44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 4, 2022 11:00AM
- Apr/4/22 12:50:49 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I think it is important for us to bring a few facts to the table. At the end of the day, what we have seen, virtually from day one, from this government is a commitment to the Canadian people in terms of growing our economy and getting people engaged through jobs and so forth. When we specifically look at the pandemic and the member's comments, we have actually more than replaced every job that has been lost during the pandemic. The numbers for Canada are good, and the reason the numbers for Canada are good is that Canadians from coast to coast came together in order to combat the pandemic. We continue to work with, consult and listen to science and health experts to make sure we continue to manage the economy, thereby supporting Canadians.
Can the member clearly indicate to the House which health care expert is saying and advising the Conservative Party that it is time to unilaterally end mandates?
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- Apr/4/22 12:52:01 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, just recently or several weeks ago, Dr. Tam, in one of her public news conferences, talked about the whole notion of moving from requirements to recommendations. Therefore, the government is looking at this; is it not?
From the standpoint of stimulus spending, we all in the House supported measures that were required for the pandemic. Of the January report, the PBO says, “Our report shows that since the start of the pandemic, the Government has spent, or has planned to spend, $541.9 billion in new measures—almost one third of which is not part of the COVID-19 Response Plan”. Then they on the opposite side wonder what is leading to the inflation concerns that many Canadians have. It is right there.
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- Apr/4/22 2:23:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our agenda and our plan are clear.
Here are the facts. Our GDP has increased for the eighth consecutive month. We have recovered 112% of the jobs lost during the pandemic, specifically 3.4 million jobs. In 2022, Canada posted its largest annual trade surplus since 2008, totalling $6.6 billion.
The reality is that the economy is growing, and the Conservatives do not like that. Those are the facts.
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- Apr/4/22 2:37:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today, Quebec's health care workers joined the Bloc Québécois in calling for a public summit on health care funding.
The men and women who take care of us have been telling us about the consequences of federal underfunding for a long time, but government after government has failed to listen. The pandemic exposed those consequences in the most tragic way possible.
Today the health care community wants to be listened to. They are calling for a public summit to talk about a major, sustainable, no-strings-attached health transfer increase.
My question is very simple: Will the government give them what they want?
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- Apr/4/22 2:47:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our government is committed to asking those who prospered during the pandemic to help a little more for those who did not. Our platform committed to raise corporate income taxes on the largest, most profitable banks and insurance companies and to introduce a temporary Canada recovery dividend because these companies have recovered faster. We are also working to implement a global minimum tax, and 136 OECD G20 framework members have already signed up.
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- Apr/4/22 3:31:32 p.m.
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moved that the third report of the Standing Committee on Finance, presented on Monday, March 21, 2022, be concurred in.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to members this afternoon. I would like to mention that I am splitting my time with the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes.
The world is different now than it was just a year ago. We have an unprovoked invasion and war by the Russian Federation against Ukraine that threatens our global security and shattered peace in Europe, inflation is anything but transitory and COVID restrictions are lifting across Canada, giving hope to our nation that we can return to some normalcy. However, it is in this global context that we must consider the budget.
Our committee heard testimony from a number of witnesses about what they would like to see in this year's budget. The budget can provide some opportunities and can deal with some challenges that our country faces. There is no question that our government needed to provide unprecedented levels of support to Canadians and businesses during the early days of the pandemic. However, as pandemic concerns abate through our greater understanding of the virus, we must be prepared to evolve our approach to government spending.
Closer to home, Canada must put its own economic house in order so that we can respond to the changing global context. We have to re-establish Canada as a destination for investment, and supply the world with ethical, conflict-free energy. If we want to stop Mr. Putin's war machine, we must help our allies reduce their dependence on Russian energy by ensuring that our energy can reach global markets. Furthermore, we can create a secure North American energy market that uses all sources of Canadian energy, including renewables, traditional fuels and nuclear energy. That is how we will help defeat Mr. Putin.
At home, the number one issue affecting Canadians is affordability. At the grocery stores, at the gas pumps and at retail shopping locations, prices keep going up and up. Our purchasing power is shrinking faster than at any other point in the last 30 years. This is a silent tax that hurts the economically vulnerable and those on fixed incomes, such as seniors, the most.
There are several ways the government can address this, and we heard some of them at committee.
We can reform competition policies and help lower prices for consumers by increasing competition in key sectors, which includes banking, air travel and telecommunications. If we believe excess profits exist in these industries, the answer is not additional taxes to increase government revenues. Rather, consumers should capture these excess profits in the form of lower prices.
We should reform the one-for-one rule on regulatory burden. Instead of taking out a regulatory rule for every one we bring in, why do we not just cut the regulatory burden by 50% over five years? Let us be ambitious.
We can quicken the implementation of the beneficial ownership registry for Canadian corporations that look to the Canadian market to hide assets in the form of money laundering. Most of those laundered funds end up in real estate, which distorts our local real estate markets. Just last week, the Bank of Montreal indicated that in six years there has been a threefold increase in housing prices in Orillia, which is in my riding. How can we expect young Canadians to look at this country and think that home ownership is in the cards for them?
We need to focus on economic growth. We have seen an unprecedented growth in the size of government by every available measure, but at this point we must focus on the private sector to take advantage of the entrepreneurial spirit of Canadians. The government has seemed more interested in wealth redistribution than it is on underlying economic growth, and this must change. We do not need new superclusters or national consultations distorted by well-connected lobbyists and rent-seekers. We must create an environment where businesses of all sizes can thrive. Businesses that grow create jobs and pay taxes.
An overarching opportunity following the pandemic is the rapid deployment of high-speed Internet across all regions of the country, and that is very important to the people in Simcoe North. It is nice that, as we heard just today, the government might be subsidizing and working with those who are of low income so they can access high-speed Internet, but this really will not help those who do not have access to high-speed Internet in the first place.
Tax policy that penalizes success also drives investment away. It is not a surprise that in the year following the changes the government made to the marginal tax rates in 2016, the government received far less revenue than it anticipated. These short-sighted policies can drive businesses, jobs and tax revenues to other jurisdictions. This hurts Canada through lower tax revenues that are used to fund social programs enjoyed by all Canadians: health care, retirement security and, of course, education.
Furthermore, industry-specific tax policy is a very poor idea. The government should set a consistent rate applicable to all sectors. Capital can move freely across borders, and in some sectors, like financial services, companies can shift operations and profits to other jurisdictions. Additional taxes on oligopolies are only going to result in higher prices for consumers or lower levels of investment.
We must carefully understand the negative impacts of certain tax policy changes. For example, the luxury boat and car tax we heard at committee will only increase the sales of these products in foreign markets, notably the United States. This will drive investment, jobs and taxes out of Canada with very little revenue increase for federal coffers. My riding has one of the largest freshwater marinas in the world, plus another dozen or so other marinas. This is going to take jobs out of my community and will hurt the people of Simcoe North.
When it comes to fiscal responsibility, now is the time to make a new path. The Bank of Canada indicates that the economy is robust and is operating near full capacity, which means additional fiscal expansion will just create inflationary pressures. These warnings are coming from all corners of the country. It has been almost 10 years since the federal government underwent any serious scrutiny of its spending, and it is unhealthy for an organization of its size to go this long without reviewing its expenditures.
It is even more important now to rationalize our non-core expenditures to focus on priority areas, including our national defence. We must support our allies, such as Ukraine and those in NATO, and we need to be able to defend our Arctic sovereignty. Pulling forward defence expenditures to displace other planned spending is a sacrifice that Canadians are willing to make in the face of increasing threats from the Russian Federation.
Additionally, the government is going to see a windfall of revenue resulting from persistent inflation, higher-than-expected oil prices and, yes, higher taxes. These excess revenues should be used to reduce the size of the deficit or provide relief to Canadian families in the form of tax holidays. Significant deficit spending at all stages of the economic cycle will have a protracted impact on the fiscal sustainability of government finances. It will threaten our AAA credit rating, which is only going to drive up the cost of borrowing. We cannot continue to erode the country's fiscal position with no plan to rein in unnecessary expenditures. The ability of future governments to deal with the emergencies of their time depends on the responsibility of our government today.
We also must think about the overarching regulatory framework in the country with respect to financial regulation. We are still waiting for open banking regulations. We are still waiting for the government to get serious about innovation in the financial services sector. However, we need to consider asking our agencies to get back to basics. The emerging housing affordability issue and related financial system vulnerability expose serious concerns about the effectiveness of our regulatory system in Canada. We have agencies on one day saying one thing about the housing market, and on the next day, a different agency says the complete opposite. That cannot be left to continue. We also need to make sure we have the right people and HR strategy to attract those who have knowledge about the financial services sector to help us through this transition.
Finally, there are a few items I would like put forward that we heard at committee that the government should be considering.
We talked about high-speed Internet. We need to re-establish the Lake Simcoe cleanup fund. We have to fund the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. We have to implement a two-year ban on purchases of real estate by non-resident Canadians. Let us take the wind out of the sails of this red-hot property market. We have to follow through on the existing mental health and addictions commitments for an opioid addiction strategy. Finally, we need to ensure that we can introduce employee-owned trusts that will help our business owners transition business interests to employees. I hope we will make some headway on affordable housing and all kinds of housing in this budget.
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- Apr/4/22 3:57:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is a great opportunity to talk about how we have all of the provinces and territories across this country who have basically been asking for an agreement from the federal government to plan out what the investments will be in our health care system. While we have a global pandemic, the government is unwilling to make a commitment to the provinces and territories on what their funding is going to look like.
Instead we have an introduction of them going to throw $2 billion at it because there are backlogs in surgeries, in diagnostic screenings and care appointments, but the provinces want stability. They want planning. They want prudence, something that we are not seeing from the government.
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- Apr/4/22 4:41:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, with your permission, I would like to share my time with the hon. member for Terrebonne.
I want to begin by stressing the importance of pre-budget consultations and their particular significance this year. We are emerging from two years of a pandemic. It has been extremely difficult. Our businesses, taxpayers, workers and families have been through trying times, something quite out of the ordinary. Given those circumstances, it is more important than ever to consult our constituents, our organizations, the business community, so that we are drawing ideas from the grassroots level.
I am an optimist, and I cannot wait to see the budget this Thursday. However, we are already starting to get the feeling today that things are not going well and that there is a chance we will be disappointed. Let us start with health.
We know that the pandemic was very hard on the health sector. There has been a lot of focus on COVID-19 patients, COVID-19-related deaths, and long-haulers. We are there for them. It is still very hard for many people, but we cannot forget the triaging, the surgeries that had to be delayed and the families who have had to go through extremely difficult times.
We have seen this in other countries. Switzerland comes to mind, for example. Certain other countries have more resilient health care systems. They were more resilient because they have been reformed. They have been reformed because funding was available and more hospital beds were available. This enabled them to do better in the pandemic and to reduce the economic costs associated with all the lockdown measures. What we need now in order to deal with future crises, to clear the backlog of surgeries, to clear all the backlogs, are health transfers with no strings attached, transfers that cover 35% of system costs. Indeed, our health care systems need to be reformed.
The Quebec health minister has already presented a major reform plan, but it needs to be funded. As we know, the money is here in Ottawa. We had a long list of health care stakeholders in Quebec today. Everyone was there, including general practitioners, specialists, unions. These people are calling for health transfers with no strings attached in order to ensure predictable funding so that we can plan reforms. These are the people who work on the ground, in hospitals. These are the people who take care of others.
I imagine that the budget is pretty much ready to go, that copies are being printed and bound in pretty plastic covers. When we asked the Minister of Health the question, he said that, yes, the government would be giving small amounts. I am sure the member for Winnipeg North will talk about that later. The government is handing out money, but these are ad hoc microtransfers, bits of money here and there. Then the Minister of Health expects us to thank him for that. In the meantime, he is refusing to meet with people in Quebec who take care of the sick day after day.
This is one of our demands, something we need to support the budget. We are proud of that because it is what Quebeckers and others want. The federal government is the one with the money and it has to recommit. We are also asking for the Canada social transfer to be brought back to its 1993‑94 levels.
The Conservatives are on their soapbox again. Last time it was about their love for Paul Martin. Today it is Paul Martin, Jean Chrétien and John Manley. They like all the Liberals who made cuts. As I have said before, starting in 1995, they merged the health and social transfers and then made repeated cuts to them. We are still not back to the same level of funding as we had before.
The Canada social transfer is used for post‑secondary education, social assistance, early childhood education, and educational services. It is astounding to hear the Liberals brag about interfering in provincial jurisdictions when it comes to child care when, for years, they have not made up for any lost ground with the Canada social transfer. That should be done. It is necessary. The provincial governments are the ones providing the services. When the federal government tries, it rarely goes well. We are seeing that right now with Citizenship and Immigration.
I attended and participated in the budget consultations at the Standing Committee on Finance. Before the marriage between the NDP and the Liberals was even consummated, people were already asking questions. The recommendations were presented, and we told them that they fell under provincial jurisdiction. However, they do not understand what these jurisdictions are.
Last week, the member for Fredericton told me that she understands why the Bloc wants the government to stay out of provincial jurisdictions but that mental health is such an important issue that the government should intervene.
I have no doubt that they are sincere, but sincerity and incompetence do not get us anywhere. What matters is money, and it needs to be given to those on the ground.
Let us talk about the cost of living. As an economist, I know that the supply chain and the issues we have had are partly to blame for the inflationary pressures we are experiencing. The Conservatives are living in their own little world, where the Earth is flat and there is nothing outside our borders.
I know that all these supply problems are a big source of the inflationary pressure, but there is another factor at play. Inflation has been at 2%, or between 1% and 3%, for decades, so families, businesses, governments and anyone who needs to procure goods have planned their finances around a predictable inflation rate of 2%. Everyone was taken by surprise.
The most vulnerable members of society are among those who were taken by surprise. Some families are struggling to make ends meet. They are being told that this is temporary, that it will not last long. They are being told that they only have to go hungry for two years, then inflation will go back to 2%.
The Bloc Québécois believes that these people need to be supported. This must be done through an increase in the GST credit when inflation is above 3%. Indeed, there is a monetary policy commitment that inflation would not exceed 3%. The frequency of cheques could also be increased. It is important to help these people, because they are struggling financially right now.
Let us talk green finance. We want to see that in the budget. During question period today, the environment minister once again boasted about eliminating fossil fuel subsidies. To hear him tell it, one would think the Liberals had been in power for six months, but they have been in power since 2015.
The subsidies are still there, and the government is still dumping taxpayer dollars into fossil fuels. That kind of short-term thinking is what gets the world in trouble. That kind of short-term thinking means that, when gas is $2 a litre, we will be even more dependent on it. That is what we need to work on.
Our financial institutions must disclose climate risk. That is under federal jurisdiction, but the one time they do have jurisdiction over something, they do not use it.
We also need to change the the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board's mandate. It is clear from what the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is doing and from all the financial innovations at Desjardins that people want green investments. We have to put money toward the transition.
The CPP Investment Board has come up with its own strategy. It wants to invest in carbon capture. Carbon capture does not exist, though. It is a last-ditch strategy that may one day enable us to knock out the last few units, the last few metric tonnes of emissions, but they are up to their eyeballs in oil.
Let us talk about access to water. Are the Liberals proud of their legacy? The Chrétien government promised our first nations access to drinking water, Paul Martin made a commitment to that effect, and the current government keeps talking about it, but it has not happened yet, even though drinking water is essential.
I will talk about farming because it is very important to my riding, Mirabel. Earlier during question period, the Minister of Agriculture told us that our farmers know how much they will be getting in compensation. Their market was stolen from them with CUSMA, but they will not be getting their money until next year. I feel like going up to every government MP and telling them that their salary is x amount, but I will not pay it until next year, so good luck with the mortgage.
Those payments need to be moved up. Farmers are important. They are the ones who feed us. Farmers, especially those who are supply managed, are having a very tough time right now because of input costs.
I will close by saying that expectations are high and I am very worried about the signs I am seeing.
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- Apr/4/22 5:26:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, today we are debating a motion to concur in the report of the finance committee regarding recommendations arising from the pre-budget consultations. As we often hear, budgets are about choices on expenses, services and the investments we are making to create a better Canada, and choices on revenues and who we ask to pay for those investments.
It is therefore good to look at where we are now, or at least where were before the pandemic, when the parliamentary budget office reported that 1% of Canadians shared 25% of the wealth and that 40% of Canadians have only 1% of the wealth shared among them. The pandemic has only accentuated and aggravated these inequalities and differences. Supply chains have been disrupted. We have had labour shortages that are still very critical. We have had climate disasters, droughts, floods and heat domes, a lot of them happening in my riding or adjacent ridings. We have seen the impacts of what climate change is bringing. Now we have an illegal war in the Ukraine that is further exacerbating the situation in the world economy.
How did the inequalities change during the pandemic? Well, billionaires got richer. Billionaires in Canada added more than $70 billion to their own wealth while the rest of those in Canada really struggled. This committee report fails to recommend any solution that would change or reverse this trend. The NDP feels that we need a tax on additional profits that were brought in by many of the big corporations during the pandemic. We need a wealth tax of 1% on superwealthy Canadians who have assets of over $10 million. Instead, we see superwealthy Canadians and big corporations taking money out of Canada year after year. We are losing over $25 billion in tax revenue every year because we are not taxing the people who can afford these investments and are, instead, taxing the people who cannot afford them.
In terms of climate change, there are many recommendations in this report on what we need to do about climate change, and we agree with many of those recommendations. However, we really want to emphasize that a successful transition to a low-carbon future in Canada must be centred on workers. As my colleague from Edmonton Griesbach so eloquently said, he has personal experience with that. We need a federal authority created and funded by the federal government that has a mandate to quickly implement a real plan to guide us to that low-carbon future.
Hundreds of thousands of new jobs could be created by bold work on retrofitting our buildings, as 40% of our emissions come from our buildings. The government came out with a plan a few years ago that would do a small part of that necessary work with a combination of grants and loans. It helps people who can afford to do the work up front. They spend thousands of dollars retrofitting their homes and then apply for a smaller grant, or they take on a loan, of $20,000 perhaps, to do the work. However, who that leaves out is the 20% of Canadians who live in energy poverty and cannot afford to spend that money up front and cannot afford to take on any loan, no matter how low the interest. The government recently came out with a plan for climate action that it said would help people in energy poverty, but it is in the form of loans. That will not work.
One area of expenditure that neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives want to eliminate is the billions of dollars the government gives every year in subsidies to oil and gas companies. I could go on and on about this. One of the biggest ones, of course, is this obsession to build the Trans Mountain pipeline, which has now cost over $20 billion. This is $20 billion to build a piece of infrastructure that we cannot afford in light of climate action and that we do not need.
As to health care, it is a huge issue for all Canadians. Again, the pandemic has really emphasized that. Health care workers are at their breaking point. I met with the nurses union recently and it has just had it. We need a significant increase in the Canada health transfer. We need a pan-Canadian health workforce strategy that is led by the provinces and funded by the federal government.
Some of the witnesses who came before the committee asked for an end to for-profit long-term care. Canada has a horrible result, on a global scale, in terms of the deaths we saw in long-term care homes. We desperately need to fix this. It was clear from the analysis that for-profit long-term care homes had a much worse outcome than not-for-profit long-term care homes.
My colleague mentioned pharmacare and dental care. These are things that hopefully we will finally see. If we had a federal publicly funded universal pharmacare plan, we would save a minimum of $4 billion a year according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. We could have a dental care program that costs $1 billion. We could have four dental care programs funded by the amount we would save with pharmacare.
I talked to a friend of mine a few days ago who heard about the announcement of the dental care plan. She said that when she was a kid, her family did not have money for dental care and she never went to the dentist. I think when she was 12 years old, she went into the hospital and they pulled out a bunch of her teeth and gave her a bad-looking plate that tried to replace those teeth. She said that caused her irreparable damage in her confidence around people. She has been socially shy and uncomfortable around people ever since she was 12 years old because she could not afford to go to a dentist. This plan would change people's lives in Canada.
Reconciliation is another thing we have heard about again and again over the last couple of years, like just recently regarding the visits with the Pope and the Vatican. This is another area where there has been a shameful lack of political will. I am happy to see the recommendations in this report from the finance committee that deal with the 94 calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the calls for justice from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, as well as the recommendations to support the economic empowerment of indigenous people.
I could talk about housing for 10 minutes. This is a huge issue in my riding, where the lack of housing is an important part of the labour shortage. People simply cannot afford to move to my riding and work there. We have companies that are forced to buy accommodations for their employees. We need a real plan to create affordable housing in Canada.
I will also bring up a big part of my riding, the wine industry. It has felt a real blow because we lost the excise tax exemption for many wineries. The federal government has to come up with a long-term plan to replace the supports that the exemption created.
I will finish by reminding members that it is our job to focus on making life better for Canadians. Too often, our governments have made life easier for wealthy Canadians and big corporations. We need to refocus and make budget choices that benefit all Canadians, and create a fairer and more prosperous Canada for all.
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- Apr/4/22 6:13:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I love that the member cherry-picked some data. He talked about the last couple years and the average growth rather than talking about the GDP as it has applied over time. If we look at it over time, we have been successful in outpacing our G7 partners.
To the point about whether we need to look at spending differently from how we have over the last two years, I do not think there is a member in the House who would disagree with that. I suggest that, as we move forward, we are certainly going to see that. We are not going to keep the same level of spending that was required to provide CERB and a lot of the other supports to individuals.
If the federal government maintained the exact same spending level it has for the last two years to support people through the pandemic, I could understand the member's concern, but I really do not think that is going to happen. If that is his concern, I think he is going to be surprised on Thursday.
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- Apr/4/22 6:41:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the next petition I am tabling also relates to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is about the importance of vitamin D. It notes that an early systematic review of applicable scientific literature found that blood vitamin D status can determine the risk of being infected with COVID-19, the seriousness of COVID-19 and mortality from COVID-19. Additionally, it further recommends the public maintain appropriate levels of vitamin D to be able to cope with the pandemic.
Petitioners cite various other statistics involving the relationship between low vitamin D levels and higher risk from COVID-19. Petitioners note that people get vitamin D from sunlight exposure, so during the season when Canadians are less likely to spend time outdoors, increasing awareness of vitamin D is particularly important.
Petitioners call on the Government of Canada to take the following actions: recognize the emerging scientific evidence that low levels of vitamin D are associated with worse outcomes from COVID-19 and work to increase public awareness of the importance of individuals maintaining recommended levels of vitamin D.
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