44th Parl. 1st Sess.

April 26, 2022 10:00AM

Apr/26/22 10:07:17 a.m.
Watch

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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