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Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay (Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, BQ)

Mar/31/22 12:16:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when we talk about balancing public finances and balancing the budget, I think the concept of tax fairness is fundamental. When we talk about reducing the deficit without even mentioning the possibility of tackling the problem of tax havens or of creating a special tax on the super wealthy and those who have profited from the crisis, while so many SMEs have been struggling during the pandemic and are at the end of their rope and so many of them have been forced to shut down after so many lockdowns, it seems to me that this is simply called “deficit reduction”. However, it is reducing the deficit at the expense of the population and that of the provinces and their public services, similar to what happened during the Chrétien and Martin years. This could only be regarded as the rich looking out for the rich.

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Mar/31/22 12:17:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it was not just the provinces but the people that they served who suffered immensely when the Chrétien-Martin government of the 1990s made the deepest cuts that we have seen to the health and social transfers. New Democrats are concerned to restore a meaningful role for the federal government in funding health services. In some cases, that means doing it ambitiously by providing programs in collaboration with the provinces that will bring new services to Canadians through public funding, but it also means making up for the simple absence of federal funding with some unconditional funding for the provinces as well. We think there is an appropriate mix of those things that can contribute to improving health care and other services in Canada. The way to do that is to make sure that the wealthiest are paying their fair share. There is a trajectory over the last 30 or more years in Canada of the people at the top paying less and less in taxes. In fact, there was a Liberal platform commitment to impose a minimum tax on the wealthiest because their effective rate of taxation is often lower than it is for the poorest Canadians who are paying taxes in Canada. There is something incredibly perverse about that. It is something government action can fix, and there will be a salutary effect on the books here in Ottawa if we do it.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Mar/31/22 12:19:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to get back to the idea that we should be cancelling the increase in the carbon tax because of its impact on Canadians. Just to review some reality that we have not had injected yet, as of tomorrow, the carbon tax impact for a litre of gas will be 2.2¢ a litre. However, because of the global instability and because of what is happening in Ukraine and with the lockdowns in China, gas prices have had volatility of up to 32¢ in the last month in the GTA, and yes, we have gas experts predicting it will drop by 15¢ because of increased supplies from the opening up of reserves. I see the increase in the gas tax for the purpose of adding to the carbon price as being so small as to be a blip in a sea of volatility. Can the hon. member comment?

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Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Mar/31/22 12:20:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands makes an excellent point. In fact, I think in my lifetime alone, I have seen long weekends have a bigger impact on the price of gasoline than the carbon tax. We know that oil and gas companies are prepared to raise the price at the pump for just about any reason, and sometimes for no reason at all. It is the wrong focus if we are going to talk about meaningful tax relief for Canadians in this difficult time. It is why we proposed providing some relief on home heating costs instead, because often those prices are regulated and companies actually have to provide a justification for a rate increase and can be denied those rate increases if there is not an adequate reason. It was very much along those lines that we proposed the amendment that the Conservatives refused last week.

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Mr. Larry Maguire (Brandon—Souris, CPC)

Mar/31/22 12:21:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak in the House today on this important opposition day motion, and I will be sharing my time with the member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis. Next week we will find out what is contained in the Liberals' budget. This will be a historic budget, as the NDP has already pledged to vote in favour without even knowing its contents. If my NDP colleagues are not nervous, I certainly am. The pre-budget leaks have not started just yet, but we know that in the coming days a few selected journalists will be given a couple of tidbits to help set the narrative. It is a tactic that is as old as time, and I am hoping the Minister of Finance will be signalling to the media that she will be tabling a plan to balance the budget. Our motion today is starting the important conversation about getting our nation's finances back in order. It does not dictate what the government must spend money on, but it does ask the Liberals to finally table a plan that outlines a path back to balance. The government's budget is by far the most important document of the parliamentary cycle. Louis XIV's finance minister stated, “The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.” Well, I doubt the Minister of Finance will agree with that statement. I know that every member of Parliament is hearing from their constituents about the cost-of-living crisis that we are in today. If Liberal MPs went to their local grocery store or gas station and asked their constituents if they wanted the government to provide some tax relief, the overwhelming answer would be “yes”. This government's nickel-and-diming is starting to add up. This is the government that said it would never introduce a Netflix tax, and then it did. Now it wants the CRTC to regulate online content providers, and inevitably those costs will be passed down to businesses and consumers. The carbon tax is going up this Friday, tomorrow, as my colleagues were just talking about, which will push the price of fuel even higher. Just last week, the Liberals voted against our Conservative motion to provide GST relief at the pump, but are now refusing to press "Pause" on the carbon tax hike, and they are raising payroll taxes on businesses just as many are clawing their way out of this terrible pandemic. While the Liberals may view themselves as Robin Hood, in reality they are more like the Sheriff of Nottingham, ever on the hunt for whatever they can scrounge up. We have never seen a government so committed to class warfare as this one. They fought my private member's bill on the transfer of small businesses and farms because they thought it would provide tax loopholes for families. I, like many of my colleagues in this place, had to endure listening to speeches by the ever-present members for Winnipeg North and Kingston and the Islands about how awful my bill was. Thank goodness most of the Liberal MPs who studied my bill had the fortitude to ignore their nonsensical rhetoric and voted in favour of it. Let us never forget that this is the government that called entrepreneurs, farmers and small business tax cheats. I remember all too well when the Liberals rolled back the TFSA limits because they said it was only helping the wealthy. This is a government that also put up an escalator tax on Canadian spirits and alcohol, another needless cash grab. I also get the fact that the Liberals want us to fight them on their tax hikes on big-ticket purchases. That is politics, and it is part of the parcel of how the government wants to define itself and to wedge the opposition. If anyone on the Liberal bench does not want to admit that fact, they can save their breath and start proposing solutions rather than just tax hikes. In the budget next week, I am eager to see a plan to get inflation under control. I want to see a commitment to stop raising taxes. I want to see a plan to provide relief for families and seniors. I want to see a plan that brings spending levels back down to earth. I want to see a strategy that encourages the private sector to start building homes, that gets energy and mining projects built and that acknowledges that Canada can be a food superpower. Regardless of what some may have us believe, there is not an unlimited supply of money. A good finance minister has the strength to tell her colleagues “no”, the courage to defend those tough choices and the ingenuity of reprioritizing spending where it matters the most. It was not that long ago that this government vocalized such commitments. Back in the budget of 2017, Scott Brison was tasked to conduct a spending review to find government waste. He was tasked with finding and eliminating poorly targeted and inefficient programs, wasteful spending and ineffective and obsolete government initiatives. Like many parliamentarians, I was eager to see what Mr. Brison would discover and what he would decide to eliminate. We already knew by then that the government's most modest deficits had turned into permanent deficits. Here we are, four or five years later, and no savings were ever found and no waste was ever eliminated. I do not know a single Canadian who believes that the government is running at peak performance. If one exists, they are probably on the other side of the House across the floor. Knowing Mr. Brison, he probably did offer some solid ideas to reduce spending and improve government efficiency, but did his proposals fall on deaf ears? One can only speculate on how difficult it must be for a minister in the Liberal government to reduce government spending. Now Mr. Brison is retweeting the thoughts of a Conservative leadership candidate on approving an energy project and is providing his thoughts on the new NDP-Liberal alliance. He is now a distraught Liberal, worried about the possibility of the decades of economic damage that this new parliamentary alliance with the NDP will cause. When the Liberals have lost Scott Brison, it is clear they have lost their way. I too am worried. Taxpayers, job creators and entrepreneurs are already bracing themselves for next week’s budget. They are worried about the never-ending deficits. I have already said that today's deficits are tomorrow's taxes, but I remain hopeful. I am hopeful because the best day to adjust course is today. If steps are taken today, it will be all the easier to restore Canada’s fiscal future. Waiting, on the other hand, will only make things worse. It is easy to look the other way. It is easy to pretend Canadians are not facing a serious cost-of-living crisis and it is easy to make popular short-term decisions for political reasons. However, there is courage in recognizing when the old approach is failing. I am asking the Liberal government to think outside of the narrow lines it has drawn for itself and do what is right. There is no question that we must respond to today’s challenges, but there is much to be said about also being ready for whatever tomorrow brings. I fully understand that we had to help people get through the pandemic. As we look to the future, it is now time for the Liberals to make some tough decisions. They can no longer kick the can further down the road. The budget next week must tell ministers to start looking inwards for funding to help pay for any new spending commitments. If a minister wants to introduce a new spending initiative, the Minister of Finance cannot just add that to the deficit. Ministers should review how their department delivers programs and see if there are ways to trim costs to reallocate those funds to pay for new commitments. This would force every minister to scrutinize every program they oversee. It would task them with determining if every program is meeting its objectives or can be delivered differently. I know these conversations will not be easy, but they are necessary. For those thinking this is common practice in government, I can assure them it is not. In closing, I know there are going to be costs in the years ahead to purchase equipment the brave men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces need to do their jobs. There are going to be further expenditures to invest in our health care system and to support our seniors. These are things every member in the House recognizes. I implore my colleagues to vote in favour of this motion, which calls on government to present a federal budget rooted in fiscal responsibility, with no new taxes, a path to balance and a meaningful fiscal anchor. That is something that we should all support. Our responsibility is not only to Canadians today but to future generations, and the budget should signal as much.

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Mr. Kody Blois (Kings—Hants, Lib.)

Mar/31/22 12:31:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of things I would agree with in the member's remarks. The importance of Canada vis-à-vis its role in agriculture is a value that he and I share, as well as our respect for Scott Brison, my predecessor. I will certainly second him on his work over 21 years, and let me go on the record to thank him for his public service. The member opposite talked about inflation and bringing inflation under control. While we know this is a global problem, it is not easy to tackle it, and other governments in the past have had to make policy choices. As my question for the member opposite, with regard to inflation and the challenges inflation puts on vulnerable Canadians, does he think there should be a continued emphasis on targeted programs to support vulnerable Canadians, even if it means that there has to be some continued spending in that domain, or does he think it is best to perhaps cut certain social programs and let monetary policy take effect by increasing interest rates to try to get inflation down, which would also have corresponding benefits for individuals who—

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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie)

Mar/31/22 12:32:24 p.m.
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The hon. member for Brandon—Souris.

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Mr. Larry Maguire

Mar/31/22 12:32:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that was an excellent question. My hon. colleague knows from the speech I just gave that I am very concerned about the inflationary aspects of the government spending we have seen. I noted that it does take hard decisions. I am not saying cut those programs. I am saying realign the priorities of the government departments for each minister and look internally to find out where the savings will be and how they can deliver new programs, perhaps with the same amount of funds. I will give a prime example. In the 2009 recession, Prime Minister Harper spent $150 billion. Everybody thought that was an atrocious amount of money, but the plan, as he said right from day one, was to balance the budget in seven years and he did it in six.

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Mr. Luc Thériault (Montcalm, BQ)

Mar/31/22 12:33:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives want to cut the deficit and taxes while still taking care of people. It is as though money were falling from the sky. Money does not fall from the sky, but we do know where to find some. Major Canadian banks made fat profits of nearly $60 billion in 2021. Why has his party always opposed abolishing tax havens for major Canadian banks?

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Mr. Larry Maguire

Mar/31/22 12:33:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think my colleague knows that it was the Harper government that went after the offshore accounts of people who were transferring funds out of the country in those areas. I will go back to saying that we need to be very responsible in regard to how money is managed. We know we had to do some spending to get through the pandemic, but even the Parliamentary Budget Officer has said that pandemic issues account for only a third of that money. The other two-thirds were not used in those areas. That is what I mean by responsible spending and responsible accounting.

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Ms. Niki Ashton (Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, NDP)

Mar/31/22 12:34:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the sentiment shared by my colleague around the struggles that many are facing. Obviously we know that for many in rural Manitoba, where life was more expensive to begin with, life has only become more challenging for people, families and communities. It is clear that we do need federal action. Obviously we have expressed disagreement with what is being proposed today, but I am wondering if the member does not also see the need to make sure that the wealthiest among us, who have made significant profits, pay their fair share of taxes so that money can be reinvested in supporting our communities across the country.

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Mr. Larry Maguire

Mar/31/22 12:35:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have a system in Canada today that has over a 50% tax rate for a lot of Canadians who are in those brackets the member was just talking about. How much further can we go? As an example, what the Liberals did in one of their first budgets was to increase the tax on those making over $200,000 by 1%. Only a Liberal government could do what it did. It raised the tax to 1% but received less money. All I am saying is that Canadians will find new accounting processes to change the law or get around what the Liberals are trying to do with regard to this, even though we tried to be fiscally accountable in the years I just pointed out and did balance the budget with a plan. All I am asking for today in this budget is that there is a plan to allow Canadians to escape from some of the inflation that has been caused by the pandemic.

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Mrs. Dominique Vien (Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, CPC)

Mar/31/22 12:36:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance has announced that she will table a NDP-Liberal budget on April 7. We are very worried. We have serious concerns. We moved a motion, which I will read, because that is what we are debating today. 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. I rise today to try to make the government listen to reason. This government listens only to itself and prefers to focus its efforts on making deals behind closed doors with the NDP. As we know, the NDP is a party that pushes for very expensive plans. The Liberal Party of Canada is now the NDP-Liberal party. Take a hard left, everyone. Times are tough for Canadians, Quebeckers and the people in my riding. Inflation is at 5.7%, the highest it has been in 30 years. This runaway inflation is crippling our families, who are struggling to pay for groceries, which will cost them $1,000 more this year. They are struggling to pay for fuel. This morning, in my riding, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, gas was going for $1.75 a litre. Seniors are wondering what they should pay for first among the essentials that they need. As for real estate, young people are unable to achieve their dream of owning their first home because of skyrocketing real estate costs. On March 15, the Canadian Real Estate Association released the highest real estate inflation numbers ever recorded. In fact, house prices have increased by 3.5% over the past month alone and by nearly 30%—29.2% to be precise—over the past year. It is crazy. House prices have doubled since the Liberals came to power in 2015, when the average house price was $434,500. That same house now costs $868,400. How is a young couple supposed to buy their first home? This makes the dream of home ownership impossible for families and young people all across the country. Even better, recently released documents show that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, paid more than $48 million in bonuses over the past two years, while four in five Canadian families were forced to cut spending and tighten their budgets. The CMHC's only purpose is to make housing more affordable for all Canadians, yet it is rewarding its own employees with exorbitant bonuses when the real estate sector has become untenable. That is a snapshot of the Liberals' management style, which is reckless, illogical and indulgent. Our regional economies are under pressure as well, because businesses cannot find the workers they need. Add to that huge issues with processing foreign workers' applications, and it makes for the perfect storm. My colleague from Beauce could talk about immigration issues, a perennial headache for the people working in our riding offices. We have asked the government countless questions about this, but we have never received an answer, even though it is a very serious problem that affects our regions. Last August, Chaudière‑Appalaches elected officials and business community representatives carried out a study documenting the impact of the labour shortage on the economy of this very productive and very large region of Quebec. According to the study, the 309 manufacturers surveyed have 3,300 vacancies. The labour shortage is responsible for $2 billion in losses due to low productivity in the Chaudière‑Appalaches region alone. Because of the labour shortage, production drops and businesses have to turn down contracts and miss out on all kinds of opportunities. It also means less money in government coffers. Here again, as usual, the government is a very bad manager. This government has been spending recklessly ever since it came to power. The Parliamentary Budget Officer even said that it was time to stop spending so much. The debt is out of control, and this government is like a rudderless ship, adrift on the ocean, with no plan for balancing the budget. The Liberal government's objective is to stay in power by forming dubious alliances with the NDP rather than working to balance the budget through rigorous management of public funds, and yet that is what Canadians expect of us. Our constituents want a serious government that properly manages public funds, the money they work hard to earn every day. Doing so requires courage and political will. This government has been running a deficit since 2015 and has not delivered a single balanced budget since it came to power. It has been plunging us into deficit for six years, and that has to change. It is long overdue. Since 2015, deficits have been building up and the debt has been growing exponentially. It is now at $1.234 billion. I have said it before, but I do not even know how many zeros come after that number. It is alarming. As it drafts its budget, the government is selling its soul to stay in power. In exchange, the Liberal Party is bringing in measures from the NDP's election platform, a platform that Canadians did not want. Our constituents did not vote for the NDP, and that party does not even have 10% of the seats in the House. What a mess. What an affront to democracy. This will only breed public cynicism. As if it were not enough to call an election that no one wanted at a cost of $620 million and that produced the same result, now the Liberal government is not respecting the will of the people. That is too bad. It is pathetic, really. The Liberals clinched their agreement with the NDP just before presenting the budget, and that is no coincidence because it has been all planned since the beginning of this Parliament. What can we say about the arrogance of this new government led by two centralists who will have both hands, or should I say all four hands, in provincial jurisdictions? They have been warned. The provinces are keeping an eye on them. Instead of spending its time thinking about how to remain in power and concocting secret agreements with another party, the government should do its job and listen to Canadians, consider their concerns and come up with solutions.

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate), Lib.)

Mar/31/22 12:46:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in the latter half of her speech, the member talked about the agreement that the Liberal Party and the NDP came to as being a slap in the face of democracy. This is exactly what democracy is about. Democracy is about finding compromise. Democracy is about working together. Democracy is about putting forward our ideas and testing them, and looking for compromise and solutions we can move forward with together. Democracy is not about the Conservative approach of standing up, day after day, and pinpointing individuals, whether it is the Prime Minister or a particular minister, chastising those individuals and attacking their character all day long. That is the only thing we see from the Conservative Party. We never see anything from them that has to do with advancing and promoting the democratic ideal. For the member to stand up and say that working with another party in a parliamentary democracy is somehow a slap in the face towards democracy is ludicrous at best.

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Mrs. Dominique Vien

Mar/31/22 12:47:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am not saying that we should not work with all other parliamentarians and other parties. Having been a parliamentarian and a minister, I know what it means to negotiate with other parliamentarians and reach a compromise. That is very normal and that is why we are here. That is why we have committees: to improve bills and arrive at the best possible solution. However, what we are talking about today is an agreement reached behind closed doors to keep this government in power until 2025 in exchange for implementing the NDP platform. Canadians never voted for that.

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Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay (Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, BQ)

Mar/31/22 12:48:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague read the Conservative motion to us, and it deals rather harshly with the carbon tax. Quebec has a carbon market, which is a pretty good system. Quebec recently approached Ottawa and invited it to participate in the market along with California, which is working with Quebec. The system in question was created by one Jean Charest. He recently declared that he does not agree with abolishing the tax, but he does think that it should be paused and that we should think carefully before increasing the tax. I would like to ask my colleague if she supports abolishing the tax or simply pausing it.

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Mrs. Dominique Vien

Mar/31/22 12:49:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let us leave former prime ministers and the leadership race out of this debate. The Conservatives have moved a clear and simple motion calling on the current NDP‑Liberal alliance to present a credible, reasonable plan to balance the budget with well-defined measures for government spending. Every expenditure must correspond to revenue. That is what we are saying today.

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Mr. Matthew Green (Hamilton Centre, NDP)

Mar/31/22 12:50:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will, once again, zero in on the second problematic point of this cockamamie Conservative motion, which states that taxes on Canadians continue to increase, from carbon tax to the Canada pension plan premiums. The text of this motion mis-characterizes the Canada pension plan as a tax, when in fact it is a deferred wage and a meaningful way for Canadians to plan for retirement. Given that the previous Conservative member refused to answer this question when I put it directly to him, could the member opposite clarify why the Conservatives believe the Canada pension plan premium, which saves for retirement, is considered a tax? Also, by cutting pension premiums against inflation, would it not stand to reason that Conservatives are also looking to lower the meagre payouts to our most vulnerable seniors?

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Mrs. Dominique Vien

Mar/31/22 12:51:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians, including my constituents, are under a lot of pressure. They are in the clutches of skyrocketing inflation, which is currently at 5.7%. Our fathers, mothers, sisters and children are struggling to make ends meet. Young people cannot buy a home. Seniors are unsure of what they can afford and why they have to choose between food and medications. That is what we are talking about today. We are calling on the Liberal government to be careful and reasonable in its upcoming NDP‑Liberal budget and to be mindful of spending too much. That is what the Conservatives are saying today.

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Ms. Julie Dzerowicz (Davenport, Lib.)

Mar/31/22 12:51:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Kings—Hants. It is a great pleasure, as always, to rise in the House on behalf of my riding of Davenport to speak to the opposition day motion put forward by the Conservatives, which calls on our government to present a “federal budget rooted in fiscal responsibility with no new taxes, a path to balance and a meaningful fiscal anchor”. We are well aware that elevated inflation and the rise of gas prices are leading Canadians to worry about the cost of living and how this is affecting their everyday lives. Let me remind everyone in this venerable House today, and all those listening, of a few things. Inflation is a global issue. Initially, it was due to global oil prices, pandemic supply chain problems and the way the virus changed our spending habits. We also know that inflation is being exacerbated by Russia's illegal war in Ukraine. Since the beginning of the pandemic, our federal government has been tireless in our efforts to protect Canadians, to support them through ongoing challenges and to bridge them through the postpandemic recovery. This significant fiscal policy support has contributed to a rapid and resilient recovery so far. I would add that we have provided if not the most generous, then among the most generous emergency supports in the world. The motion we are speaking to today asks the federal government to present a federal budget that is rooted in fiscal responsibility and also to provide meaningful fiscal anchors. We have been fiscally responsible every step of the way during the pandemic, as well as since we were first elected in late 2015. Indeed, throughout the entire pandemic we have been in strong fiscal shape with the lowest net debt-to-GDP ratio of the G7. Our GDP returned to nearly prepandemic levels in the third quarter of 2021, and it grew by an annual rate of 6.7% in the fourth quarter of 2021. On top of that, Moody's and S&P have reaffirmed Canada's AAA credit rating. In addition, the Stats Canada labour force survey showed that the labour market gained 337,000 jobs in February of this year, and we have recovered overall 112% of the jobs that we lost at the peak of the pandemic. Therefore, we have been fiscally responsible, we continue to be fiscally responsible, and we will be fiscally responsible moving forward. We have also had meaningful fiscal anchors. Those anchors have been net GDP-to-debt ratios that, as was mentioned earlier, are the best in the G7, as well as an outstanding jobs growth number in addition to our overall GDP growth. The result is that our economy is growing back as it continues to try to come out of this pandemic into the postpandemic world and economy. I just want to point out that it is because of the generous emergency supports provided throughout the pandemic by our federal government that the economic foundation is strong and that companies can pivot back quickly as we are trying to come out of this pandemic. Saying all that, I want to highlight some elements of the federal government's recovery plan that we have announced so far. Our current recovery plan is targeted toward growth-enhancing and job-creating initiatives such as investment to support child care and the adoption of new technologies that will help boost supply. Increasing supply will help the economy to grow without the risk of higher inflation. As the situation across the country has improved, our federal government has moved from very broad-based support to more targeted measures that will provide help where it is needed and when it is needed. When the new variants and major outbreaks occurred, lockdowns and capacity restrictions were painful but necessary last resorts to break the chain of transmission and to save lives. That is why, this past December, we announced that we were temporarily expanding the Canada worker lockdown benefit as well as the local lockdown program to support workers and businesses that were affected by capacity restrictions of 50% or more. We also temporarily lowered the current month revenue decline threshold requirement, from 40% to 25%, for employers to access the local lockdown program. This means that eligible employers could receive wage and rent subsidy support of from 25% to 75%, depending on how much revenue they had lost. For workers who work in a region that introduces capacity restrictions by 50% or more, this means they can qualify for the Canada worker lockdown benefit. This enables Canadians to put $300 a week in their pockets to supplement lost wages. Like all Canadians, we hope that lockdowns and capacity restrictions will be a thing of the past. We know Canadians are tired of COVID-19, but the unfortunately reality is that COVID-19 is not quite tired of us. We put these supports in place so that public health authorities could make the right, albeit difficult, decisions knowing that the federal government could be there to continue to support workers, small businesses and other employers in their communities when needed. We extended these key, enhanced lockdown support programs to ensure that Canadians were protected and workers and businesses had access to the help they needed to sustain them during the omicron wave. There are a number of additional measures we have taken to support Canadians and address top issues affecting Canada's economic growth and prosperity. Last December, we introduced Bill C-8, which seeks to address housing affordability through the implementation of a national annual 1% tax on the value of non-resident, non-Canadian-owned residential real estate in Canada that is considered to be vacant or underused. It is something our federal government announced as part of budget 2021 to crack down on underused housing. The bill would introduce a new act, the underused housing tax act, to ensure that non-resident non-Canadian owners, particularly those who use Canada as a place to passively store their wealth and housing, pay their fair share of Canadian taxes beginning in the 2022 calendar year. We are also working to address the issue of supply chain disruptions from around the world and shipping bottlenecks that have made it harder for Canadians and businesses to get the products and supplies they need, and that in many cases are contributing to rising prices. To help strengthen supply chains and address bottlenecks, the federal government has launched a new targeted call for proposals under the national trade corridors fund to assist Canadian ports with the acquisition of cargo storage capacity and other measures to relieve supply chain congestion. The fund will dedicate up to $50 million to support eligible priority projects. Today, we are on strong economic footing. Our federal government has also prioritized putting the lives of Canadians first. This has meant that we have had one of the lowest mortality rates in the G7 due to COVID-19. In addition, we are making vaccines free and a priority. As of March 25, over 85% of Canadians five and older were fully vaccinated, and the Canadian economy has seen the benefits of prioritizing our health. Given all of the aforementioned emergency and economic supports, the Canadian labour market rebounded strongly from the omicron wave in February. I would add that the recovery and economic growth have been broad-based and supported by solid underlying fundamentals, with ongoing rebounds in sectors hardest hit by the pandemic. In conclusion, our federal government is determined to continue to do what is necessary to sustain the recovery, to provide help where it is still needed, to create jobs and to set the stage for strong growth for years to come. From the start of the pandemic, we understood that having a job was essential to Canadians' economic well-being. That is why our investments have been so singularly focused on employment and why Canada has experienced one of the fastest job recoveries in the G7. Canadians can remain confident that they have a strong hand at the wheel of the federal government in safeguarding and growing our economy.

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