44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 26, 2022 10:00AM
- 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 10:33:54 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 10:50:15 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I can tell the member that I have been an MP for 14 years, and I cannot tell her how many seniors have come into my office who do not have access to dental care. I have had seniors in my office who had no teeth. Can the member imagine what the impact is on nutrition and oral health if one has no teeth?
This budget, next year, would provide every single senior who makes under $70,000 a year and who has no dental insurance, in other words, just about every senior in the country, access to public dental care.
My hon. colleague asked, “What is in the budget for seniors?” Well, I would say that this is the biggest expansion of public health care in half a century, and it will bring dental care to every senior in the country, including in Quebec. The member should support that or explain to seniors in Quebec why she is going to vote against the bill that would bring them dental care. I challenge her to ask seniors in Quebec what they think about that.
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- Apr/26/22 10:52:38 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am extremely pleased to rise today to take part in this discussion, this very important debate. I applaud the excellent speech given by the previous speaker, my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway. She did a great job presenting the progressive and humanistic vision of concrete gains that the NDP wants to achieve for people, including citizens, tenants, seniors, those who are struggling, and the less fortunate.
While it is not perfect, the budget does have some good points, and I will talk about them. The NDP managed to get some of the things we wanted, but not all of them, and we will continue to work on those.
This also stems from the fact that Quebeckers and Canadians voted in another minority government in Ottawa, with roughly the same proportion of members for each party as before. Voters told us to work together and come up with solutions, much like Jack Layton told us back in the day. In fact, our campaign slogan in Quebec in 2011 was about working together, so we in the NDP have used our strength, the fact that we hold the balance of power, to negotiate with this minority government in order to make gains and progress.
I too will come back to the very real gain of having a dental care program. It is a major breakthrough. At the NDP we have always been very proud of being the force behind our universal and free public health care system. The system still needs to be improved, of course, and we obviously agree that transfers to the provinces need to be enhanced.
The system presents us with an absurd situation where some parts of the body are insured by the public plan but others are not. For example, my heart is insured, my lungs are insured, but my teeth and my eyes are not. It is as though the human body is a puzzle and some pieces are insured but others are not. Dental care, for example, is a major piece.
During the last election campaign, when I was door‑knocking and talking to the people of Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, Montreal and Quebec in general, people were very pleased with and receptive to the NDP's proposal to provide accessible dental care free of charge to people who earn less than $90,000 a year.
I believe that this budget sets out a clear game plan. Beginning this year, children under 12 will be eligible for free dental care. Beginning next year, teens, seniors aged 65 and over and people living with disabilities will be eligible. In the third year of the plan, all households, families and individuals earning less than $90,000 a year will be eligible. Fully one-third of Canadians will have access to dental care, whereas currently they do not.
We know that this has a considerable impact on people's lives, and especially on their wallets, because dental care is very expensive. If people have to pay out of pocket and cannot do so, they will not go to the dentist for cleaning or care, even though they should.
I believe that this has an impact on one's self-esteem, personal life and professional life, when it comes to choosing a career. The quality of dental health care is a question of social class, and I am very proud that the NDP, the opposition party, was able to get dental care into the budget. This will deliver tangible results for people.
This is not about creating a federal program with federal dental clinics and federal dentists. This is about instituting an insurance plan that will cover the bills for people eligible for this program. The bills will be paid by the government so that people do not have to pay out of pocket, which will help families in Quebec and all across Canada save thousands of dollars a year.
I am also very pleased to see a game plan for pharmacare. The first steps of the Hoskins report will be implemented through a bill slated to be introduced next year. This will be an important step forward.
We pay far too much for medications, which hurts workers, businesses and the government. A public, universal pharmacare program that is, of course, negotiated with the provinces, would represent a breakthrough that would help everyone. Quebec civil society, the Union des consommateurs du Québec, the FTQ, the CSN and the CSQ have all called for such a program.
The NDP believes that this can be done while giving Quebec the right to opt out with full compensation. However, we believe that this program would have so many benefits that it would ultimately be worthwhile for everyone, for both workers and employers.
The cost of supplementary health insurance is staggering. It has been skyrocketing for years. There are workers who must sign up for these supplementary insurance plans through their job. For example, I have met people who work part time in grocery stores in Montreal, and 25% of their salary is used to pay for these company insurance plans, the supplemental insurance packages. A universal public pharmacare program could represent a nearly 25% increase in salary for people who work part time, particularly in grocery stores.
Another major gain we won in this budget was redefining the term “affordable housing”. Under the Liberals, affordable housing in Montreal could cost $2,225 a month according to CMHC rules. This is completely absurd and out of touch with reality. We negotiated a review of this definition so that it would not exceed 80% of the average price of housing in a municipality. For Montrealers, that means $730 a month for affordable housing. That is quite a difference. We have just lowered the price of an affordable unit in CMHC projects by about $1,500, but we are also increasing the percentage of mandatory affordable housing units in projects from 20% to 40%. I am particularly proud of that. Home ownership and being able to pay the rent is a big concern for people. Again, in the last election, people often talked to us about health care and housing. For years, there has been a serious housing crisis in Montreal and in Quebec in general. We should be proud of this win.
One area in which the budget does not pass muster is the environment and the climate crisis. We would have liked to see much more ambition and action from the Liberal government. It is cutting one small oil subsidy, but it is creating a sizable new one with the tax credit for carbon capture, which is an inefficient technology. It is a kind of high-tech magic wand that will not appreciably reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. The Liberals' failure to deliver meaningful results in this area is appalling. Their greenhouse gas emissions reduction plan is just not good enough right now. They talked about targeting 40% to 45% reductions, but that does not meet the IPCC target of at least 50%, which is what the NDP campaigned on. Within that 40% to 45% range, they are aiming for the low end, the 40%. For the oil sector, the goal is 31%. Essentially, the government is giving the oil sector a gift when it is one of the industries, together with transportation, that should be working harder.
Recently I was amazed to learn that Canada's greenhouse gas emissions had gone down for the first time since the Liberals have been in power, but that was for 2020. In 2020, the economy was on pause because of the global pandemic. They celebrated that decline even though they had nothing to do with it and the economy was basically a standstill. There were no trucks or cars in the street, no transportation, no manufacturing. That is not how we are going to meet our international obligations and provide a brighter and more reassuring future for our children and grandchildren. We are not going to get there with decisions like the one on the Bay du Nord project, which, fortunately, is not in the budget. It is a ministerial order. A decision like the one on the Bay du Nord development project is not going to take us in the right direction because we are once again going to increase oil production in Canada through a totally irresponsible project. Yes, we are aware that extracting oil in this way is less polluting than the oil sands, but production in the oil sands has not decreased either. That oil produces 85% of its pollution when it is burned, when it is consumed. That means that if it is consumed abroad because we exported it, it is not counted as part of our record, which is completely unrealistic, anti‑scientific and hypocritical. It should be factored into our record because we are the ones who decided to extract it.
We are extremely disappointed in the climate and environmental measures in the Liberal budget. We managed to make some progress for Canadians, but we will continue to work hard on other issues, including the environment.
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- Apr/26/22 11:05:38 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, there are two things in life: pretty words and concrete action. In his speech, the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie denounced the government's climate inaction. Yesterday, however, we voted on a subamendment that called for concrete action.
In his speech, my colleague said that the NDP had achieved significant results for seniors, yet old age pensions are still not being increased at age 65.
We proposed this in the subamendment we voted on yesterday. We also proposed increasing health transfers to Quebec, which the member claims to agree with most of the time, but of course we wanted concrete action.
Now we get a speech from the NDP suggesting that they are the good guys, that they have an alliance, and that they are happy to be achieving results. The fact is, however, that his party voted against Quebeckers and against seniors yesterday.
I wonder if he could explain why the NDP voted as it did. Indeed, if we are talking about the balance of power, a tremendous opportunity was missed yesterday.
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- Apr/26/22 11:19:44 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is amusing to hear the member for Kingston and the Islands trying to say that everyone is partisan except for himself, and that he is the only person in the House who is not partisan.
I would simply like to point out to him that all provincial premiers and all stakeholders in Quebec's health sector, including major unions and physicians' associations, and not just a specific political party, asked for an increase in the health transfer. I do not know if the member feels these stakeholders are being partisan.
The member for Kingston and the Islands is this close to following the Minister of Canadian Heritage's example and saying that we are trying to pick a fight whenever we contradict the government. I would like my colleague to explain that to me.
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- Apr/26/22 12:04:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague. We share files pertaining to the status of women and seniors, and we often have the opportunity to talk.
Naturally, she spoke about seniors. We sometimes forget that old age security puts money back into seniors’ pockets and contributes to their purchasing power. Seniors have become significantly poorer, and were impoverished even before the pandemic.
The issue of health is just as crucial in our efforts to help seniors. My colleague accurately listed seniors’ needs and the importance of increasing health transfers to 35%, as Quebec and the provinces are calling for. That is essential; it is crucial. That is what seniors are asking for.
Health is not just a matter of jurisdiction. Quebec and the provinces have the expertise to care for their seniors, but they need the financial means. It is important to hammer this message home.
Does her party commit to supporting the request to increase health transfers to 35% in a recurrent and predictable manner?
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- Apr/26/22 12:18:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, following the NDP-Liberal agreement and alliance and the announcements made about pharmacare and dental care, there is something missing in the budget, namely a recurrent and unconditional increase in health transfers. This an important, basic and unanimous request by Quebec and the provinces, to which the government is responding only in a roundabout fashion.
That is not what this government is doing with its noble proposals. In fact, no one is opposed to dental care or pharmacare. However, there are things that are the exclusive purview of the provinces and that could have been managed by Quebec and the provinces according to their respective priorities.
Does my colleague not think that it would have been better for all the provinces and Quebec to simply meet their request and transfer the money to the provinces so that they can pay for and manage these programs themselves? As we have been asking for a long time, and as the Bloc Québécois is repeating yet again, would it not have been better to increase health transfers on a recurrent basis so that we can properly manage our health care systems?
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- Apr/26/22 2:15:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have been celebrating Earth Day on April 22 since 1970, but sometimes I get the impression that we are actually celebrating Groundhog Day because nothing has changed for such a long time, despite the fact that science has clearly established the urgency of the situation.
Big changes need to come from governments and private corporations, which are moving at a snail's pace, if not actually going backwards, as this government did recently with its outrageous decision to increase oil production. We need to kick up a fuss, channel our energy and take action.
I therefore invite everyone to participate in a demonstration in Quebec City on May 8. Yes, that is Mother's Day and, no, that date was not chosen by accident. Mother's Day is the perfect opportunity to unite for a noble cause.
In 1870, the American Julia Ward Howe invited mothers around the world to unite for peace. This year, on May 8, let us unite for the earth and renew the intent of Mother's Day. Let us take action to protect our present, our future and our children's future.
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- Apr/26/22 2:18:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, number 10 streaks down the ice, fast as lightning, blond hair flying. Unleashing all his speed, skill and strength, he closes in on the net. Goal! Celebrations break out all over the street, the neighbourhood, the city, the province.
Those are the kinds of vivid memories we have of the “blond demon” whose passing has left all of Quebec in mourning. I once had the honour of meeting Guy Lafleur, the top goal scorer of his era, who won five Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens. I was struck by how approachable and personable this living legend was.
His name will remain etched in our memories, not only for the on-ice exploits that inspired a generation, but also for the great man that he was.
The Flower was, and will remain forevermore, the pride of Montreal, Quebec and the entire nation.
I thank Guy. May he rest in peace.
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Madam Speaker, I rise in the House today to discuss the first NDP-Liberal budget in Canada.
What a year it has been. As COVID‑19 continues to devastate the Canadian economy and our supply chains, many people in this country will struggle for many years to recover from the losses suffered over the past two tough years.
People are wondering what this budget does for Canadians. Well, it proposes higher interest rates, higher taxes, and more and more spending. At a time when Canadians could use a break, the bad news keeps piling up.
Liberal MPs will likely use the same talking points as usual when debating this subject, but they will probably not ask any questions about the following topics that I was very much hoping would be included in budget 2022.
First, I would like to discuss the rural-urban divide that seems to be growing in this country. My riding of Beauce is located in rural Quebec. It is a entrepreneurial and agricultural hub. Unfortunately, the latest budgets from the current government only make us feel further and further away from seeing any meaningful change in our region.
Why does the government continue to ignore rural Canada?
I was hoping to see some funding for public transit or additional funding for community infrastructure in this budget, but once again, we have been forgotten. Municipalities in my riding are trying to implement public transit, but they need financial support. This is something that needs to be addressed, but until the federal government is prepared to put money on the table this will remain a distant dream.
Cell connectivity in rural Canada is another issue that matters to rural Canadians and that was not mentioned once in the budget. How hard is it for the government to recognize that this is not only a matter of fairness but also of public safety?
Many municipalities in my riding do not have reliable cell coverage. This not only increases the probability of public safety disasters but also causes lost productivity for our businesses.
The government needs to sit down with the CRTC and the large telecom companies and find a way to finally provide affordable service to rural Canadians. There has to be a way to set a baseline for minimum coverage and a fair and equitable scale of payment for these services.
In my riding, cell phone bills are among the highest in the country even though we get some of the spottiest service. We must tackle this problem and improve high-speed Internet service at the same time, because they are both equally important in our regions.
Another issue I would like to tackle, which is probably the biggest problem in my riding, is the labour shortage. Beauce has one of the lowest unemployment rates in Canada and is constantly struggling to attract workers. In our case, the only option for many years has been to use the temporary foreign worker program. Unfortunately for us and for many other Canadian business owners, this system is broken. In recent months, the government has made some promises and some supposed changes to the program, but nothing has changed on the ground.
Let us be frank. Our country has a lot of red tape. There is paperwork upon paperwork to be done. Departments that should work together blame one another for the delays. They also blame the provinces.
The immigration department really needs to wake up. These files should be processed much more quickly. It is simple. Many businesses wait months and months to get workers. They spend thousands of dollars in government and administrative fees only to be told that the workers may never arrive or that their arrival will be considerably delayed because of problems that the government itself has created.
Many proposals with respect to agricultural and seasonal workers were brought forward at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, of which I am a member, and elsewhere, but the situation has improved only slightly since we tabled our report.
We are also seeing numerous issues with non-agricultural workers, yet there does not seem to be any urgency on the part of this government to bring them in when they are needed.
I believe that one of the most effective ways to speed up this process would be to get rid of the labour market assessment for areas of the country where the unemployment rate is below 5%. As I have said many times, both here and in committee, this is a solution that would be fairly easy to implement. I will continue to hammer this point home until the government understands that this is a serious problem that needs to be addressed as quickly as possible.
A total of 60% of the businesses in my riding are looking for workers. At the same time, they are accelerating automation and robotics because they also need to stay competitive in the marketplace. The problem is that their margins are already very thin, and it is very difficult to invest in new technology right now.
I believe the government needs to implement better programs and incentives to help these companies modernize their production. However, until the government keeps its promises on high-speed Internet and steps up its fight to improve cell coverage, advancing robotics will remain difficult in rural ridings like mine.
The last thing I want to talk about is how this government has tragically failed our agriculture and agri-food sector. There is no money in the budget to improve and secure our country's food supply. I have always said that the agricultural sector is an economic driver just waiting to be optimized. Instead of helping Canadian farmers, the government continues to create programs that plunge them further into debt. Canadians are struggling to put food on the table, yet we are importing more and more of our food products.
The government also decided to impose a 35% tariff on fertilizer from Russia without a clear understanding of whether orders placed before the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine will be exempt from the tariff or not. Spring seeding is upon us, and farmers cannot bear the burden of these tariffs alone. Obviously consumers will have to pay the additional cost.
What is more, this government continues to refuse to bring into force Bill C‑208, which was passed in the previous Parliament. This bill provides for the fair transfer of a family farm or small business to a family member, rather than charging the seller unreasonable taxes that they would not have to pay if they sold the business to a third party.
This government will do everything it can to collect as much tax as possible, even at the expense of losing our family farms and SMEs, which are so important to the development of our regions. The creation of a round table for discussing this bill, which has already passed and received royal assent, will still not force the hand of these greedy Liberals.
How can a government unilaterally decide not to bring legislation into force, when the majority of parliamentarians voted in favour of it? That is not how democracy works.
In closing, this is another budget and another complete failure by this government.
I am here once again debating with my colleagues, but I cannot help but wonder when this Prime Minister will descend from his throne and finally listen to the opposition's proposals. I can only imagine that his MPs from rural ridings feel the same way.
We are all here to do a job, to represent our constituents. The government has to focus on the divide between rural and urban regions. The time where there were two classes of citizens is over.
We must unite and make Canada the economic superpower it should be. I will continue to provide a glimmer of hope for the Beauce community. I simply hope that this government will listen to me for once.
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- Apr/26/22 4:18:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, pork production has indeed come a long way, including in my riding. The largest Olymel slaughterhouse is in my riding, so I know what I am talking about. Pork production is very strong where I live.
Despite that growth, we need to make sure that, when we develop new markets, they are diversified. Consider the agreements reached with China and other countries in the past two years. We are having a hard time reopening the Chinese market, and we may have focused too much on China, which resulted in a surplus of pork.
The pandemic did not help when it came to the slaughtering of the hogs, but it is clear that pork production is a very important industry in Quebec and across Canada. We need to provide more support.
I would like to remind my colleague that the current programs—
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- Apr/26/22 4:48:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the measures put in place by the Liberal government are brown measures disguised as green measures. The Conservatives see the green, and we see the brown. The reality is that they are only half measures. The Commissioner of the Environment confirmed it once again today.
My colleague is boasting about his infrastructure bank, which barely worked. My loyalty does not lie with Brampton, but with the Bloc Québécois. When my colleague from Winnipeg North has travelled one kilometre on a high-speed train in the Quebec-Windsor corridor, he can ask me his question again.
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- Apr/26/22 4:48:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was encouraging to hear the member talk about how oil production is going up in this country. I think one of the greatest solutions to the challenges we face in energy would be to support the development of liquefied natural gas products in Quebec. I think once those products were on stream, we would see the Bloc supporting the energy sector. There are some hopeful opportunities maybe in the future.
I want to ask the member a question about subsidies because he went on about alleged subsidies. It seems to me that people looking for reasons to oppose the energy sector call any kind of incentive, any kind of tax break, a “subsidy”. They use such an expansive definition of the term. There are no real subsidies to the oil and gas sector, but the Bloc tries to redefine the term “subsidy” to be so expansive that it includes almost anything.
Would he be supportive of applying the same definition of “subsidy” to industries that are important in his province and ending subsidies to those industries as well?
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- Apr/26/22 4:52:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Shefford.
I am pleased to weigh in on the budget. It will become clear quite quickly that I am going to talk about agriculture. I have a certain bent in that direction.
Many people are disappointed because there is not much in the budget for the farming community. We are hearing announcements about the obvious things, among others, as well as things that are already under way. Specifically, we are being told that negotiations will continue for the Canadian agricultural partnership. Those negotiations are under way but have stalled because some western provinces refuse to improve the AgriStability program.
The Bloc Québécois has long suggested—and this is the position of the Union des producteurs agricoles in Quebec, by the way—that the federal government proceed with the improvement it had proposed, that is, a compensation rate of 80% of the reference margin, with the provinces that are ready to move forward.
I am reiterating that proposal today. I think it is important that we improve the performance of our insurance programs, because our farmers are the ones who feed us. These programs are supposed to make our supply chain more stable. There is a lot of talk these days about the supply chain not doing well, and so on. However, we can take steps that are going to be permanent and effective time and again.
Of course, it is not as fun for the party in power, because it cannot simply come along and suddenly announce that it is going to give such a gift or create such a program, as it is doing at the moment in the health care sector. My colleague from Mirabel just demonstrated this very eloquently. Many have spoken about the $28 billion that we need in health care, but the government announces $2 billion and expects us to be satisfied with that. This is similar to what the government is doing with the agricultural programs. We need to act quickly on this.
The next really disappointing aspect is that we are also told that an announcement is coming about compensation for supply-managed producers in the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA.
I am trying to stay calm. Enough is enough. Does the government believe in our supply management system? Does it believe in our producers and does it have any respect for them? The answer is no.
In the budget, the government boasts that, thanks to international agreements, Canada has access to all the other G7 countries, but this has come at a cost. It has cost our producers a share of the market. Our producers are efficiently organized, they protect the environment on a daily basis, they control the quantity produced and the price, they give us extremely high quality products, and yet they are constantly scorned. I am fed up. That is what I wanted to say today.
Our producers should not have to beg for four or five years to get compensation for CUSMA. They have scrapes on their knees from dragging themselves through the muck. It looks like the government is trying to keep them civil, by saying that it will give them something soon and that they should behave. Enough is enough. Can we resolve this, please? It is extremely disappointing. We know that the negotiations are over and that the amounts have been established. The money needs to be paid so that we can move on to something else.
Over time, the government is neglecting producers in supply-managed industries. I suspect this is not the first time I am saying this in the House, but I will say it again today. I feel like this government is being sneaky by chipping away at our supply-managed industry markets, letting time go by, allowing unfair competition from outside that undermines our system, and delaying compensation to harm that system so that it disappears through no fault of the government. My message to the government is that if its intention is to get rid of supply management, it needs to say so and own that politically. The Bloc Québécois has the solution. We are going to introduce another law to protect it. We are going to ask the government to pay compensation right away.
As usual, I can see that I will not have enough time to say even one-tenth of the things I wanted to say.
Let us talk about the next generation of farmers. In the previous Parliament, my esteemed colleague from Brandon—Souris introduced a bill that he asked me to co-sponsor, which I was happy to do. We had an excellent working relationship with the NDP folks at the time, and we succeeded in passing a bill that made it no less financially attractive to transfer the family business to one's own child as to a stranger.
At present, the situation is the same as it was before the bill was passed. It is utter nonsense for a government that claims to understand the importance of business succession, agriculture and the need to feed people. It is appalling and disgusting. I am about to say something unparliamentary, so I will stop here.
What is even more surprising is that this legislation was passed. If the government wanted to make changes to it and question it, then it could have done so in the last Parliament, which it actually did in committee and in the House. The bill was then debated in the Senate and the matter was settled. When legislation is passed in the Senate, it has to come into force.
Well, to my great surprise, last year, the Minister of Finance held a press conference the next day to announce that her government would wait six months before enacting this legislation, claiming that she was not happy with it. What does that mean? Where is the democracy? Parliament passed the bill by a majority vote because the majority of its elected members respect farmers and want to ensure their future. Can the government take action? Obviously we put pressure on the government and the government people backed off. They agreed to enforce this legislation, but very shortly afterward, they announced that they would make changes.
I am talking about it here because there are still no numbers or anything in the budget. However, it is noted that a change will be made to this legislation because “the exception [in the legislation] may unintentionally permit surplus stripping without requiring that a genuine intergenerational business transfer takes place.” Putting it in my own words, that means “we will delay the enforcement of this legislation because we suspect our small farmers of being a bunch of fraudsters”.
At the same time, the government is doing nothing about tax havens, as has been the case for many years. It is estimated that we lose at least $7 billion a year to tax havens in dozens of countries. Everyone is aware of this. It is perfectly legal and completely ironic, and I do not understand why people are not more outraged.
However, when farmers want to sell their farms to a son or a daughter, they are told that they may well be fraudsters and the process is delayed by getting tough and closing any loopholes. This is going to have consequences. According to the government's official line, the law is in force and transactions can go ahead. However, in reality, according to what I have been told, financial advisors, accountants and notaries are all telling our farmers that they do not know what the government is going to do with the legislation and that they are taking a very big risk if they go ahead with their transactions at this time.
They are therefore suggesting to farmers that they delay selling, which will again result in sales to strangers. However, selling to a stranger has the same effect as killing supply management. This is about land use. If a farmer sells the land to a neighbour instead of selling it to a son, there will be only two farms left in a zone that used to have 20, and the residents will complain that the town school is empty, which is obvious. This is all part of a whole. When production is stable, it keeps our economy going.
To conclude, I will say that the Bloc Québécois has done what it usually does, which is to work constructively. Last night, the House voted on our amendment to the amendment. If something is not to our liking, we do not say that everything is bad and that we should vote against it; we propose changes.
However, the House voted against our amendment to the amendment. The NDP-Liberal coalition refused to increase old age security starting at age 65. I want people to remember that when they flock to hear the brilliant speeches about how they claim to be working for everyone.
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