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Apr/4/22 3:59:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when we talk about the carbon tax as a way to disincentivize people from using necessities for them such as their vehicles or heating their homes, we think that is an ineffective way to address climate change. One of the ways that we can address climate change is through technology, making sure that we are making investments in things like SMRs and vSMRs, making sure that we are collaborating with those in our agricultural sector, who are leaders and environmental stewards. That is incredibly important. It is also very important that we collaborate on ways to support individual families, make sure that those supports are means tested and make sure they are able to support their families so they do not have to make those terrible choices, as I mentioned before, between heating and eating.

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Ms. Rachel Blaney (North Island—Powell River, NDP)

Apr/4/22 4:00:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in my riding of North Island—Powell River we are seeing a lot of folks without housing. This is a growing concern. The market in our region is very hot. People are coming from all over the country to live in the beautiful area, but it is just making it so hard for local folks to be able to afford housing. At the same time, as those houses are being bought up, we are seeing fewer and fewer available rentals. I am wondering if the member could speak to why we need to see affordable housing across this country. I am also wondering if he has any thoughts about when the government is going to do what it promised and ban blind bidding.

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Mr. Michael Barrett

Apr/4/22 4:01:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is no surprise that we had a promise from the government, and it looks like it will be joining a long list of broken promises. It is incredibly important. Here in Ontario, for example, a commitment from the federal government, money that is owed to the province for supports for housing and homelessness, just does not flow. That is the hallmark of the government. A lot of talk and big announcements, but not a lot of action. Liberals have done nothing to remove the gatekeepers that have kept prices high and supply low, and that is the shame of the government.

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

Apr/4/22 4:01:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. First, if I may, I am rising to respond to a question of privilege raised on March 31, 2022, respecting an order of the House made on March 25, 2021, in the previous Parliament. I would like to begin by making it clear that the ministers are accountable to the House of Commons for duties carried out within their departments and for the actions of their political staff in their political offices. Page 30 of the House of Commons Procedures and Practice states the following regarding the fact that ministers are responsible to Parliament: In terms of ministerial responsibility, Ministers have both individual and collective responsibilities to Parliament...The principle of individual ministerial responsibility holds that Ministers are accountable not only for their own actions as department heads, but also for the actions of their subordinates; individual ministerial responsibility provides the basis for accountability throughout the system. Virtually all departmental activity is carried out in the name of a Minister who, in turn, is responsible to Parliament for those acts. This is not a new concept. To reinforce this assertion, allow me to quote from Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who, in the 2006 publication “Accountable Government: A Guide for Ministers”, stated, “Ministers are accountable to Parliament for the exercise of their responsibilities whether they are assigned by statute or otherwise”, and “Ministers are personally responsible for the conduct and operation of their office.” The second issue I would like to draw members' attention to is a Speaker's ruling of December 9, 2021, on the effects of dissolution in which he stated: House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, clearly stipulates, at page 397, the following: “With dissolution, all business of the House is terminated....The government’s obligation to provide answers to written questions, to respond to petitions or to produce papers requested by the House also ends with dissolution....Committees cease to exist until the House reconstitutes them following the election. All orders of reference expire....” Consequently, as a result of the dissolution of the 43rd Parliament, the orders of the House from March 25 and June 2 and 17, 2021, have expired. The government and the people summoned to appear are released from their obligations. Similarly, the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations and the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics have ended, as have their studies. Any report presented in connection with the study involved only the committee from the previous Parliament. The ruling is actually clear. Orders from the previous Parliament expired with dissolution. Therefore, there can be no breach of an order in the current Parliament for which a prima facie question of privilege can be found. I would further submit to the House that logic follows that the simple retabling of a report from a previous Parliament does not constitute a new order for which a breach of privilege can be found. If a committee in this Parliament were to issue new orders for the appearance of individuals who were the subject of a study of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 43rd Parliament and those individuals did not appear or refused to appear before the committee in this Parliament, and the committee produced a report on the refusal of these individuals to appear and that report was tabled in the House, then a member could raise a question of privilege to argue that the privileges of members had been infringed. That is not the case here. A report from a previous Parliament has been retabled and reported to the House. That in itself does not give rise to any contempt. All previous orders from the 43rd Parliament have expired, as the Speaker stated in the December 9 ruling. No new order has been made. Therefore, there is nothing for the Speaker to adjudicate.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Apr/4/22 4:06:22 p.m.
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I thank the member for the additional information. I will certainly take it under advisement and will bring it back to the House once we have had time to deliberate on that.

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Hon. Ahmed Hussen

Apr/4/22 4:06:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am tabling the government's responses to Questions Nos. 337 to 356.

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

Apr/4/22 4:06:57 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-8

Madam Speaker, here we are again today where the official opposition here in Canada has made the determination that it wants to have a continuation of what I would suggest, and my colleague from Kingston, no doubt, would vouch, is a filibuster because the Conservative Party just does not want to see Bill C-8 pass. The Conservatives have made it very clear that they do not support Bill C-8. What they are doing today is to prevent the bill from being debated once again. I am not too sure exactly how many days this bill has been up for debate, but I suspect that if one were to do a bit of research one would find that it has been a good number of days. It would have been nice to see the bill actually pass. After all, Bill C-8 is the fall economic update and here we are now in the spring. My colleague from Kingston had a question for one of the many Conservative members on Bill C-8 this morning, in essence asking when this bill will be passed or why they have not passed it. The response was that it was because the government has not brought in time allocation—

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Mr. Dan Albas

Apr/4/22 4:08:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as a point of order on relevance, we are discussing the pre-budget consultation and concurrence. Maybe the member could steer his thoughts and start talking about that. Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Apr/4/22 4:08:43 p.m.
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I want to remind members to wait until I respond. When it is time for questions and comments, it will be time for members to decide to stand up if they have anything to say. On the hon. member's point of order, he knows very well that there is some latitude to the discussion when debates are before the House. I want to remind members, though, that they are to make sure that they are referencing the motion and to keep that in mind during debate. The hon. parliamentary secretary.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Apr/4/22 4:09:23 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-8

Madam Speaker, the member is not. He is standing up on a point of order to say it is not relevant to a concurrence motion that is dealing with the budget, when Bill C-8 is all about the budget. It is all about the fall budget. I just cannot quite understand why the Conservatives, for whatever reason, have chosen to vote against that bill. When we think about a report from the finance committee on budget ideas, we can take a look at Bill C-8. In listening to the consultations, I can assure the member opposite that Canadians are very much concerned about the pandemic. The very bill the Conservatives do not want to debate today, for whatever weird reason, deals with the priorities Canadians have today. I concur, they are priorities. The issue is why the Conservative Party does not recognize that providing things such as rapid tests is important. All one has to do is look at what provinces and territories have been saying. They want to have rapid tests. This provides literally hundreds of millions of dollars for the acquisition of rapid tests for Canadians, which are in high demand. It provides supports today. The concurrence motion is referencing the importance of consultation, and if the members opposite consulted, they would understand that we need to support small businesses. That is in fact what Bill C-8 does. If they continued to look at consultations, they would see that many people are concerned about the air they breathe and ventilation in our schools, in particular. They would find that, if they were in fact consulting with Canadians. Once again, that is what is in Bill C-8. If the Conservative Party of Canada really understood the importance of consultation and actually reflected what they were hearing from their constituents back inside this chamber, Bill C-8 would have passed long ago. Now, it is as if the Conservatives have turned a leaf and know how to consult. They are saying that they want to concur in this report because of all the things that they heard in regard to this particular report. However, let us listen to some of the speeches they have given. There were only two Conservative speakers, so far. I sure hope it gets better. What did the members talk about? I made notes of some of the things they were talking about. They talked about cutting back on borrowing and stopping any form of tax increases. That is the message from the Conservative Party. Some members opposite might applaud while others are saying that it is a good start. However, there are expenditures. This is the question I put earlier. The expenditures the government makes do cost money. “Expenditure” means that it costs money, but just because the government is spending money does not necessarily mean that it is not bringing in money. The example I would give is the Canada child care program. For the first time in the history of Canada, we now have a government that has instituted a national child care program. Let us talk about that program. I am sure that if the Conservatives did their homework, and they did not, they would find that there is a broad spectrum of support for a national child care program. There are even some Conservatives, albeit somewhat shy Conservatives, who actually support child care programs and what the national government is doing. Some hon. members: Name them. Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Madam Speaker, I would not want to embarrass them by naming them. Here is the reason I like to use it as an example. Let us take a look at the province of Quebec. The nice thing about being in a federal system is that we can see what is happening in different regions of our country. The province of Quebec has been highly successful with a day care or child care program that has enabled more people to have access to child care. The national government recognized the strengths and benefits implemented in the province of Quebec, and we turned it into a national program. As a direct result of that, we will see that day care across Canada is now going to become a whole lot more affordable. There is no doubt about it. We will see more day care spots. For the first time, we will see more people getting engaged in different aspects of our society. That could be more people volunteering for wonderful organizations, but more often than not it will enable individuals who would not have been able to work to enter the work force. When they enter the work force, they are going to be paying income tax. It will generate revenue. Yes, there is a government expenditure. It is going to cost money to ensure that we have that national child care program, but it is also going to allow people to engage in work and generate additional revenues for the Government of Canada. It is a fair policy. It is a good decision for the government to move in that direction. The Conservative member who spoke before me talked about the government being too concerned about income equality, or that was the essence of one of the points he was trying to make. I can appreciate why the member would say that. I do not know how many times in the past I have talked about some of the actions we have taken in government. I can tell the member that, in the consultations I have had, there is a good deal of support for the initiatives we have taken to deal with income inequality. For example, when we came into government one of the very first things we did was put a tax on Canada's wealthiest 1%. The Conservatives voted against that, and today we are being criticized because it did not generate as much income as we wanted to see it generate as a government. It is unbelievable. At the end of the day, it was a smart thing to do. All the members have to do is consult with their constituents. Had they consulted with their constituents, I would suggest that a vast majority of Canadians supported us having an increase in the tax rate on Canada's wealthiest 1%. I can assure members that is the case in Winnipeg North, and I would suggest it is the case in 337 other ridings. Another issue that we dealt with in addressing income inequality was lowering tax points for Canada's middle class. Again, the Conservative Party voted against that measure. The party that likes to say it wants tax breaks actually voted against a tax break. It was one of the more significant tax breaks in the last 20 years and it voted against it. It just does not make any sense. We are talking about consultations. I am wondering this. If my friends across the way were to consult with their constituents on this one, what do members think their constituents would have said about having a tax break for Canada's middle class? I am not a gambling man, with one exception in regard to the member for Kingston and the Islands, to whom I lost a McDonald's meal, but I can tell members that, at the end of the day, a vast majority of my constituents supported that measure. They recognized the value of it. We can continue talking about consultations and commitments that have been given by the government. One of the earlier actions taken by the government was to listen to what seniors had to say. After a decade of Stephen Harper, there was a huge need to give attention to Canada's seniors. We have seen that virtually from day one, when we came into government, to today. We have had the Minister of Finance, the department and 150-plus Liberal members of Parliament actually working with and consulting their constituents. We are participating wherever we can in things such as roundtables and are listening to the different stakeholders, whether they are labour unions or business representatives, big or small. We are trying to get a better understanding of what other things we can do. One of the common things we hear is with regard to the issue of seniors. We have a very proactive Minister of Seniors, who ensures that the issues surrounding seniors are a top priority for the government. We even have a caucus group of members of Parliament who talk about the importance of seniors and what else we can do. I am happy to report to members that, from day one, we have consistently been there to support our seniors. I would like to give a few examples of that. We will recall that one of the first actions we took was to reduce the age of OAS eligibility from 67 to 65. I recall that I was in the third party in the corner back here, and Stephen Harper was overseas when the Conservatives made the announcement that they were going to increase the age to qualify for OAS from 65 to 67. I can tell members that the reaction in Canada was not very favourable. I suspect that was why Mr. Harper was in Europe during that particular decision. It did not go over well. We listened to Canadians, much as is expected when we consult, i.e., the consultation on the budget report that we are talking about today. I know—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Apr/4/22 4:22:49 p.m.
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The hon. member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola is rising on a point of order.

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Mr. Dan Albas

Apr/4/22 4:22:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate the member for actually mentioning the pre-budget consultation report, which is the actual thing we are supposed to be talking about here in the motion. Actually, the title is, “Considering the Path Forward”. I would hope—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Apr/4/22 4:23:10 p.m.
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This is not a point of order. It is a point of debate. The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons is rising on a point of order.

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen

Apr/4/22 4:23:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on the point of order, there are 221 recommendations in this report that address just about every fiscal—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Apr/4/22 4:23:28 p.m.
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What the hon. member is trying to do is make a point of clarification and not a point of order. Again, I have already indicated that the other one was not a point of order. It is a point of debate, as is this other member's point. The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons has just a little over five minutes left, and then there will be 10 minutes for questions and comments. I would ask people to be patient. The hon. parliamentary secretary.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Apr/4/22 4:23:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really believe I should get a bonus two minutes because I had to entertain points of order. Having said that, with respect to consultation, which is so very important, from the very beginning we have been working with Canadians in a very real and tangible way. An excellent example is what we have done with respect to seniors. In the first few months, there was a substantial commitment for the GIS increase. It was somewhere around $800 or $900 to max out. It literally lifted hundreds of people out of poverty in Winnipeg North. Seniors from Winnipeg North were lifted out of poverty because of that one particular initiative. I know members want to talk about something more recent. In the pandemic, we had one-time payments for both OAS and GIS. We also supported people by listening to the many different organizations that are out there to support seniors. We literally gave tens of millions of dollars to those organizations to enhance services for seniors during the pandemic. We have now brought forward a budget that is actually seeing a 10% increase in OAS for seniors over 75. We take the issue of consultation very seriously. We have a Minister of Finance and the finance department. As I have referenced before, the Prime Minister, over the years, has been very consistent in terms of his expectations of members of the Liberal caucus. That was to get the sense of, and be advocates for, the ridings that we represent and to bring the voices of our constituents to Ottawa. I believe that, in good part, we do that. We factor that in, along with the many different types of round tables, meetings and discussions that have been happening through a multitude of different ministers all focusing in with the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. In a couple of days, we are going to see a budget that will reflect what Canadians really want to see. It is, first and foremost, going to be a team Canada-reflected budget on Thursday. I know to a certain degree that the far-right element within the Conservative Party, which has really raised its head in the last number of weeks, will likely be a little disappointed.

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Mr. Brad Vis

Apr/4/22 4:27:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, the member is insinuating that there are members of the far right in the Conservative Party. That is completely false and inappropriate.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Apr/4/22 4:27:19 p.m.
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That is a point of debate. The hon. parliamentary secretary.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Apr/4/22 4:27:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not mean to insinuate it. It is fact. That is the reality.

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Mr. Brad Vis

Apr/4/22 4:27:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, that is completely inappropriate and it is not a fact. My family came to Canada. I am a member of the Conservative Party. One does not insinuate that I am a member of the far right. It is completely inappropriate and unbecoming of the member for Winnipeg North. I expect more from him.

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