SoVote

Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Jun/7/22 11:50:31 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech. I think we can agree that, in this time of inflation, while some things are indeed out of the government's control, there are some measures it could be taking. What is missing from the Conservative analysis is a real assessment of the role of the private sector and how it is contributing to inflation. We must not forget that aspect in our analysis. I wonder if my hon. colleague could elaborate on that.

84 words

Context: House Hansard - 83 - Jun/7/22

Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Jun/7/22 11:52:14 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke. I want to speak to what is a bit of a grab bag of various initiatives that we have largely seen before in the House in other Conservative opposition day motions. I take it that my colleagues on the Conservative side will not be surprised at the fact that New Democrats do not intend to support this motion because we have actually debated and voted on most of these initiatives already in the House. In fact, one wonders if there is not a procedural question about revisiting some of the same decisions in the House, but I will put that procedural point on hold to address what I take to be the substantive issues in the motion. The motion is talking about a very real problem that Canadians are experiencing and, frankly, cannot get away from, which is the incredible price increases at the grocery store, at the pump and elsewhere on just about everything, which is making it really difficult for Canadians to operate within their normal budget. We all know that wages are not keeping pace with the extent of the price increases we are seeing, so we certainly welcome an opportunity to talk about the impact that inflation is having on Canadians and to propose solutions, even where we disagree about what those solutions ought to be. One of the solutions proposed in the motion is to simply lift all public health restrictions. New Democrats have said many times in the House that we support public health officials leading those conversations, as they have in provinces, where they have come to certain conclusions and federal public health officials, at the moment, have come to different conclusions. We support public health officials making those decisions. We also believe that Canadians have a right to know the evidence and information on which those decisions are based. I think the government's refusal to table that evidence and make it public has created a problem of public trust in our institutions, which is growing. I would beseech the government to make that information public and to be very frank about the recommendations it is getting from public health, including the data and evidence that support them, because that is important to building and maintaining public trust in our institutions. It is something that we need now more than ever, and the government is doing a disservice to Canadians and our institutions by not being more forthcoming with the information it is receiving from public health officials. Even as we support public health officials, we certainly have our own critique of the how the government has handled the file and what that has meant in Canadians' own attitudes toward our public health officials at the federal level. As I say, we call upon the government to do better in supporting those institutions and Canadians by being frank, open and accountable about the information that drives its decision-making. However, that is not the call here. The call here is to substitute politicians for public health officials and say that the House of Commons should decide, rather than experts based on the best available evidence, and that is a wrong turn. It is not one that we have supported at anytime during the pandemic, and it is not one that we are going to support at this time or anytime in the future, even as we encourage the government to do a better job of making that information available. I will speak more generally now for a moment about the motion because it talks about a number of things. It talks about lowering the GST and the carbon tax on the price of gas, even though that is a solution that does not touch as many people as it needs to because we know there are a lot of people who do not drive vehicles who are also suffering from inflation. They are the people who ride their bikes and take public transportation and cannot afford to own a car, and this solution helps perpetuate a culture that is driving climate change. It is bereft of any kind of meaningful thinking about the next real economic crisis, which has already started to make itself felt and is only going to continue to make itself felt to a greater and greater degree. Our solution to inflation in the present moment cannot be one that is going to compound a growing economic problem, which is the problem of climate change. We have to find solutions to inflation now that also set us up for success moving into the future. We are going to have to continue to grapple with serious economic challenges that will cause economic displacement and will continue to cause upward cost pressures on goods of all kinds as climate change will continue to interfere with supply chains beyond the life of the pandemic. When I said I wanted to speak a little more generally, what I meant was that what is characteristic of Conservative solutions, as they call them, is that they are completely blind to the role the private sector plays in driving inflation. It is as if the private sector is completely innocent, that corporate board members are completely innocent, that the CEOs of large companies like oil and gas companies, big box stores, insurance companies and banks, which have all made a killing during the pandemic with profits way above their prepandemic norms, are somehow innocent, and if we only left it more to them, everything would work out. They do not talk about the kind of good work that has been done by the member for Windsor West on gas prices to actually do something. When we talk about raising taxes on oil and gas companies, they say that this will just get passed onto the consumer and, in the next breath, they say, “Let us cut taxes on gas.” As if those same companies, which have been known to jack up the price of gas by 8¢ a litre just because of a long weekend, are not going to take that space up themselves, now that they know that people are prepared to pay for it. The blind spots are inexcusable. The way to take meaningful action on gas prices is to follow the lead of the member for Windsor West, who has talked about establishing a price monitoring board that would look at real data from the oil and gas industry and determine what their pricing might be. We then need to have an ombudsperson who would be able to take complaints from Canadians who notice that the price of gas jumps every time somebody sneezes internationally and there is worry that it might cause a crisis. Well, actually, they are not worried. They see it as an opportunity for speculation. That is what needs to be reined in, and the only way to do that is by properly regulating the market. When we do that, we could increase taxes on oil and gas companies that have made record profits over the course of the pandemic, and we would know that this money can be reinvested back into Canadians without them having to pay for it at the pump. That is how one sets up an infrastructure to actually look after Canadians and make sure that they are being treated fairly. We do not hear that except from the NDP in this place. I hope that we will start to hear about it from more than New Democrats because it is something that actually ought to get done. However, the idea that, somehow, just by giving a little bit of a break at the pump for those who are driving vehicles is going to be the solution to inflation is facile. It puts us on the wrong track in the much bigger economic problem we are facing, which is climate change. We talk about housing. The solution for housing proposed here is to have a public inquiry into money laundering. Well, we should be looking into money laundering and the role it is playing, but if we are talking about urgent action to help people during the pandemic, people would be much better off getting a bigger GST rebate, paid for by the largest companies that are making the biggest profits. I named those industries earlier: oil and gas, insurance and banking. Big box stores have also seen giant increases in profits. That is something that would go directly to Canadians who are the most in need. It is something we can do now. It is something that the government has already done during the course of the pandemic, and that is why we know it can be done. We know it can be done quickly, and we know that it helps. Providing an extra $500 on the Canada child benefit this year is another way to help families that are struggling with rising costs. That is something that we can do right away. We know that there are companies operating in Canada that have made additional profits that Canadians have paid for, so I ask what the difference is between that and a tax. Canadians go to the grocery store to buy food for their family, and Loblaws or somebody else has decided to jack up the price in a moment of opportunity, as they see it, or whatever the rationale is, maybe to shield themselves from future risk. Whatever it is, they have decided that Canadians are going to pay more for things they cannot do without and that is going to go into their bank account. The difference between that and a tax is that this never gets reinvested into Canadians at the bottom and the services that they need. That is where a tax, if it is done well, is better than what we too often hear from the Conservatives. On the question of tariffs on fertilizer, I think there is an interesting point here. The Conservatives clearly have put together a list of things with people that they want to be able to talk to and please, and there are some important points about the tariff on fertilizer that I will get to in the questions and comments, but the fact of the matter is that this reads more like a target demographic list of people they want to fundraise on.

1751 words

All Topics

Context: House Hansard - 83 - Jun/7/22

Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Jun/7/22 12:03:20 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I am certainly not ashamed to stand up to talk about something we will never hear from the Conservatives, which is the extent to which corporate Canada is also putting pain on Canadians. We are also not embarrassed to be proposing real solutions about that. I will suppress the unparliamentary phrase that comes to mind as an appropriate response to the member's question and just say that people who want to go back to work also want to go back to safe workplaces. For as much as there are people who are frustrated they have not been able to go to work because they did not get the vaccine, there are also a lot of people who are glad to be in a safe workplace and glad to follow the directives of public health officials. As I said, we believe government should do a better job of reinforcing faith in those public officials by being open and transparent about the information they are getting from them, but a safe workplace is also about standing up for workers. That is something we are proud to do on this side of the House.

194 words

All Topics

Context: House Hansard - 83 - Jun/7/22

Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Jun/7/22 12:05:16 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, the motion simply says “eliminating tariffs on fertilizer”. The member for Winnipeg North is right to point out that tariffs were imposed on fertilizer coming from Russia as part of our effort to punish Vladimir Putin. The legitimate issue here is that there are farmers who signed contracts to buy fertilizer as part of their pricing for the year before the invasion of Ukraine, so there is a real question of fairness in retroactively imposing a tariff on farmers who had already signed contracts to get that fertilizer and who had built it into their pricing structure for the year. We are not hearing that kind of conversation from the Conservatives. They are not trying to build a parliamentary consensus. They are trying to build a fundraising list. That comes across very clearly in the motion. An hon. member: That is wrong.

146 words

Context: House Hansard - 83 - Jun/7/22

Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Jun/7/22 12:08:45 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, which was asked in the appropriate way. I think we have been in a race to the bottom for far too long. An agreement that would guarantee a fair minimum tax rate is a very good idea. I think it would be a good thing for companies that want to stay in Canada but are in competition with companies whose operations are located in countries with lower tax rates.

78 words

Context: House Hansard - 83 - Jun/7/22

Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Jun/7/22 2:17:07 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, even though the pandemic is not entirely behind us, it is heartening to see more things return to normal. On Saturday, I enjoyed spending time with my family at Transcona's Hi Neighbour Festival after a pancake breakfast at the legion. Baba's Country Kitchen was back in action and as delicious as ever. On Sunday, I was pleased to join with tens of thousands of people for the Winnipeg pride parade. Next weekend, I look forward to celebrating with people in Elmwood as Happy Days on Henderson makes its return after a two-year hiatus. As usual, there will be live music, children's games and a lot more. Winnipeg had a long, cold winter, and it has been a difficult year so far. As the little bit of sunshine we are getting now warms our faces, these events are helping to warm our hearts. I thank all the amazing people who have worked hard to put these events back together.

164 words

Context: House Hansard - 83 - Jun/7/22

Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)

Jun/7/22 8:05:58 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening to speak to the main estimates for 2022-23. I want to start by talking a bit about climate change and the importance of the government taking a leadership role in charting an economic path from where we are today to where we need to be, both in order to lower emissions and to try to avert the worst of what is coming with climate change in the climate crisis. That continues to be, or must be, the priority. I am not always convinced that it is the priority that it needs to be around here, but it must be a priority. That economic course is important, not only to mitigate the economic and the very real human effects that climate change will bring, but also because it is about securing a prosperous future for Canadians in an economy that is changing. If we look around the world, we see a lot of countries that are accepting the reality of climate change and trying to transition their economies away from such a heavy reliance on fossil fuels. We have seen the importance of that from a climate change point of view, but recently we have seen the importance of trying to transition away from fossil fuels from a defence and security point of view too. Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine has shown just how fragile the world economy is in the face of its reliance on fossil fuels. Therefore, we are trying to develop energy alternatives that are closer to home, and we are fortunate in Canada to have many ways that we can do that and many resources that can enable a transition away from such heavy reliance on fossil fuels. There is certainly more than one reason, and I do not even pretend to have captured them all. With regard to the government's spending plan, what we saw in the budget was a commitment, first of all, of about $2.6 billion for carbon capture and sequestration. That is a bad bet, not only in terms of the success of the technology at scale, which many experts have called into question, but also in terms of emissions reductions as well. It is just not where we should be spending the lion's share of public funds that are meant to transition the economy away from reliance on carbon. In fact, it is designed to not be transitioning away from reliance on carbon; it is meant to find ways to perpetuate that reliance, which is still a form of climate change denial, and it is going to do a fair bit of harm. We saw already in the budget that the government has not understood the severity of the crisis. I do not think the government is at a place where it is going to invest in the right options. It was very disappointing to see that, particularly in the context of a government that had committed to reduce fossil fuel subsidies and not increase them. That is one area of government spending in respect to climate that is important to highlight, and I want Canadians to know that the government is making a serious mistake in that respect. With respect to the budget still, the Liberals want to land investment in renewable energy in the Infrastructure Bank, which means they want to capitalize the bank for a lot of renewable energy projects. That is what they say. However, part of the issue is that in so doing, they are handing it off to an organization that has a very bad track record so far on delivering projects. It does not give us a lot of hope to know that the Infrastructure Bank is on the case. It has not delivered a lot of projects. To the extent that its successful projects list has increased—and I am sure somebody will want to quote some high numbers at me later—it has largely been around bus purchasing. That is great and is an important part of it, but we do not need an Infrastructure Bank and we do not need to pay former Liberals high salaries in order to figure out how to source electric buses. This is something that we already know how to do. It is something municipalities were doing before the Infrastructure Bank, thanks very much, and it is something that they could continue to do without the Infrastructure Bank. As well, perhaps we could do it more effectively if we did not have to go through another layer of administration and pay the salaries of government cronies over at the Infrastructure Bank, if I am being honest about what I think about it. There is another intentional or unintentional consequence of running that funding through the Infrastructure Bank, although I would impress upon colleagues again that there is not a lot of evidence that it is worth it, because the Infrastructure Bank is not so great at delivering projects on time and on budget. The other consequence is that those projects that may have appeared in an estimate—projects that might have appeared somewhere here on the floor of the House of Commons to give parliamentarians and, through their representatives, Canadians, an opportunity to weigh in on the key nation-building projects that ought to be a part of our response to climate change and drive our transition to a low-carbon economy—will not grace the floor of the House. Instead, that money will be set aside at some point, perhaps in estimates one time, and then those debates will be happening internally at the Infrastructure Bank. Municipal governments will be talking to the Infrastructure Bank, not our duly elected government—or parliamentarians, for that matter. I think there is a real loss of democratic involvement in the way that the government is projecting the delivery of those funds, and it is a mistake. I think of my colleague from Manitoba, who represents the riding of Churchill—Keewatinook Aski and has done some great work and presented a private member's bill to try to change the nature of the Infrastructure Bank, which is a good thing. However, that work is not done. That bill has not passed. The Infrastructure Bank remains largely as it was originally set up by the Liberals and is not doing the job that I think was advertised in the 2015 election when the government initially ran on the idea of having an infrastructure bank. If we are going to successfully transition the economy to a lower-carbon economy, that is also an opportunity to engage Canadians who are wondering a lot about their future right now, wondering a lot about how they are going to afford a home, how they are going to get the education they need to get a job that is actually out there in the market. We hear a lot from employers right now, who are saying they cannot find qualified people to do the jobs that they need done in order for their businesses to succeed, in order for their customers here in Canada and abroad to get the products and the services that they want. As we think about serious public investment in the economy to respond to climate change, I think we should also have a process that brings more Canadians into that conversation and helps them get some direction over the kinds of employment that we are going to see and the pathways to that employment as well. Running the lion's share of the funding for new renewable infrastructure projects through the Infrastructure Bank is a real missed opportunity to foster that kind of engagement and participation on the part of Canadians. There is another major spend by government that is not in the estimates, and that is the recent loan guarantee of $10 billion for the TMX pipeline, in addition to what had already been committed. I do not think anyone should kid themselves: It is an expenditure. It is a commitment of public funds above and beyond what had already been budgeted, which was around $15 billion or maybe a little bit more. This is another $10 billion. We are getting close to the $30-billion mark, for those who are keeping track, and because that happened through the Canada Account of Export Development Canada, it does not appear on the books here. That is a decision that cabinet got to make off in the corner, as it did when it initially purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline. When we think about the Mackenzie pipeline debates of the 1950s and what a watershed moment that was for the country and for Parliament, this is a real disappointment. I think that is an understatement. I am feeling very parliamentary at the moment. It is disappointing that the government chose to fund that project in that way for all sorts of reasons. It is disappointing because it is the wrong project at the wrong time and it does not take us in the right direction in terms of the economy for the future, but it is also disappointing because it circumvented this place. We do talk a lot about pipelines in this place. I have my own views on that and I have been pretty open about that. People can search the record in terms of what I think about pipelines. I have probably given enough that people can probably read the tea leaves here already. I know others disagree, and that is fine. Parliament is a place where disagreement comes to live. If we are doing our jobs well, hopefully we can tackle some of those real disagreements and we can find some common ground. On the things that we cannot find common ground, we cannot. At the very least, something like the federal government buying an existing pipeline and committing close to $30 billion, certainly $25 billion, to get the thing built is a major national undertaking, whether I agree with it or not, and whether others like it or not. It would be outrageous for someone to claim that is not a major national expense and that it will not have major national implications down the road. The government could have tried to fund it through estimates, but it did not. It decided to circumvent Parliament instead and make that decision on its own. I think how it chose to make that decision was wrong, independently of the fact that I think the decision was wrong. Why was TMX even up for sale? It was not just the existing pipeline, but the projected future pipeline. It was because a large company in the oil and gas sector, which is very good at building pipelines, decided it was a loser. If it thought it was going to make money on that thing, it would have hung onto it. The company decided it was going to lose a lot of money, so it put the pipeline up for sale. Who came knocking? The federal government. It was the government that ran on getting serious about tackling the climate crisis. A government that has since many times repeated about, but not often actually acted on, reducing fossil fuel subsidies. Just like everyone else, we are reading in the media about where this project is headed and the massive cost overruns. We know that when the government says it is going to provide loan guarantees, and it is not public funding, then it is a sham because one of two things is going to happen. The project could be a wild success and it would make a lot of money for the private investors who are kicking in cash, with no risk, because the government has already underwritten those loans. In this case there would not be a public expenditure, but there would be a lot of happy private investors. However, in the case where it goes wrong, it would be a public expenditure because the government is going to step in and cover the loans. In that case the private investors are going to walk off scot-free without ever having taken a meaningful risk. To me, that sounds worse than public expenditure. At least if the government had spent the money itself, it would be entitled to the profit and, if it were successful, it would make income off it. However, the government has said the only for sure thing is that it is not going to make a lot of income off that project because, if it is a success, the private investors will walk away with the return. Only if it is a failure, will Canadians have to pay the bill. It is a completely wrong-headed project, but I am glad to take this opportunity to talk about it in the context of the estimates because it is not there and it really ought to have been a parliamentary conversation. I wish we had a better debate about that before the decision was made. In fact, it was announced as a surprise. I remember reading about it on my phone walking up to the Hill one morning, that the government had decided to do this. It is quite a disappointment. I say that by way of trying to remind people of the importance and the significance this place can have and sometimes does have. These kinds of circuitous funding routes are ways that government, the executive, minimizes the role of this place and keeps important decision-making and important national conversations away from this place. We have taken up the question of the TMX pipeline. I do not just mean the NDP. I mean in this place, we have heard about it from all sides of the House in various ways during question period. However, there really ought to have been a time for a better and more focused debate. It should not just be in 35-second snippets during question period that we are trying to make sense of this major decision with import not only for Canada. When we talk about climate change, we have to talk about the global context. That was a decision that actually has import far beyond Canada's own borders. I wanted to raise that as an example of something that is a government expenditure, but is something not in the estimates that really ought to have been in the estimates. I want to talk more generally, having addressed some of the features of the estimates, both in terms of its content and absence, about where I believe government spending and government intervention in the economy has to go. We have seen a lot of big numbers announced from the government. Unfortunately, too often this is a government that conflates spending announcements with real action. New Democrats are often accused by others of wanting to spend everybody else's money, and it is always implied that we do this frivolously, which is simply not the case. We are here to talk about how we could invest in Canadians and how we could invest in the country. I would say that we do not think of a return on investment as being solely a financial question. If we pool our resources as Canadians and we find a more efficient way to pay for prescription drugs, or we pool our resources and we make sure that not just my kids but every kid in the country has access to dental care, to me that is a return on investment. In respect of pharmacare, I think there is a financial return that we could realize as Canadians against what we are already paying for prescription drugs. We know a number of studies have been out, and the most small-c conservative estimates on how much we could save is in the order of about $4 billion a year, and this is dated information. We are living in a period of great inflation, and I am sure the numbers have gone up but I bet the differential has not. Back when the PBO reported on pharmacare, he said that Canadians were spending about $24 billion a year on prescription drugs, and one national prescription drug insurance plan would cost about $20 billion. That would be a savings of $4 billion. That would be a very concrete financial return on an investment out of the public purse. We could also measure return on investment in other ways. Government spending to build new housing supply so we could house people who are currently living on the street brings return on investment. It brings return on investment, and that is another one where I would say there is actually a financial component. We know that people who are experiencing homelessness have more frequent interactions with the justice system. They are more likely to end up in jail, and we know that jailing people is expensive. We also know people experiencing homelessness are also more likely to end up in the health system, and not through preventative care, like a typical physical at the doctor's office, but in the emergency room where the issues are more acute and the costs are much higher. That is a return on investment. When we talk about people who are nervous about taking the bus because there are people who have set up their home in the bus shelter, and they do not know what those folks are like, they do not know what state of mind they are in, so they get nervous about taking the bus and say that we need to get these people out of the way. Well, creating a sense of safety in our communities by housing those folks instead of waiting until something goes sideways and the police show up to arrest them is another way we could realize tangible return on investment. That is something we could do together through our governments that no individual could do on their own. As we think about what was required in the pandemic as a response, and as we think about the ongoing and mounting challenge of climate, we have to revisit the conventional wisdom of the last 30 or 40 years around public involvement in the economy and recognize that, if we are going to get to where we need to be, then we need some bold public investment. It should be happening in a way that allows it to be discussed in this place with public deliberation, instead of at the boardroom table at the Infrastructure Bank or at the cabinet table in secret, spending out of the Canada account, instead of doing it transparently here in the estimates. Even if we consider the oil and gas industry, an industry that has had its heyday and now we need to figure how to have a lower carbon economy, that industry in Alberta was built with tons of public investment. That economic engine did not actually happen with the private industry on its own. There were years of publicly funded research and publicly funded infrastructure at the provincial and federal levels that led to that economy being what it became. It is going to take that level of seriousness and public investment to build the economy of the future to provide good-paying jobs and prosperity for Canadians again, which is why it is important that this place get it right when it comes to how we evaluate government spending.

3262 words

All Topics

Context: House Hansard - 83 - Jun/7/22

Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Jun/7/22 8:27:19 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I would say two things in response to that. The first is that the new $2.6 billion that was just announced in the budget for carbon capture and sequestration, I consider to be a fossil fuel subsidy. That is a major increase in fossil fuel subsidies that has nothing to do with orphan wells. I do think that it is a good idea to clean up orphan wells. I think that the industry should be made responsible to do it. One of the proposals we have to do that indirectly is to take the surtax on banks and insurance companies, which the government has agreed to in our supply and confidence agreement, and do what we have been calling on the government to do, and it has not agreed to, and apply that surtax to oil and gas companies so they can pay the bill for the orphan well cleanup. There is more than one way to do this, but for government to just assume that responsibility and have Canadians pay the costs of cleanup that the industry should have been paying all the way along is not right.

192 words

Context: House Hansard - 83 - Jun/7/22

Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Jun/7/22 8:29:27 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I think the member knows full well that we do not have an NDP government. Things would be very different if we did. Things have not gone the way they did because we cut an agreement. The reason that the government is able to spend what it going to spend is because Canadians elected a Parliament, like it or not. I do not. I do not even like the voting system that helped them get the most amount of seats. The member will know I believe the Conservatives actually got more of the popular vote than the Liberals, but the Liberals have more seats because of a system the Conservatives endorse and defend. Canadians elected a Parliament and, unless we are going to be in a perpetual election cycle, some of us have to act like grownups and try to work together here instead of throwing tantrums all the time. That is what happened. What is in the agreement reflects what we could get the Liberals to agree on in the agreement. The main thing for us was dental care, and it is a shame that they are not living up to their commitment on mental health. The member will hear us continue to press them on those things, as we would have if we were not in a supply and confidence agreement. What we got in the agreement were the things that we could move forward on, and we secured our right to continue to go after them on the things that are not in the agreement.

260 words

Context: House Hansard - 83 - Jun/7/22

Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Jun/7/22 8:31:49 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I was really fortunate to do my electrical apprenticeship at a time when the Province of Manitoba, under an NDP government as it happens, was investing a lot in public infrastructure. I never missed a beat between working, going to school to finish my levels, and then coming back out to the job site. I never worked on a fossil fuel project. There are a lot of different ways the government can invest in public infrastructure that is going to create jobs and prosperity for Canadians. This dichotomy between investing in fossil fuel and having jobs and not doing that and losing all the jobs is simply a false one, because that is not the real choice. The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of things we can invest in that are going to create good employment for Canadians. I am from western Canada, and the Canada West Foundation, which is not usually a place New Democrats look to for inspiration, has done a great report on the idea of a western power grid that would connect B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba and allow the hydro power of B.C. and Manitoba to act effectively as a battery for Alberta and Saskatchewan, which have the most potential for wind and solar power generation in the country by far. However, because that does not give us a baseload, we need another kind of baseload power that can be released into the system when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. We could create a really effective system of generation, transmission and distribution in western Canada that would help lower our emissions, create tons of employment and have the same nation-building capability as a pipeline. It would actually cross more provinces than a typical pipeline does. That is the way we can be creating employment and moving our economy in the right direction, not only for here in Canada but developing expertise with Canadian workers and Canadian companies that they can then go and sell globally, as other economies make similar investments in renewable energy. That is how we can develop a plan for prosperity here in Canada that is actually equal to the climate crisis. It is not the vision we are getting out of the government.

388 words

Context: House Hansard - 83 - Jun/7/22

Mr. Daniel Blaikie

Jun/7/22 8:35:02 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I am happy to clarify that I was not labelling the member's previous intervention as a tantrum. I was referring more to the totality of question period interventions we see from his party, with perhaps the odd exception. There is my charitable moment in respect of Conservative performance in question period. There are a lot of things I would love to have seen in that agreement, sure, but we can get in only what we can agree to move forward on with another party. I share his frustration that the government has not made this a priority. I am happy to criticize the government for that. I would like to replace the government with a majority NDP government that will do those things. In the meantime, we were able to get agreement on what I think is a very significant step forward, which is providing dental care to Canadians who have a household income of $90,000 or less, among other things.

165 words