SoVote

Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay (Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, BQ)

Jun/7/22 11:23:01 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague, the member for Mirabel. I am pleased to rise today to speak to the motion moved on the Conservative Party’s opposition day. This motion comprises many of the motions that have been moved by the Conservatives here in the past, most of which were defeated. They decided to take all these motions and lump them together, claiming that they were right and everyone else was wrong. I will begin by quoting Albert Einstein, hoping that my colleagues will not be offended that I am citing a scientist. He said that “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”. Let us be clear. Inflation is a real problem that concerns our constituents, but we need more than simplistic solutions to deal with long-standing patterns and complex phenomena. It is not enough to resort to libertarian monetary fads, such as cryptocurrency, to overcome rising prices caused by demand outstripping supply in the context of a labour shortage. Also, the word “cryptocurrency” is strangely absent from the motion, unless we should be expecting an amendment from the hon. member for Carleton. We will see. We are dealing with a real conflict in terms of the distribution of wealth and equity. I am not saying that this is the crux of the problem, but it is one of them. There appear to be three fundamental differences between Canadian and British Conservatives. First, British Conservatives defend sovereignty. As we know, it was the Conservatives who orchestrated Brexit. Second, they did not fire their leader. Third, they are concerned about their most disadvantaged citizens. Boris Johnson’s government plans to levy an exceptional 25% tax on gas and oil company profits in an effort to return the revenues to households experiencing the greatest difficulties. Canada’s Conservatives, on the other hand, are proposing that we suspend the goods and services tax on gasoline and diesel. That is pure demagoguery. Obviously, many Canadians get angry when they go to the pumps. Their anger is the most understandable and legitimate in the world and, for many of them, this simple solution may appear to be eminently sensible. They likely think that it would give them a bit of breathing room. The problem is that this is a false solution to a real problem. As long as oil companies control prices, they will obviously be able to increase them. Oil companies understand full well that, despite people’s anger, they have no other option right now than to go to the gas station and fill up their tank. If we were to suspend the tax, the oil companies would only increase their prices. It is that simple. That is the problem. Even if consumers were to pay less in the short term, which is not guaranteed, prices would soon increase. One could even say that this motion moved by the Conservatives is a gift for their oil company friends. An hon. member: Oh, come on! Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to have unsettled my colleagues with this surprising revelation this morning. In this morning’s Journal de Montréal, Michel Girard, in an article entitled “Les pétrolières nous pompent des milliards”, or oil companies are siphoning billions out of our pockets—another article that will prove to be unsettling for some—reported on the expected and past profits of several major oil companies. Suncor Energy pocketed $11 billion in 2022, Imperial Oil made $6.2 billion in profits in 2021, and Valero Energy made $6.5 billion in profits last year. Internationally, Shell is expected to pocket more than $40 billion this year. Moreover, the energy sector subindex has risen by 43% since the beginning of the year, and that followed a 42% increase in 2021. I will now address the Quebeckers and Canadians who are listening to us. Here is the proof: Your inflation is their loot. It is that simple. We need a transition plan out of fossil fuels. We have been saying that for a long time, and we will continue to say it. We need to take action. Obviously, it will not happen overnight. We do not want to lay anyone off tomorrow morning. There are workers in the sector. The aim is not to lay them off, but it goes without saying that decreasing our dependence on fossil fuels means decreasing our dependence on fossil fuel price fluctuations. That is just logical. Today, as drivers are going broke, shareholders are celebrating. Sadly, there is nothing in the Conservatives’ motion about that. Still, the oil companies are not the only ones to be making record profits we could easily describe as obscene. Consider banks, with their astronomical senior executive salaries and profits in 2021. Combined, the National Bank, Laurentian Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Montreal, TD Bank, Scotiabank, CIBC and Desjardins Group earned $60.68 billion in profits. That is a 39% jump, or about $17 billion more, over the previous year, which was also a pandemic year. The Royal Bank of Canada was the biggest profit maker, raking in $16.05 billion, an increase of over 40%. It was followed by TD Bank, with $14.3 billion, an increase of 20%. Scotiabank pocketed $9.99 billion, an increase of 45%. The Bank of Montreal posted profits of $7.75 billion, an increase of over 52%. CIBC took in $6.45 billion, an increase of more than 68%. National Bank made $3.18 billion, an increase of more than 53%. Only Laurentian Bank did not do as well as in the previous year. Now let us look at salaries. The CEOs of these eight financial institutions took home $88.87 million, compared with $71.52 million in 2020. Not everyone is experiencing the crisis in the same way. According to Canadians for Tax Fairness, 111 publicly traded companies headquartered in Canada recorded profits over $100 million in the first nine months of the year. Thirty-four of these companies posted record profits during a crisis. Let me repeat that: during a crisis. The top earner was TC Energy, formerly TransCanada, whose Keystone project has been in the news for years. The company made $3.5 billion in profit on sales of $9.7 billion in the third quarter. Meanwhile, SMEs are going into debt. We need to levy a tax on profits exceeding $1 billion for banks, insurance companies, oil companies and big box stores. The tax revenue should be used to fund assistance programs, particularly for SMEs. That is how wealth is redistributed. That is also how the impact of the crisis is evenly distributed. The Biden administration in the United States has proposed a tax on the super-rich to finance its postpandemic investment plan. There would be a tax on unrealized capital gains, in other words, a tax on dormant income, which would apply to approximately 700 taxpayers and would raise hundreds of millions of dollars, guaranteeing that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share to finance the historic investments needed for a strong recovery. Last year in Canada, the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimated that a tax on excess profits earned by big firms in 2020, during the pandemic, would have generated $7.9 billion for the federal treasury. One promising solution that should be considered is a global minimum tax. In June 2021, the G7 finance ministers met in London and reached an astonishing landmark agreement to establish an international corporate tax rate of at least 15% and improve the distribution of tax revenues from multinationals. I only have six seconds left, but I still have so much to say. Before I take questions, I will conclude by thanking my colleagues for listening so carefully and by stating that the Bloc Québécois will not support these bogus solutions to real problems.

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

Mr. Francis Drouin

Jun/7/22 4:03:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, just to make sure my colleagues heard me properly, I note that on the day the Conservatives are proposing a motion to fight inflation, with solutions that have no immediate impact on Canadians, two members of Parliament have decided to jump ship to support the member for Carleton, who came up with two policy ideas. Those two grandiose ideas are to fire the Governor of the Bank of Canada and opt out of inflation by investing in cryptocurrency. With respect to cryptocurrency, I am sure the Conservatives have been following the trajectory of Terra Luna. Terra Luna, about a month and a half ago, was worth $135 on the market. Today it is worth barely a penny. It is worth $0.0003. I have not checked out the latest number, but it is not even worth a Canadian penny, and we do not even have pennies. I do not see how this motion would help Canadians fight inflation. We have put some solutions forward. Obviously, the Canada child benefit is helping families. It is geared toward the cost of inflation, so that is a potential solution. I represent a big farming community. We have talked about how we can help farmers lower their costs, and fertilizer is certainly in debate. I do not necessarily support simply giving a direct exemption to companies that have decided to continue to do deals with Russia and Belarus, because other companies have changed their supply chains and have made the decision not to continue doing business with them. If I were advocating for a potential solution, it would be to provide aid to farmers directly, as opposed to giving it to companies that continue to do deals with Russian and Belarusian companies. Many companies signed contracts with farmers last summer, telling them they would pay a certain price. Some of those companies are now telling them that even though they signed a contract, they are going to charge them extra fees. When an individual and a company sign a contract in Canada, they are creating a bond of trust. It is a binding contract. I am fortunate that in my riding this is not happening, but I have heard many, many stories like this in other parts of the country. Companies are not honouring the contracts, and I would hope that they continue honouring them. It is a binding agreement they have signed with farmers and they owe it to our farmers to honour those contracts. I do not support this motion because it does not include any solutions that will help Canadians immediately.

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

Mr. Luc Thériault (Montcalm, BQ)

Jun/7/22 5:39:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservative motion calls for action to tackle money laundering and yet, at the same time, the Conservatives also want more investments in cryptoassets, which facilitate money laundering. I am talking about Bill C-249. I am also thinking of one of the leadership candidates who is very much in favour of cryptocurrency. How does the member reconcile that?

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