44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 25, 2022 11:00AM
- Apr/25/22 12:01:01 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise this morning. Much to the chagrin of the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, I am pleased to hear that the member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex is ensuring as many Conservatives as possible will be able to speak to the hardships Canadians are going to experience because of the Liberal-NDP budget tabled just two weeks ago.
Canadians need a break, and they need relief from the growing affordability crisis, a crisis the government has presided over and has contributed to with its failed policies.
What were Canadians looking for when the finance minister and the Prime Minister delivered the budget? They wanted controlled spending. They have had to rein spending in at home, and they expected the government to do the same. Of course, they needed tax breaks. We are seeing the price of everything go up, such as gas to fill up our cars to get to medical appointments, go to work or take our kids to a recreational activity.
We are seeing the price of home heating go up. We live in one of the world's coldest climates, but the price to heat our homes continues to go up and up. Canadians want meaningful action on housing inflation. We have seen the price of a home in Canada more than double during the government's mandate.
Over the last six years, in spite of promises made by the government when it first was seeking government in 2015, Canadians are worse off than they were at that time. Whether they are seniors, young people, new Canadians or families, they would be crushed by the avalanche of uncontrolled spending that has been promised in the shadow of a deal between the Liberals and the New Democrats. This is all while the government had a unique opportunity. The conditions they contributed to allowed for the government to be the beneficiary of a windfall on the backs of the very Canadians who are suffering.
We saw government revenues climb by $24 billion over what the finance minister had projected in her fall economic update. There was an opportunity. The government did not take that opportunity to give Canadians a break with the carbon tax on April 1, a tax that does nothing to reduce emissions but does everything to hurt families, seniors and young people. It did not take that opportunity.
We also know Canadians are having a really tough time dealing with the conditions that persisted and existed before COVID-19, which were exacerbated by COVID-19, in our health care system. The government had an opportunity to use this budget to increase capacity and address backlogs in our health care system, but the government is would add to the burdens on our health care system by launching new programs amid what is well known to be a human resource crisis in our health care system.
These commitments the government has made, which were not done in consultation with the provinces, and which have expressly been called by the provinces as unwelcome, would have a negative impact on people's quality of care, their quality of life and, in fact, on the outcomes they would have for otherwise treatable and curable illnesses.
It is also going to have great harm on an area we have seen across the country and in all of our communities. All members in the House can attest to the impacts COVID-19 has had on the mental health of Canadians. It is irresponsible for the government to prioritize its deal to cement its power and to further consolidate power in the Prime Minister's Office. Its deal with the NDP is now going to allow the government to do that, but it is done at the expense of addressing the health care needs of the provinces and territories.
It is critical the government work with the provinces and territories on improving health care, which would require the Prime Minister to show the leadership of having those conversations with the premiers. We have a budget coming out of COVID-19, and the Prime Minister said that he would not talk about health care with the provinces until he effectively decided that COVID was over.
It is unbelievable, with all of the challenges. We can talk about the effects of missed and delayed care appointments, and the treatment and surgical backlogs that have been exacerbated. We saw a health care hallway across our country well before COVID-19, and at a time when it is being most acutely felt, we have a Prime Minister saying that we will talk about it after the health care crisis that we are currently experiencing. That is not the collaboration or the leadership that Canadians need. That is certainly not what the provinces have been calling for, which is leadership.
The health care system is cash-strapped and resource-strapped, but now we have these programs that were decided by the fourth party in the election. It has dictated to the minority government how it is going to address the health care system. It is not with solutions; it is with further burdens.
The Liberal government, the Prime Minister and their partner with the leader of the NDP should talk to the provinces about predictable and stable health care transfers so they can plan what that looks like. Any increases they are seeing right now were planned by and decided by the Conservative government before they came to office. They have not made any improvements on that. In fact, they derided that formula, but it is the one they are sticking to.
It makes me wonder what the Liberals really put on offer when they go to an election. They run down what the Conservatives had executed, which is a health care funding formula that was executed before 2015, and they continue it through a pandemic six years later. Then they pick up the ball from the NDP and jam those promises down the provinces' throats when they were just looking to talk about what has changed in the system over the five years they had been in office. It is really confusing. They said they would not stick with what the Conservatives offered, but instead they kept that and added what the NDP wanted.
I guess the Liberals are setting the stage for the next election or this budget vote to be one of deciding if Canadians want to vote for the NDP or the Conservatives. Well, I have to tell members that we will work with the provinces. We will give Canadians a break. We are not going to further burden Canadians, at a time when they can afford it the least, in all of the areas that I mentioned previously, which are about basic affordability.
When I talk about this, the government members will stand up and say that supply chain issues are a global phenomenon. They will stand up and tell us to compare our debt-to-GDP ratio with that of other countries around the world. However, whether we are in Eureka, Nunavut, Victoria-by-the-Sea, Prince Edward Island, Victoria, British Columbia, or any point in between, that is just word salad. It does not mean anything to Canadians who cannot afford the basic necessities of life.
We have people in communities across the country and in my community who have to make the choice between heating their home and feeding their family, heating or eating, at a time when we are having a conversation about bringing more people to our great country to enjoy the beauty and bounty that this country has to offer. We better make sure there are no claims of false advertising brought by the folks we are trying to attract here. It is going to be tough sledding. It is going to be tough sledding when they get here and find things out. Welcome to Canada, and if they want to own a home, they just need $850,000 to get started. Yikes. Once they do, good luck heating the place. If they can afford to heat it, the price of groceries this year is going to go up by a minimum of $1,000 per family. Also, the price at the pump will only increase under failed policies that the government continues to double down on.
Canadians needed a break from the government. They needed leadership on health care. They have neither, so the Conservatives, the official opposition, have tremendous concern and will continue to fight for Canadians.
1431 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Apr/25/22 12:15:46 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, it is really important in 2022 that we look to the results of the government, which the member's party has just decided to keep in power regardless of its failures for Canadians, who are struggling with an affordability crisis.
The member has identified issues that are of great importance to the people who elected him to this place. Some people in my constituency explained that they were concerned about some of those issues. The government has abandoned that ground, and I would encourage the member opposite to prod the government to give some meaningful help to Canadians, instead of having this avalanche of spending.
107 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Apr/25/22 12:24:25 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I disagree with the member. I believe budget 2022-23 provides a great deal of hope for Canadians. I say that because, even when we take a look at what the member was talking about, a good portion of her time was spent on housing. I think we need to recognize that the federal government has put into place a number of initiatives to assist Canadians in being able to afford a home, but it is not just the federal government alone, and that is my question for the member.
Would she not agree that the only way we can deal with the issue of housing is to incorporate municipalities, for example the zoning requirements and the bureaucracy that is involved in that? Provincial governments provide literally tens of thousands of units in my own home province of Manitoba. It is going to require governments of all levels to start working more closely together to ensure that Canadians will be able to have affordability. As a national government, we are demonstrating our leadership on that file.
178 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Apr/25/22 2:44:15 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, this morning, the governor of the Bank of Canada was very clear that inflation is no longer transitory. In fact, Mr. Macklem said, “Team Transitory has disbanded.” For months, the government has claimed that inflation was a passing global phenomenon, nothing to see. It continued to borrow and spend all the way to a skyrocketing inflation of 6.7%.
Why has the minister allowed her spending to fuel an affordability crisis, which has left millions of Canadians behind?
82 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Apr/25/22 4:13:54 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, it is a true honour for me to speak in this House on behalf of the residents of my riding of Davenport on federal budget 2022. I am very pleased to be sharing my time with the hon. member for Winnipeg South.
Budget 2022 invests in three main things: people, economic growth and a clean future for everyone. Since the budget is almost 400 pages, I cannot relay everything that is in it, but I am going to focus on a few key things that I know are really important for Davenport residents. They include housing, climate action, immigration, support for workers, growing our economy and prosperity.
The first issue is housing. This is a huge issue for Davenport residents, like it is for all Canadians. The issue is not only affordable housing, but it is also housing affordability. It has become a huge stressor for so many Davenport residents that they cannot even imagine being able to afford a house or a condo in the city they grew up in. For those who do not know, my riding of Davenport is in downtown west Toronto.
I should mention a little context around housing. The issue around housing has been 30 years in the making. It is not going to be resolved overnight. Indeed, it does not matter how much money the federal government is going to give. All three levels of government have to work together in order to resolve this problem.
We have already committed $72 billion in financial support via the national housing strategy, and we have committed those funds over the last five years. In budget 2022, we have the most ambitious investment in housing ever at the federal level. We have introduced a number of initiatives that are very much focused on doubling the number of homes built over the next 10 years and also on providing a number of supports that will help Canadians save for their first home.
I will mention a few of the items that are in the budget. The first is that we are continuing our focus on housing our most vulnerable, with an additional $1.5 billion over two years to extend the rapid housing initiative, along with another half billion dollars for Reaching Home. These dollars, rightly, are focused on the vulnerable, because right now, we have to make sure that we are doing everything we can to eliminate chronic homelessness. We have made a promise to do so by 2030, although I am hoping that we will be able to do it much sooner.
The other thing I am really excited about on the housing front is that there is strong support for co-ops. Co-ops in my riding of Davenport are super popular, and we have a number of them. I will mention a few of them. We have the Tamil co-op, the Perth co-op and the Primrose co-op. I have a number of groups that have been saying for the last few years, “Julie, we would love to see the federal government put more money into helping to support the creation of more co-ops.”
Indeed, this budget has, in a very strong way, brought back a substantial amount of funding, so that we will create a new generation of co-op housing. We are estimating that we are going to be investing enough money that 6,000 units will be constructed. We will also be reallocating $500 million of the funding on a cash basis from the national housing co-investment fund to launch a new co-operative housing development program aimed at expanding co-op housing in Canada. In addition, we will be providing an additional $1 billion in loans to be reallocated from the rental construction financing initiative to support co-op housing projects.
Just to remind everyone, for generations, co-ops have offered quality, affordable housing to Canadians, while empowering their members through inclusion, personal development and security of tenure through their community-oriented model of housing. While co-ops are home to approximately a quarter of a million Canadians, nowhere near enough of these co-ops have been built in recent years. I am delighted at the strong support and strong investment in co-op housing in the years to come.
Another area that is maybe overlooked a bit and not mentioned enough in this House is the support in budget 2022 that is going to allow our federal government to incentivize cities to build more homes and create denser, more sustainable neighbourhoods while also increasing the housing supply. I will just mention a couple of funds. The first is the infrastructure fund, which we are going to use in budget 2022 to ensure that as we are giving the dollars to municipalities, we are going to create enough flexibility within the infrastructure programs to be able to tie access to infrastructure funding to actions taken by the provinces and municipalities to increase the housing supply where it makes sense to do so.
The other is that budget 2022 would also leverage transit funding to build more homes. The pandemic had a huge impact on public transit ridership. What we are trying to do, as we try to build up and create more public transit, is incentivize municipalities to also build greater housing and greater density along transit infrastructure lines.
I have a lot more to say on housing, but I want to get to some other topics. The key thing I want to leave everyone with is that we have made a historic investment in housing at the federal level, but it will take all three levels of government coming together to resolve this problem.
The next topic I would like to speak to is climate action. Climate change and climate action are super important to Davenport residents. They are one of the key reasons I ran for office. I wanted to be part of a federal government that was not only going to put together a plan but also commit the dollars and actions to implement that plan. Over six years, we have committed over $100 billion and over 100 actions, and budget 2022 would add an additional $13.2 billion.
Budget 2022 would focus those additional dollars on an emissions reduction plan, on expanding and extending the low-carbon economy fund, on new measures that would make it easier and more affordable for Canadians and Canadian businesses to adopt clean technologies, and on more funding to make zero-emission vehicles more affordable for Canadians. All of these measures taken together are going to ensure that Canada will continue to lead in global efforts to fight climate change, protect our nature and build a clean economy that would create the good-paying jobs of today and tomorrow.
As an aside, at the beginning of last week my heart was in the pit of my stomach when I read that the provincial Ford government was quietly altering its plan to hit its climate change targets. No matter how aggressive the federal government gets with $100 billion and 100 actions, there is no way Canada is going to be able to reach its climate targets if our largest province does not do its part. As our climate is changing more quickly than we had thought, to me these inactions are irresponsible, unconscionable and a crime against humanity.
The last section I am going to talk about is growing our economy. We are not going to be able to continue to provide the generous social welfare programs we provide, and are not going to continue to have a great quality of life, if we are not going to become more productive as an economy and if we are not going to invest in economic growth.
A key section of budget 2022 is child care. This is now a national program. It is not a social program. To me, this is an economic game-changer for women and families that is going to fully engage all Canadians in our workforce. It is going to help to add up to 4% to our GDP. It is huge for Davenport residents. It is huge for all Canadians.
I really love a lot of the investments we have made around immigration and supporting workers with more training and retraining. In 2021, we welcomed over 405,000 new permanent residents. We are going to be increasing that to 451,000 permanent residents, the majority of whom will be skilled workers who will help us address many of the persistent labour shortages we have.
On the worker front, the federal government, in budget 2022, talks about its commitment to work more closely with provinces and territories to adjust labour market transfer agreements, and to make sure Canadians have the training and retraining supports they need to help transition more workers and help local economies adapt and prosper.
I will end with one key idea I want to get across. We really need to work on harmonizing our regulations across provinces and territories, and we have to eliminate all barriers to people, goods and services. It is one of the key ways that we could increase our productivity and economic growth at no cost.
My time has come to an end. There is so much more I want to say, but I am going to end so I can answer questions. I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the residents of Davenport on federal budget 2022.
1590 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Apr/25/22 4:43:15 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question and the values that underpin it. This budget, as we heard from the member for Davenport just recently, and from other members, is actually almost dominated in some of its sections by the understanding that affordable housing is a basic value and that for too long now across various governments of different stripes we have not met the need of supply and the need of affordability.
We have to do a better job because without affordable housing it is nearly impossible for Canadians and their families to thrive. It is a priority that ought to become an even more major one.
107 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Apr/25/22 5:44:06 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this place and talk about things that my constituents, the great people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, care about and to talk a bit about the budget.
Obviously, the budget is the social economic blueprint for the government to give the bureaucracy direction as to what it wants to have done. I looked at the budget in its totality, and it has been billed in so many different ways. It was billed as an affordability budget, which it is not, and as an innovation budget, which it is not. It has been billed as a fiscal return to reality budget, which it is not. It has also been talked about as being a growth budget, but it is really a mass of discombobulated measures. Obviously, a government has to pay attention to a lot of different things. As I said, a budget is its biggest social economic blueprint, but by the same token, I have never seen a budget that seems to be so disconnected from reality.
I am going to pick a couple of different areas where I will list what the government has said it wants to do in this budget and some of the things it has done previously to point out that it is following a very similar path. For example, on the innovation front, we have something called a Canada growth fund. This is brought to us by the government that brought us superclusters, which were not so super, and the Canada Infrastructure Bank, which Canadians cannot bank on. Now we are on this Canada growth fund.
On page 61 we can read the following:
The fund will be initially capitalized at $15 billion over the next five years. It will invest on a concessionary basis, with the goal that for every dollar invested by the fund, it will aim to attract at least three dollars of private capital.
In standing up the Canada Growth Fund, the government intends to seek expert advice from within Canada and abroad. Following these consultations, details about the launch of the fund will be included in the 2022 fall economic and fiscal update.
Essentially, the government is saying that we have a new shiny object, much as at one point it had the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We do not have any idea yet about the details. The government puts it in the budget and then it will ask people how it can make it work, but it will put aside lots of money for it.
On the money side, Paul Wells, in his shiny new Substack, which, unlike this shiny new program, did not cost taxpayers anything, sought to get to the bottom of this new shiny Canada growth fund and how much it would spend. He could not get an answer on the cost. He asked the government what it would cost. It said that it would cost anything from nothing to who knows what.
This is not the first time an agency was created. In fact, back when Bill Morneau was the finance minister, the Liberals eliminated the Public-Private Partnerships Canada Crown agency, PPP Canada, rather than change its mandate, and brought in the Canada Infrastructure Bank. I asked the minister about this at committee. I said that it would take five years before the government even figured out the governance policies for it, and I asked why it would do that. He said that it was because we needed to get big transformational things done.
Here we are and the only big and transformative thing this bank has done is give its executive and workers bonuses. Therefore, this way of putting out a shiny new object, putting billions of dollars aside for it, and then trying to figure out how it is going to make it work just goes down again as another idea to distract and say that it wants it. Really, the mandate of this new growth fund is almost identical to the infrastructure bank, for which the government has also changed the mandate. It just seems strange to me that it is doubling down on these policies that have been not proven to work in the past.
This is the problem. Rather than, for example, the government saying what it wants to do and then giving out small trial balloons of money to various teams to actually show they have business models that can work and then choosing from among those options if they bear fruit, the government does the worst of big government thinking. It throws money at the wall, see what sticks, and then continues on to throw money at another wall to see what sticks, so we have a Canada Infrastructure Bank we cannot bank on and now we will have a Canada growth fund.
This is the worst element of big government, and the worst part of it is that we are all paying for it and will continue to pay for it even if it does not bear fruit. That is what the current government seems to do. It is always about more; it is never about doing it right.
As to new programs, I have heard a few members talk about this. I want to remind my friends in the NDP, who are going to be taking credit for a new dental program, that the only NDP premier in the Confederation is in my home province of British Columbia. John Horgan is the one who is actually leading the charge in asking the government to please not put money into new government programs since we need it for health care. I spoke to someone in Princeton the other day who has cancer. He is seriously ill and does not have a doctor. I spoke to a would-be medical student too, and for the second year in a row, despite having all the grades, UBC Okanagan does not have a spot for him. In our health care system, the backlog from COVID is large, yet the government is pushing into new areas.
A dentist called me the other day and said that as long as they have been a dentist, they remember the healthy kids program and B.C. one. The healthy kids program is for young people so they can access dental services. B.C. one is for low-income adults. These programs are being provided, and government members are saying this is going to be done this year. I have never seen a new program established that quickly, so it will be interesting to see.
Moving on to a key aspect from a financial perspective, there is no greater challenge to this country right now than inflation. Inflation is hitting Canadians hard and it is affecting our economy. Stephen Gordon, an economics professor at Université Laval, said, “We're at full employment, inflation has burst out of our comfort zone and the Bank of Canada is embarking on an agressive tightening cycle. This not the time for expansionary fiscal policy.”
Stephen Tapp, chief economist from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said, “Here's the thing: Even after raising its nominal policy rate by 75 bps in last two announcements up to 1%, and ending further GoC asset purchases (starting ‘Quantitative Tightening’ next week), BoC policy remains highly stimuluative. The ‘real’ rate has never been this low! Not only is the nominal rate well below the elevated rate of current inflation, so the real rate is negative. The nominal policy rate (1%) is still below the Bank's estimate of neutral (2-3%). Until its rate rises above 2-3%, the Bank is pouring gas on the inflation fire.”
Stephen Tapp is saying that the current policy today is pouring fuel on inflation, and the government is adding more spending. It is completely unheard of. At least the Governor of the Bank of Canada came to committee today with some humility. He said mistakes were made and they are trying to reverse them. They are trying to raise interest rates, obviously being mindful of the fact that we have so much debt in this country.
The government is full charge ahead. It is the spend-DP, as I call it. Again, the ship of state right now is pointed at a spend-DP iceberg. Let us all agree that inflation, especially if it becomes unanchored and persistent, is what makes an economy less efficient at best or hollows it out at worst. We need to make sure that government is constraining its spending so that we do not make inflation worse.
Last, on housing, a member stood up previously and said that we have a first-time homebuyers' tax credit and that it was doubled from $750 to $1,500. This is a tacit admission by the government. House prices have doubled under the Liberals' watch, and this is the very least they can do. We talked about the first-time homebuyers' savings account. Most people do not have $40,000. We have millennials who get bounced by the Liberals' stress test every day.
In summation, the government has thrown a lot into this budget. It is inflationary. It does not do what it needs to. It is the very worst of big government. I hope that the government will start to tighten up and do things it needs to, like getting flood supports to areas that are affected in my riding and in other areas of British Columbia. That would be helpful. However, with the way the government works, it is just pointing the ship of state, as I said, toward that spend-DP-Liberal iceberg.
1623 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Apr/25/22 6:11:56 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I know that he is yelling about it now, but I am wondering if that is the answer he gives to constituents when they talk about an affordability crisis that has happened under his government's watch.
39 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
