44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 4, 2022 11:00AM
- Apr/4/22 5:13:46 p.m.
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I am sorry. I hate to disturb the hon. member. I may have been sidetracked. I am just wondering if the hon. member has indicated that he is going to share his time. I may have missed it, but I just wanted to ask the hon. member.
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- Apr/4/22 5:14:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay.
Members of these companies have been making record profits. We are seeing CN Rail, for example, with huge profits of over $7 billion. We are seeing Suncor spend $3.1 billion on its shareholders. Canadians are losing their hard-earned money. I am a former energy worker, who the Conservatives often talk about supporting. Never once did the Conservatives go to the workers to talk to them about what it means to ensure the security and dignity that workers across this country deserve.
Soaring housing prices continue to make our country more unaffordable for the average Canadian. Young people are being left behind. Single parents have nowhere to go. Children are not sure what their future is going to look like. We are seeing a world that is increasingly unpredictable. Last summer, we saw record heat waves. We have seen floods. We have seen droughts. We have seen regular communities take on the brunt of this work, yet where is the support? We need to ensure that we work toward rebuilding our economy so that it works for every single Canadian, not just some of us.
I want to particularly highlight some community organizations in Edmonton Griesbach that are doing the hard work to lift up communities, such as Boyle Street Community Services, Hope Mission, and some of the Amity Houses that are spread throughout our great city of Edmonton and are working with everyday community members. They are seeing them and meeting them where they are, so that they actually have a chance to get out of poverty. Some of these families have been living paycheque to paycheque for years, not knowing when they are going to get a break.
We are also seeing huge impacts on young people and their ability to make sure that they have good lives because of student debt. Student debt payments continue to be collected by the current government. Students have paid nearly $4 billion today in student loan payments during one of the most difficult times in our country's history. Young people need support, now more than ever, to make sure that they can actually get to a point where they see that their education is going to pay off: it is not just a debt sentence where they are going to be left with an unimaginable debt load and an unpredictable future.
We need a country that will understand the issues of some of the communities we are leaving behind the most. Indigenous communities have been disproportionately affected by the poverty crisis and are disproportionately impacted by the unjust levels of profiteering by the companies that are partnered with them.
We are seeing the need to increase social responsibility for these companies, to make sure that they are paying into our social safety net and they are continuing to do the hard work. In Alberta, for example, we are seeing that some of these oil companies have forgone municipal taxes. They are not paying municipal taxes. In what jurisdiction do we allow companies not to pay basic municipal taxes? Alberta is one of them. These communities, these municipalities, these reserves and these Métis settlements need that revenue.
I talked just recently to president Herb Lehr of the Métis Settlements General Council. The council predicts that it is missing over $3 million in unpaid taxes due to these companies. That is $3 million that is not going toward the basic needs of family members in these communities: the basic infrastructure that goes into clean water, roads and building communities. We often talk about reconciliation as if it is this thing that is going to cost us billions of dollars, but we often do not even give indigenous peoples the tools they need, such as enforcement to ensure that these companies pay their fair share.
We know that a guaranteed livable basic income is something that would dramatically change our country. It would dramatically change how Canadians live. It would give people the dignity that they need to move on with their lives. It would ensure that our economy works for everyone. When consumers have the power to spend what they need in order to accommodate things such as rent, food and gas, it creates confidence in an economy that can actually continue to grow. We need to ensure that people are living with dignity, and we need a guaranteed basic income now.
When we look at this affordability crisis, we know that long-standing issues the New Democrats have fought for for decades, such as child care, dental care and pharmacare, are things Canadians need now. We are seeing an issue where young people have to go to Stollery Children's Hospital at the twelfth hour to have surgery performed on their teeth because they had no preventative measures. This is actually costing Canadians. We can tackle these issues if only we have the courage to do what is right.
When I think about the struggling families in my community of Edmonton Griesbach, we often think about those who are unhoused, but we do not often think about those in the middle: they are right on the edge of poverty and need help now. They need a huge amount of assistance. They need to see the current government working for them. They need to see their monthly paycheques increase. We need to see justice for families who are working, sometimes three or four jobs, and still not making ends meet. No one in this country should have to work more than one job in order to have a good life. That is what we are living with right now in my community. Community members are working 15- or 16-hour days because they have family members or children who need that support.
I recently visited the Nebula Academy in Edmonton. It is a not-for-profit community school that is working to make sure that marginalized communities can continue to get the supports they need. New Canadians are often abandoned when they come to Canada, with respect to receiving the education they need that is culturally appropriate and in the language of their choice. They want to see their families and religions represented in the place they call home. These are the kinds of programs that are going to go a long way toward ensuring that we have a better Canada for everyone.
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- Apr/4/22 5:21:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for Edmonton Griesbach for his remarks today. I think this is the first time we have had to engage each other in the House, and I congratulate him on his election. Certainly, as we are two of the younger members of Parliament in the House, it is great to see another young face here.
I have been thinking a lot about energy and its future in Canada and around the world. I believe the member opposite mentioned that he was a former energy worker in Alberta. I am thinking of the future of the oil and gas sector. I believe that, come 2050, there still will be an oil and gas sector, albeit smaller globally because of the work we will be doing collectively. On that end, coupled with the amount of electricity that is going to be needed in Canada as we move to EVs and otherwise, I believe that small modular reactors in the nuclear sector are going to be extremely important.
Does the member opposite have any thoughts on that as it relates to positioning the oil and gas sector for success in a tighter global and Canadian market? Also, how could it be important for electricity in the country in the days ahead?
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- Apr/4/22 5:22:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, working in Alberta's oil sands granted me a tremendous opportunity. It allowed me to get my education, pay off that debt and be part of an economy I saw a future in. The reality is that, the last time I worked in that industry, I was laid off four times in the same calendar year. Why would people want to work in an industry where they cannot make ends meet because they are laid off so many times?
When I think of what our country needs, as well as about our energy needs, I often think about how vast our country is. I have worked in the Northwest Territories. I have seen the geothermal plants and renewable projects, and I know our country can sustain more renewable energy projects without going to nuclear.
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- Apr/4/22 5:23:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I certainly appreciate the member's contributions to the debate today. Specifically, I would like to ask him about carbon capture, utilization and storage. The government has been making promises, through the Minister of Finance, to the energy industry. It has said it will support an investment tax credit to allow for those pathways to net-zero projects to move forward. There are a number of energy companies waiting for that. If we do not see those kinds of investments being made, they will simply go to other regions or places and we will be left with fewer jobs and less opportunity.
Where do the New Democrats stand on carbon capture, utilization and storage? Do they believe it is a fossil fuel subsidy or a way to responsibly develop our resources?
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- Apr/4/22 5:24:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I had the opportunity to work on carbon capture in one of the first testing projects in Fort McMurray, but in reality how much has it captured? It is zero today, and that was about seven years ago.
We do not know the number. We do not know how much carbon is being captured by sequestration. When we are talking to these companies, their numbers range, so which is it? Is it a scientific fact or is it a scientific fantasy? I think in many ways we have to follow the science, and it is not in carbon capture.
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- Apr/4/22 5:24:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for such an interesting speech.
My colleague and I agree on the substance of several points, including providing the dental care that people need. However, is my colleague aware that health is under provincial jurisdiction in this federation? In theory he is, because that is what is written in the contract they signed.
Does he not think that we should increase health transfers to the provinces and trust the governments that are responsible for providing those services?
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- Apr/4/22 5:25:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I believe that Quebec's social safety net is really helping many Quebeckers in the province. However, when we think of the province of Alberta and what is happening there, we see that the protections and powers of jurisdiction the province has enjoyed have actually harmed people. We are seeing public health care wages being cut, so I believe that we should increase the transfer, but it needs strings attached.
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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 5:35:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member for his contributions to today's pre-budget concurrence debate.
There is a very important issue in the Okanagan and, in fact, throughout Similkameen as well. The federal government will be doing a replacement program for the wine industry. Most people would ask what that has to do with anything. Well, on July 1, anyone in the wine industry, whether they have done 100% Canadian content or not, will have to pay excise tax on their existing inventory. This has not been done since 2006. Many small and medium-sized wineries are suddenly going to have bills from the federal government that they have never had before. This could devastate the industry on the small end. I have also spoken to some of the larger operators, who have said that because the government took away the tax exemption, they will have to pay more.
Would the member speak to this issue? I know it will greatly affect both of our ridings and the Canadian wine industry as a whole.
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- Apr/4/22 5:37:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, just to the north and west of me, for that question, because it is a very important question for both of our ridings and for the entire Okanagan area and the Canadian wine industry as a whole.
As he mentioned, and I briefly mentioned at the end of my speech, the wine industry, especially the smaller wineries, are losing the exemption to the excise tax that they have enjoyed for many years. In fact, most of the wineries in our ridings have never paid that. They are relatively new businesses and they have not have a business model to cover that. We need to support them to make that transition. Every wine-producing country around the world has ways of supporting their wine industry, and the federal government has come out with a short-term thing. He mentioned the date and the fact that it is going to be on existing inventories. We have to change that and make sure our wine industry can grow and prosper.
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- Apr/4/22 5:38:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola rose to ask a question and said that the government had taken away the 100% excise. It was actually deemed ineligible, as per the World Trade Organization. I thought—
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- Apr/4/22 5:38:31 p.m.
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That is an issue of debate.
Questions and comments, the hon. member for Vaughan—Woodbridge.
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- Apr/4/22 5:38:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member from beautiful British Columbia, which was formerly my home province and where my parents and the rest of my family reside still, a question with regard to strengthening Canada's social fabric. We came in and from 2015 on we have strengthened Canada's social fabric, whether it is for seniors or for families with the CCB, or whether it is for workers with the Canada workers benefit, which is increasing again. We are increasing the basic personal exemption amount to $15,000.
Does the hon. member not feel that we are on the correct trajectory in continuing to strengthen our social fabric with improvements in dental care and with ongoing improvements with pharmacare?
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- Apr/4/22 5:39:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would certainly agree with him that we are on the right path by including pharmacare and dental care, which I think would be two programs that will help Canadians the most. This will change people's lives. I mentioned the example of my friend who would have had a very different life, perhaps, had she had dental care when she was a girl.
As for people with pharmacare, 10% of Canadians cannot afford to fill their prescriptions. We have free care in hospitals and we have free doctor visits, but when one gets a prescription, one has to pay for that out of one's own pocket. These are things that will change people's lives more than anything else. However, if we want to make a real big difference for all Canadians, we should bring in a guaranteed basic income that would make sure that all Canadians would not be below the poverty line. People would still work, but people could live in dignity and that would really make a difference.
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- Apr/4/22 5:40:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from British Columbia for his thoughtful and socially conscious speech, which brought up some very important issues.
However, I cannot help but notice that the solution always seems to involve the superwealthy. I would like to know if, for him, the concept of superwealthy is economic, sociological or ideological.
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- Apr/4/22 5:41:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think it is a very practical solution. We do not have to bring up ideology or whatever. These are the people with billions and billions of dollars. As I mentioned, 1% of them share 25% of our wealth. They should be paying more for this. We have had a trickle-down economic theory that has been completely debunked but that the Conservatives still cling to. They would say to cut taxes for the wealthy and the big corporations—
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- Apr/4/22 5:41:32 p.m.
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We have to resume debate.
The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.
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- Apr/4/22 5:41:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to this concurrence motion regarding a report that was done by the finance committee and then tabled.
For those who might be tuning in today to watch and who are asking themselves what the motion is all about, basically the Conservative Party has decided to table a report that I bet will pass unanimously in this House when we get to the time for voting. People might ask why the Conservatives would do that. In my opinion, it is for no reason other than to just delay the work of this House.
Of course, they will give us their fake outrage about how the democratic process entitles everybody to speak forever and ever, and they are not wrong about that. However, the reality of the situation is that there are things we need to deal with in this House. One of those things is passing the fall economic statement. We are unable to do that because the Conservative Party is putting up speaker after speaker to drag out the process. The Conservatives are probably starting to run out of speakers now, but one of the reasons they had to bring in this concurrence motion is to add a little more time, at least three hours, to this debate.
That is my opinion on why we happen to be debating this concurrence motion right now. Although the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberals all realize that maybe it is time to pass the fall economic statement, and it would be great if we could pass it before we pass the spring budget that will be introduced in a couple of days, the Conservative Party is relentless, quite frankly, because it figures this one motion is going to be its pathway to victory in the next election. I am sure that is what the Conservatives are thinking, and that is how we have ended up here. It is either that or just to tell Canadians later on that the government was unable to conduct its business, all for reasons of its own making, and that of course none of that had to do with the Conservatives.
We are here because our procedural rules permit this to happen. We are talking about a report that I am very confident will pass unanimously in this House when we get to it.
There was a comment earlier, when one of your counterparts, Madam Speaker, was in the chair, by the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, who got extremely excited when the member for Winnipeg North accused some of the Conservative bench of being far right. I would point out that the member for Winnipeg North did not even say “alt right”; he said “far right”. I would say that the member for Winnipeg North was being extremely generous when he made that comment about being on the far right.
If the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon is so concerned about members of his party being labelled “far right”, he might want to, I do not know, talk to the member for Lethbridge or the member for Saskatoon West. He could talk to them about maybe not coming into the House and calling the Prime Minister a dictator. That kind of rhetoric and language certainly leads in the direction of understanding why they might really be considered far right.
I will give another example. How about on February 17 in this House, when the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke said, “Canadians want foreign interference”—
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- Apr/4/22 5:45:23 p.m.
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We have a point of order from the hon. member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola.
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