44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 26, 2022 10:00AM
- Apr/26/22 10:49:35 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway for his speech.
I find it utterly fascinating to hear the NDP and others talk about a dental program, especially now that the Liberals are saying this is their way of helping seniors.
I would like to take this a little further because the NDP voted in favour of last year's Bloc Québécois motion recognizing that seniors are disadvantaged and that old age security should be increased.
Where are the New Democrats at with that? Have they backtracked on their pledge to do more for seniors? There is nothing at all in this Liberal-NDP budget that helps seniors.
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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 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 12:02:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, originally I thought I would ask a question in regard to seniors, but I am going to pass on that. The changes have, in fact, been made, in good part, and the budget finalizes that. We have been very supportive of our seniors over the years, from day one.
My question, more specifically, is in regard to the member's historic perspective in terms of accountability of the House. One of the things, I would argue, being a parliamentarian for 30 years, in terms of the importance of getting that accountability and transparency, is looking at our rules. It is the Standing Orders. It is the way in which we process our daily proceedings.
For example, if we were to, heaven forbid, look at the modernization of our House and our rules, and many of the concerns that the member opposite recognizes as something that is important, which I personally believe too, would she not agree that it is time that the House of Commons look at modernizing our rules to ensure that we can have ongoing transparency and accountability no matter who is in government?
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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 12:06:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have to recognize that when seniors get to that stage in their life, whether it be in their own home to age in place, in a long-term care facility or in the homes of their children, they will be living the rest of their lives there. It is their space. It is their social circle and their recreational circle.
When it comes to seniors, it seems like the current government has a habit of taking one step forward and two steps back. I am delighted with the record that the Conservative government has with regard to seniors. I think it is really important and prudent of us, as parliamentarians, to have their backs, in the words of the Liberal government. If they are going to have the backs of seniors, they need to step up and act.
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- Apr/26/22 12:07:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I always enjoy hearing my colleague in the House of Commons. Certainly, I thank her and her family for their service to Canadians.
I have two questions. First of all, during the Harper government years, that dismal decade, the PBO evaluates that over $25 billion a year in tax monies went to overseas tax havens. That is a quarter of a trillion dollars. Will she acknowledge the contribution of the Harper government to our national debt through the signing of many offshore special tax agreements that allowed the ultrarich to take their money offshore?
Second, in terms of dental care for seniors, there are over 29,000 people in Hastings—Lennox and Addington who would benefit from the NDP's dental plan. Many seniors will benefit from it. Will she acknowledge that dental care is important for seniors, and all Canadians, and that this will make a difference in their quality of life?
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- Apr/26/22 12:08:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the acknowledgement of my family's career. My father had a lovely retirement gathering last week and it was wonderful.
With regard to the question he asked, I believe that my colleague has failed to mentioned the positive record of the Stephen Harper government and the results that he did deliver for seniors.
More specifically to pharmacare and dental care, I think the devil is in the details. I would love to be proven wrong, but I am not—
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- Apr/26/22 12:22:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member's speech really goes to the heart of where many Canadians are. What she is hearing in her riding is very similar to what I have heard across my riding.
When we talk about affordability now, we know that it is increasingly harder for so many families and sectors in our society. I would ask the member to highlight for us some of the things in this budget that would make it easier for Canadians, seniors and families to be able to continue through what have been very trying times.
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- Apr/26/22 4:34:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her beautiful speech. I know she cares about the most vulnerable people in our society..
I wanted to remind her that there is a large organization in Quebec called the Fédération de l'âge d'or du Québec, which brings together all people aged 55 and over, and that means 500,000 people. The FADOQ has asked the government to increase old age security payments for people aged 65 and over. The current government plans to increase it for people aged 75 and over.
Can my colleague explain whether she agrees with the need to increase the old age security pension for seniors aged 65 and over? Why does she think there is absolutely no mention of this in the budget?
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- Apr/26/22 4:35:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Salaberry—Suroît.
I voted in favour of the Bloc Québécois budget amendment specifically for the reasons she outlined in her question. The Bloc Québécois added that we must have a concrete program to combat the climate emergency. As for the question of funding for our seniors, I do not have an answer to her question. Ignoring the needs of our seniors makes no sense.
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- Apr/26/22 4:37:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague and friend from Saanich—Gulf Islands for sharing her valuable time with me.
If I had to describe the thin little budget that was tabled three weeks ago, the phrase that would come to mind would be “missed opportunity”. I am not just talking about one missed opportunity, I am talking about a slew of missed opportunities.
First, the pandemic should have alerted the government to the plight of seniors, to the fact that they are on fixed incomes and their purchasing power has been greatly eroded. I was hoping that the Liberals would understand, given that before the election, they had said it was urgent to send a $500 cheque to seniors aged 75 and over, to win their vote. Indeed, the plight of seniors was appalling back then, when it was time to win votes.
All of a sudden, we are presented with a budget that not only contains nothing for seniors, but includes a small graph that basically tells them to stop complaining and whining, that their lives are fine, that they need to stop asking for money, and that the government is tired of them, literally.
The budget should have been an opportunity for the Liberal government to show that it understands that there are major funding problems in the health care system. We are not making this up. For weeks now, the Minister of Health has been going around bragging about how, during the pandemic, he was forced to rush tens of billions of dollars to the provinces. The provinces—underfunded since the 1990s, thanks to the Liberals—started offloading, rescheduled surgeries and ran out of space, almost to the point of leaving people to die in the streets.
Instead of increasing health transfers and recognizing that reality, the minister says we should consider ourselves lucky that he bailed us out during the pandemic and would be wise to settle for what he has to offer, which is nothing.
We have a Minister of Environment and Climate Change who should have realized that, if he continues to allow increased oil production, it will have a negative impact on the future of the energy transition. This same minister boasted on social media last week about how Canada had lowered its emissions in 2020, in the middle of a pandemic, when cars were off the roads and planes were grounded.
The government is congratulating itself instead of acknowledging the sacrifices that will have to be made in the future to make this transition. The Minister of Environment is happy about the pandemic, the Minister of Health is happy about the pandemic and the Minister of Seniors is happy about the pandemic.
This budget is jam-packed with oil subsidies. When I checked the news and turned on my computer to see reactions the day after the budget was presented, I figured I could judge how good the budget was based on who liked it. The first reaction I saw was from the oil and gas industry, which was very happy with the budget. It obviously did not get everything it wanted, since the Liberals had to leave a little for Jean Charest and the member for Carleton, but oil companies still did well.
Legal and environmental associations, as well as the mayor of Montreal, whom the environment minister likes to quote, came to say that this is a bad budget. The organization West Coast Environmental Law told us that carbon capture is an experimental technology that could increase water and energy use, as well as our GHG emissions.
The budget includes subsidies for exactly this purpose, even though we have been calling on the federal government for years to abolish subsidies to oil companies. We are not talking about small amounts here, but about huge subsidies. For the next five years, $2.5 billion will go directly into the pockets of the oil companies each and every year. That means $12.5 billion in total over that period, but we have to remember that the government has no money for health care. For the next four years, $1.5 billion per year will go directly into the pockets of oil companies, for a total of $18.5 billion over nine years.
The government says that it is also making an effort and that it has done away with “inefficient” subsidies to oil companies. We have been waiting for many years for a definition of what an inefficient subsidy is. It is important to note here that the subsidy that the government has abolished is worth $9 million out of a total of $18.5 billion. Rounding up the figures, the difference between the two is therefore $18.5 billion more to the oil companies, no more and no less.
To get us to buy into that, they trot out their classic excuse, which is that, in western Canada and Newfoundland, people work hard to earn a decent living in the oil and gas sector. They call it the energy sector, which sounds better. They talk about these people who earn a decent living, families with mortgages.
That is true. There are people who are stuck in this situation, who work in that industry and did not ask to be stuck in it. The problem is that, as we produce more and more oil, we get more and more families in trouble because they depend on that industry. The more trouble they are in, the more complicated it will be to scale back the industry in the future.
From 1990 to 2010, Canadian oil production rose by 69%. From 2010 to 2015, it rose by another 31%. From 2015 to 2019—and this was under a Liberal government, our eco-friends across the way, Conservatives garbed in green—there was another 22% increase. Their recent announcement of an extra 300,000 barrels per day to save the world is another 13%. That is a 209% increase since 1990, the Kyoto protocol base year. The reason the Liberals use 2005 as their base year is to hide that.
Let us get back to the fact that the government is getting families in trouble and making the transition harder as a result. We have the numbers. From 1995 to 2012, as a barrel of oil went from $33 to almost $130, the number of people working in Canada's oil and gas industry and depending on it grew from 99,000 to 218,000.
We prefer a constructive approach. We believe there has to be a transition. It has to be done fast, but it has to be done right. We have not asked to shut everything down. We think production needs to be capped and there should be a gradual transition. We also think there should be green finance initiatives.
This plan has nothing but generic sentences such as, “the Sustainable Finance Action Council will develop and report on strategies for aligning private sector capital”. It is all hot air. The federal government's plan is nothing but hot air. It has no transition plan. That makes it hard to vote in favour of this budget.
There are solid proposals, like the train, the high-speed train that we have been wanting in the Quebec-Windsor corridor for years. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change has been bragging for years in interviews about not having a car and about how he likes the train. What we want is a high-speed train, a turtle that comes by twice as often.
In the budget, there is $400 million over two years. A person might think there may be a train. However, when we ask officials what the $400 million is for, they tell us it is to find partners. Partnership is expensive.
However, when it comes to the issue of western oil, then there is enough cash. That works.
When it comes to infrastructure, it is even worse. The government wants to again start using the Canada Infrastructure Bank to save the world. This bank was created by the Prime Minister in 2015 during the economic downturn. The bank took so long to get off the ground that when it did start operating the economy was in full flight. Today, the government wants to drag its feet a second time with the transition.
That is why this budget is against seniors, against our health care systems and against the transition. However, it is not too late to change it.
We have a Prime Minister who travels across Canada, from coast to coast to coast, who lectures us, who tells us that we need to purify our hearts. He tells us that we must change, and that we are to be better.
However, this budget contains irrefutable evidence that we have a tired government and a Prime Minister who does not intend to be better.
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- Apr/26/22 4:50:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member opened his comments with concern for seniors and the lack of action for seniors. One of the things the NDP would really like to see is for the government to adopt my colleague's bill on the guaranteed livable income. That would support seniors and, of course, many others as well who are living in poverty. Would the Bloc support such a bill?
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- Apr/26/22 4:51:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are debating the ways and means motion.
We have the opportunity to do something now for seniors, to increase their pensions. However, the NDP, which decided to sign an agreement with the Liberals and will therefore support the budget, is being sanctimonious here.
We will see how we vote on their bill.
However, the NDP will soon vote on a budget that has ignored our seniors, and we need to hold the NDP to account.
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