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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 58

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 26, 2022 10:00AM
  • Apr/26/22 10:01:41 a.m.
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It is my duty to lay upon the table, pursuant to subsection 23(5) of the Auditor General Act, the spring 2022 reports of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. Pursuant to Standing Order 32(5), these reports are deemed permanently referred to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.
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  • Apr/26/22 10:02:47 a.m.
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It is my duty to lay upon the table, pursuant to subsections 39(1) and 40(1) of the Access to Information Act, a special report to Parliament from the Information Commissioner. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(h), this report is deemed permanently referred to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.
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  • Apr/26/22 10:03:23 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and pursuant to Standing Order 83(1), I have the honour to table a notice of ways and means motion to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7 and other measures. Pursuant to Standing Order 83(2), I ask that an order of the day be designated for consideration of the motion.
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  • Apr/26/22 10:03:59 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2), and consistent with the current policy on the tabling of treaties in Parliament, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the treaties entitled “Protocol on Preparedness, Response and Co-operation to pollution Incidents by Hazardous and Noxious Substances, 2000”, done at London on March 15, 2000; “Acts of the 24th Congress of the Postal Union of the Americas, Spain and Portugal”, done at Willemstad on October 21, 2021; and “Agreement between the Government of Canada and the Government of the French Republic concerning the Provision of Mutual Logistic Support between the Canadian Armed Forces and the French Armed Forces”, done at Brussels on February 16, 2022.
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  • Apr/26/22 10:05:20 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of residents of Chelmsford, in the greater Sudbury area, a community located in my riding of Nickel Belt. These Canadians are asking the House of Commons to adopt human rights and environmental due diligence legislation. This would require companies to prevent any negative impact on human environmental rights through their global operations and supply chain.
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  • Apr/26/22 10:05:53 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition signed by Holy Cross High School students in my riding of Saskatoon—Grasswood. They call upon the House of Commons to adopt human rights and environmental due diligence legislation that would require companies to prevent adverse human rights impacts and environmental damage throughout their global operations and supply chains. It would require companies to do their due diligence by carefully assessing how they may be contributing to human rights abuse or environmental damage abroad and by providing access to remedies when harms occur.
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  • Apr/26/22 10:06:54 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.
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  • Apr/26/22 10:06:58 a.m.
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Is that agreed? Some hon. members: Agreed.
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  • Apr/26/22 10:07:17 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to rise this morning to discuss budget 2022 and to share the views of my constituents from Kings—Hants. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Ottawa Centre. The budget contains many initiatives. Since I have only 10 minutes, my speech will focus on the following three areas: initiatives that are of particular importance to my riding of Kings—Hants, the importance of promoting economic growth and prosperity while remaining fiscally responsible, and the announced initiatives that support our energy and food security. Before I elaborate on these three areas, I would like to give a bit of background, especially in light of the past two years of COVID-19. We came into this pandemic with the lowest net debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7. Unemployment was at a 40-year low, and our economic growth was outpacing the cost of financing our country's debt. Sometimes it is easy to forget that, given the two years we have been through. We can all remember back to March 13, 2020. It is a moment frozen in time. I remember arriving home on a Thursday night flight to Halifax. I was in my constituency office on a Friday when the Prime Minister, and indeed most of the world, was recognizing the gravity of what the COVID-19 pandemic represented for our collective health and well-being. We had a choice. Either we could have stepped up to be there for Canadians and businesses as we asked them to take precautions to protect our collective health or we could have asked them to fend for themselves. We made the choice to be there for Canadians. It came with a cost; let us recognize that. This government has spent significantly over the past two years to protect Canadians and make sure there was financial support in place. The results are telling. We have recovered 112% of our prepandemic jobs. We actually have more jobs in this country right now than we did before the pandemic. Our economy has not only recovered, but is larger than it was prepandemic. Unemployment is at a truly historic low. In fact, it is the lowest since we started recording it in 1976. It is an interesting dynamic. I am an MP from rural Nova Scotia in Atlantic Canada. If we talk to my predecessor, Mr. Brison, or other MPs who have served in the region, sometimes the biggest concern was having jobs for people in our region to let them stay home, be with their families and have opportunities. Now it is reversed: It is about having the people to fill the jobs we need for our small businesses to continue to grow our rural economy. Our GDP had 4.6% growth last year, and we have a strong projection in the days ahead. However, it is important right now to recognize that we have to wind down the pandemic-related expenditures and be mindful of our fiscal position. I was very pleased to see the Minister of Finance, the Deputy Prime Minister, in her remarks two weeks ago highlight that importance and that we have a fiscal anchor and will be fiscally prudent in the days ahead. This budget shows a declining debt-to-GDP ratio over the next five years. By and large, yes, there will be perspectives on this across the country, and indeed in my own riding, but Canadians are expected to make sure they keep their fiscal houses in order, and they expect their governments to do the same. I believe this budget presents a pathway back to balance given we have had to be there for the past two years. I want to compare that with the Conservative record. I was just graduating high school in 2009 when we were going through the global economic recession. At that time, the Harper Conservative government was slow to react to the situation. It was slow to be there to inject the necessary stimulus to keep our economy moving, and the economic scarring lasted for the next five or six years. In fact, we never really got back to our economic strength until after 2015. I have listened to some of my Conservative colleagues in the House, particularly those in the 43rd Parliament and perhaps early in this Parliament, who have suggested that this government is doing too much. I want to compare our record, in a fiscal sense, on economic growth with their record back in 2008. By and large, I think Canadians believe that what we are doing and what we are moving forward with are extremely important. I will now talk about initiatives for Kings—Hants. When I knocked on doors during the 2019 election campaign, many homeowners in rural areas were worried about not being able to sell their homes. The pandemic has shown how important quality of life is, and Nova Scotia's communities are an excellent place to feel at home. We welcomed thousands of Canadians from across the country. In fact, housing is up 40% in valuation, year over year, in my riding of Kings—Hants. Of course, we need to be concerned about that in terms of affordability, but as I just mentioned, back in 2019, people were concerned about even being able to sell their house and people wanted to be in our communities. Nova Scotia is booming right now and we have to embrace that, but we also have to be there to try to support individuals who want to live in our province, and indeed those who want to live in Canada, because we know this is not just a Nova Scotia challenge. This is a challenge across the country. I thought the Minister of Finance had important remarks in her budget speech two weeks ago when she highlighted that we are going to be there. We are going to focus on housing as an economic growth sector to make sure that people have a place to call home. She also readily recognized that it is not the Government of Canada's sole jurisdiction. We do not have the ability to go at it alone. We need to make sure we have other partners at the table. She recognized that and I think it is important to recognize it today. I am one of the younger members of Parliament here in the House, and I have friends and individuals I went to high school with who, in this situation right now, are finding it very difficult to find a home. That is why we have introduced the housing accelerator fund. This is a $4-billion initiative to partner with municipalities to try to expedite some of the red tape and municipal planning to make sure that our municipalities are partnering with the private sector to deliver the housing we need. We need 3.5 million houses by 2031. On average, we have 200,000 housing starts per year. We have a gap to fill. The government is stepping up by putting money on the table to incentivize that initiative, but again, we will need municipalities at the table and we will need the private sector at the table. We are also putting $1.5 billion to the rapid housing initiative. This program has been rolled out to try to expedite housing approvals in the country. Indeed, it has supported the construction of approximately 40 units in Kings—Hants alone. I know it has done upward of 4,000 or 5,000 across the country, although I do not have the number right in front of me. It is an important initiative to continue moving forward. We are banning foreign buying for two years. Obviously, there are individuals moving to the country who are going to come to study, but we are not banning that activity. This is for anyone who is going to simply buy housing as a speculative asset. We are making sure that this is not going to be possible. We are introducing the first-time homebuyers' savings account. How this works is that a person is able to take $8,000 a year, deduct that from income and put it into a savings account, up to $40,000 per individual. It can then be withdrawn tax-free to help support the purchase of a new home. I know that is going to be extremely important to Canadians across the country, and indeed to many of my contemporaries who are trying to get into housing right now. These are good initiatives, but this goes back to supply. We need more supply and we are putting initiatives on the table. We are also focused on social and co-operative housing. Admittedly, I would argue that, over time, the Government of Canada has not been in this space to the extent that it should, but we are stepping up and being there. I am going to highlight a final couple of things. On supply management, we are there to make sure we are compensating our farmers in Kings—Hants. Indeed, for the wine industry, we have signalled that we will have a program in place to represent their interests. Our Minister of Agriculture has been working with her provincial counterparts on the Canadian agricultural partnership. That will be extremely important, as will the specific agricultural worker program. I wish I had more time, but I look forward to taking questions and perhaps re-engaging with my colleagues on points I might have missed.
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  • Apr/26/22 10:17:12 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague talked about housing. With this budget the government claims to want to help cities accelerate housing construction and address zoning issues. Cities are a provincial jurisdiction, so the federal government will have to negotiate with Quebec. That is a problem. Following the 2017 launch of the national housing strategy, which was negotiated with Quebec, it took three years for the money to flow to housing in Quebec. Meanwhile, billions of dollars were being spent in Toronto and Vancouver. Everything was going very well for them. My biggest fear is that it will take that long again. Would it not have been simpler to send a cheque directly to the Quebec government, so that those who actually know the needs on the ground could manage municipal issues?
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  • Apr/26/22 10:18:04 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. In the previous Parliament, under the rapid housing initiative, nearly 40% of the funding was allocated to Quebec. We have a strong partnership with the Government of Quebec to propose and deliver housing in Quebec. I am confident that this partnership will continue in the future.
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  • Apr/26/22 10:18:45 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague across the way for his fine speech. I have the opportunity to serve with him on the agriculture committee, which I appreciate. He mentioned Nova Scotia wine. I will also inform him that I completed a project with him last night. I finished the final sip of a very good bottle of Nova Scotia wine. He did not have the chance to complete his thoughts regarding agriculture in the budget. Could he comment particularly on grain drying and barn heating issues? Could he put a few thoughts on the record regarding that issue in the budget and what we are dealing with at committee?
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  • Apr/26/22 10:19:25 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, yes, I did give my colleague opposite a beautiful bottle of Nova Scotia wine. I am glad he enjoyed it. I want to talk about a couple of initiatives that I did not have the chance to address. Our government is tripling the agriculture clean tech program. This is going to be extremely important for farmers across the country. We are also working on the on-farm climate solutions. I believe there is close to $400 million. In total, that is almost $1 billion for the agriculture sector. That is going to matter in Kings—Hants. It is going to matter across the country. On the wine industry, in budget 2021, we had $101 million. I would like to work with this government and with the Minister of Finance to extend that timeline a little further in the days ahead so that we can continue to produce top-quality Canadian wine. As it relates to grain drying, Bill C-8 has important initiatives. There is almost $100 million for farmers in backstop provinces. I hope this member will work with his Conservative colleagues for us to get this through so we can make a difference for Canadian farmers across the country.
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  • Apr/26/22 10:20:26 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I always enjoy hearing my colleague speak in the House of Commons. We know that housing has been in crisis now for decades. It has been since the Paul Martin Liberal government ended the national housing program. For its first term, the Liberal government only constructed or started construction on 14,000 units of affordable housing, when we need hundreds of thousands of units across this country. With the NDP push on this budget, we finally have the kinds of investments that are needed to build those hundreds of thousands of housing units right across the country to really address the housing crisis that so many people, including my constituents in New Westminster—Burnaby, feel very keenly. My question is very simple: Why did it take the NDP and the strong push by the member for Burnaby South to have the Liberal government finally address the housing issue?
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  • Apr/26/22 10:21:23 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the initiatives that we are bringing forward were in our platform promise in the 2021 election. The member opposite talked about some of the past government choices to not invest in housing, but we are stepping up and making sure that they are there. It is very similar to child care. For a long time, it was talked about. We are the government that stepped up and delivered it, and now we have something across the country. Indeed, we will work with all parliamentarians in the House to build on our housing and to make sure that everyone has a place to call home across the country.
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  • Apr/26/22 10:22:03 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. I am pleased to follow my colleague for Kings—Hants. I just noticed we are wearing pretty much identical ties today, so I am glad he got my text message this morning. I am quite pleased to speak about this budget and what it means for Canadians, in particular my constituents here in Ottawa Centre. I think it is really important, before we start any conversation about what is contained in this budget, to recognize the fact that we are still living through a global pandemic. We know that life has been quite difficult over the last two years as a result of this pandemic. I and many citizens did not see such a major change in our lives coming in the form of a public health emergency. As the pandemic continued to impact our lives, it was so dramatic that governments not just in Canada, but around the globe had to take immediate action to protect their citizens from getting infected, and in more extreme circumstances dying, from this virus that invaded our lives. Because of that, governments in Canada, the provinces and territories, and around the world took steps to help us be safe by initially shutting down the entire society we live in. It was quite unprecedented. My colleague for Kings—Hants talked about the early days of March 2020, and how dramatic things were. I know memories fade, but I think we are going to remember that for a very long period of time we were told to stay at home, not to go to our jobs, not to take public transit, and to isolate from our own families. Everybody may remember the bubbles we were asked to create so that we could help protect each other. As a result, the entire economy had to be shut down. We can talk about an artificial recession, because the economy before that, as we will recall, was working and accelerating at full throttle. The unemployment rate was extremely low and the GDP was high, but we had to shut everything down simply to protect all of us. The government did not stop there. It had to then ensure that all of us could survive as we lost our jobs. Many Canadians lost their jobs. The unemployment rate went up to about 13% or 14% because we asked people to stay at home in order to be safe. The government invested billions of dollars in its people. An unprecedented amount of spending was done: This often gets forgotten. It was done so that Canadians, the people who live in our constituencies, could feed themselves and look after their families, not to mention to help our businesses so they could survive through that pandemic-induced recession, as well. It is absolutely clear that it was costly. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it. It required hundreds of billions of dollars to do, but it was the right kind of investment, which I believe all members of the House supported because we were supporting Canadians, Canadian families and Canadian businesses. Now, we are in a recovery mode. We have much better control over this pandemic. Vaccination has been a lifesaver for Canadians. Canadians should be very proud of how they have stepped up to get fully vaccinated. Over 80% of Canadians are double vaccinated, and close to 60% have now also received their booster shots. Again, our government had to spend billions of dollars to procure those vaccines so that we could protect Canadians. The result is that people are employed again and our economy is growing again. Our employment rate is higher than it was before the pandemic started. The unemployment rate is roughly around 5%, which is better than it was before. The bigger challenge is that we cannot find enough people to work in our businesses. All those supports helped us get through the pandemic and ensured that Canadians could get back to where they were and do even better, and that is exactly what we are seeing. This budget is in that context. It asks what kind of economy we are going to rebuild as a result of this pandemic. We are doing a few things in this budget. First, we are ending the pandemic supports. We knew there was a time limit to all those supports. They were there to help people and businesses get through the pandemic. We are now sunsetting most of those pandemic supports. They have now ended, which of course reduces government spending significantly. What we are now doing is really investing in post-pandemic economic recovery. I am going to spend some time on how we are doing that while also bringing our debt and deficit under control. We see that the budget is working on all three of those aspects, because we recognize that we have to be fiscally prudent and make sure that all the borrowing we had to do, and the investment we had to make in Canadians, is now coming to an end. As this happens, we will also look at ensuring that we bring our debt and deficit under control as well. In terms of investing in post-pandemic economic recovery, there are a few very important things we are doing in order to ensure that. I am speaking from experience as the member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre. I have seen how all the supports, whether employment income supports or rent support for small businesses, helped my constituents in Ottawa Centre. I talked to small business owners and individuals about how they were able to manage through the pandemic and how they were now going back into the workforce. Now, we are looking at issues around affordability. The most important thing, of course, is affordable housing: making sure we build more affordable housing, and making sure that affordability of ownership is available. In my community over the past couple of weeks, I visited affordable housing at Carlington Community Health Centre in my riding. Just downtown, on the corner of Rochester and Gladstone, 140 new homes are being built and families are moving in. It is one of the largest passive house developments being built with the support of the Canadian government so that individuals and families can have homes. We are going to be investing in dental care as a result of this budget. Some people may say that this is something that happened as a result of a deal between the Liberals and the NDP, and that is a good thing. This is exactly how Canadians always ask us to work together and work on those good ideas. I am glad that, in collaboration with the New Democratic Party, we are going to be creating a dental care plan for low to mid-income Canadians. For me and for my constituents, our transition to a low-carbon economy is extremely important. In fact, I would hope for a zero-carbon economy. We are seeing, through the emissions reduction plan, some real actions being taken to ensure that we are investing in public transit. Right here in my city of Ottawa, we are building the LRT, which is electrified, and we are getting electric buses to ensure that people are not driving cars. We are moving towards a low-carbon transition. I see my time is coming to an end, but there is so much to talk about that speaks to this post-pandemic recovery that would not only help people but would also build a more resilient economy that is transitioning to an environment that is fossil-fuel-free. It would allow people to survive and thrive, and allow Canada to be an economic force around the world.
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  • Apr/26/22 10:32:07 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, early in my colleague's comments he referenced the robust economy that Canada was experiencing just prior to the pandemic, and later on he referenced that the budget was getting the debt and the deficit under control. I am wondering if he could comment on the wisdom of having the government add $112 billion to this country's debt prepandemic, and then how this budget gets our present debt under control, in the context of the Parliamentary Budget Officer's comments saying that stimulus funding was not required and the budget does not account for all of the other measures that have been promised but do not appear in the budget.
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  • Apr/26/22 10:32:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have been investing in Canadians from the moment we came into government. Right here in my community, as I was mentioning, we have seen a tremendous amount of investment in affordable housing. In the past, under the previous Conservative government, the federal government was nowhere to be seen in the business of building new affordable housing. In fact, I had the honour of serving at the provincial level, and back then, in Ontario, we were working very closely with our local municipalities and we only wished that the federal government was at the table so that we could really address the issue of chronic homelessness. That is the kind of investment our government has been making. Another good example is the child benefit, to ensure that we bring children out of poverty. All of those things helped us get through this pandemic. Now it is time to work on the next set of postpandemic recovery plans.
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  • Apr/26/22 10:33:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I heard something in my colleague's speech that I hear a lot: Canadians want us to work together. My colleague mentioned the agreement with the NDP, but I want him to know that some Canadians want higher health transfers. That is what all the provinces want. The Council of the Federation is demanding increased health transfers. We mobilized every single physicians' association, including specialists and general practitioners. We also mobilized every single large union that represents employees in Quebec's health sector. They are all saying the same thing: Health transfers must go up. If my colleague wants to work for Canadians, why is there absolutely nothing in this budget about increasing health transfers?
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  • Apr/26/22 10:34:45 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we all recognize that health care is a very important responsibility of both federal and provincial governments, and we have seen, since the introduction of the universal health care system, that both the federal and the provincial governments work very closely in collaboration to serve Canadians from coast to coast to coast. In fact, the pandemic was a public health care emergency and both orders of government, including our municipalities, which are responsible for delivering public health services, worked together to make sure that resources were there to assist Canadians to work through this pandemic. Resources were increased in our hospitals, in ICU beds and in our long-term care homes. Of course, we can do better. We need to do more, but this is something that we will continue to work together on with our provinces and municipalities.
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