, on National Indigenous Languages Day, I will call you Uqaqtittiji, which is the Inuit word for “Speaker”, as I understand. I would like to thank my colleague for his intervention today. Yesterday, I had the honour of meeting with Dr. Nils Schmid, who is a member of the German Bundestag. We talked about the need for tax reform. We talked about how tax reform across the G7 needs to be undertaken because what we are seeing right now are massive loopholes where the wealthy can hide their wealth around the world and can avoid paying their fair share, in effect. The government has said that it will act on this but we have not seen the actions we need to see. When will the government be taking the steps necessary to close those tax loopholes and seriously look at tax reform so that the middle class and low-income Canadians are not the ones bearing the burden of taxation?

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