44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 7, 2022 10:00AM
- Jun/7/22 12:03:20 p.m.
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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.
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- Jun/7/22 12:08:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to this Conservative opposition day motion because I think it identifies a very real problem facing Canadians: inflation generally, and the price of gas, the price of food and the price of housing.
Unfortunately, it does something the Conservatives are wont to do recently, which is ignore the ongoing pandemic. It asks us to ignore health experts in favour of so-called freedom from mandates. I would just remind members of the House that in my home province of British Columbia, in the last week of May, 44 people died from COVID. We have many people, some of whom I know quite well, who are suffering from long COVID, and many members, or certainly many citizens of British Columbia, are receiving things like cancer treatments that compromise their immune systems, so there are lots of reasons why we should continue to listen to the health experts and not simply adopt some political position on mandates.
I would agree with the Conservatives on only one small aspect, which is that I think the government has an obligation to show its work, as we say, when it comes to mandates. I believe that public health officials will do what is right, but the government needs to show us the evidence it is using for the decisions it is making, which it was pretty good at during the early stages of the pandemic, but seems to have forgotten about now.
Having identified the affordability crisis, of course the Conservatives like to say the solution is more money in Canadians' pockets. Strangely, there is some agreement here. I believe there are some Canadians who need more money in their pockets. The problem is this: Which Canadians need that money in their pockets? The Conservative solution is to make sure that the pockets that get filled are those of large corporations and not the people who are actually facing an affordability crisis in their families.
When it comes to gas prices, let us look at the profits of oil companies. In the first quarter of 2022 only, Imperial Oil recorded $1.17 billion in profits. This was its best record in 30 years. Suncor recorded a profit, in the first quarter only, of $2.95 billion, which is four times its profits last year. What is going on here is profiteering. These are companies that are taking advantage of the international situation, of the climate crisis and of all kinds of things to line their own pockets. The Conservative solution here, first of all, is a bit ironic, because it is to increase the deficit by decreasing our tax revenues. It is also to trust that the oil companies would not just fill that space with their own price increases and scoop up all the benefits of any tax reductions. There is no mechanism to prevent that, and we have seen the record, over and over again, of the oil companies: they will take any advantage to increase their profits. The Conservative solution risks lining the pockets of big oil and providing nothing for families who are struggling with high gas prices on a daily basis.
The New Democrats have instead called for an excess profits tax not just on oil companies, but also on big banks and large food retailers. Scotiabank recorded profits of over $10 billion last year, the Bank of Montreal had over $8 billion, Loblaws had a net profit of $1.2 billion, and Sobeys, a smaller player, had over $600 million in profits. The Conservative proposal would increase the deficit and inflationary pressures, and there would be nothing about these record profits being racked up by the big corporations. It would take away necessary revenues for providing some help to those who really are hit by the affordability crisis. We know who is hardest hit: It is the seniors living on a fixed income, people with disabilities, indigenous people and northerners.
We must never forget that these impacts are strongly gendered, I will say, in that when we look at women over 65, a vast majority of them are living in poverty, especially single women over the age of 65. When we look at single-parent families who are living in poverty, the vast majority are headed by women, so when we are talking about these impacts of affordability, we have to remember that they hit particularly hard at Canadian women, no matter their age or their family status.
I want to thank the member for Nunavut, who continually raises the food insecurity problem in the north, for bringing our attention to it again today. The biggest impact of these rising costs for Canadian families is food insecurity.
I want to draw the House's attention to the report released yesterday by Food Banks Canada. Canada, one of the richest countries in the world and one of the major food-producing countries in the world, now reports that 23% of Canadians, over seven million Canadians, reported going hungry in the past year because they could not afford to buy food. One-third of Canadians earning less than $50,000 a year reported having to skip meals because they did not have enough money, and 43% of indigenous people, to the enormous shame of this country, reported food insecurity that caused them to go hungry for more than one day.
What is the solution? Food banks do their best to fill that gap in our income system and in our food system, but we cannot keep asking charitable, hard-working volunteers to solve the food insecurity crisis. We need to step up and solve that crisis by putting more money in the pockets of those who face food insecurity, immediately and in the long term.
Conservatives point to that problem of food insecurity in their preamble, but then when we look down into the solutions in today's motion, there are none. There is nothing to actually help people who face food insecurity, unlike New Democrats' proposed measures to put money in the hands of those most vulnerable to food insecurity right now and in the long term. We have always called for an increase to OAS and GIS benefits for seniors. Seniors cannot do anything about rising food prices, because most of them already spend all of their fixed income. Their only choice is to eat less and put their health at risk. Again, we would like to see an increase to OAS and GIS.
We have called for an immediate hike to the Canada child benefit. Even a modest hike as we are calling for, of $500 a year, would provide an increase on a monthly basis to families with kids trying to meet food costs. We know there are lots of parents who go hungry and will not report it so they can feed their kids. They skip meals. They do not eat the nutritious meals they need as adults, so they can provide that food to their kids. An increase right away to the Canada child benefit would help meet that crisis, and would continue in the long run to help people with food security.
A doubling of the GST tax credit for low-income Canadians would go a long way in the short and long term to helping to meet that crisis of food insecurity.
It is interesting that the data that was released yesterday by Food Banks Canada also shows that 60% of those who use food banks report that housing costs are the main reason they are at the food bank. They cannot afford to buy healthy, nutritious food for their families because they are already paying way too much of their limited income to meet their housing needs.
This time, the Conservative motion acknowledges the affordability crisis in housing, but it proposes a national inquiry in money laundering as if this would have some impact on the provision of affordable housing units. I believe that we need to crack down on money laundering, absolutely. I do not think we need an inquiry to know what we need to do. Nevertheless, I cannot find the connection between the Conservatives saying there is a crisis in affordability and that we should have an inquiry into money laundering. It just does not make any sense to me.
New Democrats, instead, favour measures to curb the use of housing for speculative investments. We need to crack down on corporate landlords who are gobbling up affordable housing in many cities across Canada, and then renovicting the people who have lived in that affordable housing and forcing them out onto the street or into their families' overcrowded housing units.
We also need to crack down on real estate investment trusts. Real estate investment trusts get privileged tax treatment. They get tax breaks for buying up affordable housing. I just cannot imagine why we think that is good public policy in this country. I would love to see us eliminate the special tax treatment for real estate investment trusts. Obviously, we would have to phase in something like that, because people have done a lot of their financial planning based on it, but still it is something in the short and long term that we could do to address using the housing market for speculation and profit.
Instead, we should be doing something that I have always called for as a New Democrat and that we have always worked for. That is to get the government back into the business of building non-profit housing in very large numbers. The market will never provide the housing that we need at the low end. It will continue to build high-end housing until the cows come home, as they used to say where I was raised, but it will never provide those affordable housing units.
Non-profit housing could provide the housing security that is necessary for families. They do not necessarily have to own a single family house to feel secure in their housing. They could get a unit in a non-profit housing co-operative, for instance, and raise their kids in that security. It also creates a sense of community: of people who live together and have a common interest in taking care of their housing needs.
New Democrats are not the only ones who make the obvious link between the high cost of housing and homelessness, but it is something I do not hear the Conservatives talking about. It is something I rarely hear the Liberals or the Conservatives talking about. When I look in my community, I see the unfortunate complaints that are coming up about people feeling unsafe in the streets because of homeless people.
What is the solution? First of all, I do not think homeless people are the problem, in terms of safety locally. The solution is housing in the short term, so that those people are not forced onto the streets.
Of course, the member for Winnipeg Centre has been very vocal, this week and always, in calling for the government to immediately fund a low-barrier, safe shelter place for indigenous women in Winnipeg Centre, and it is a good example—
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- Jun/7/22 2:22:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, from the beginning of this pandemic, we have been there for Canadians. Of course, it is the Prime Minister's job and obligation to travel to other countries to do his important work.
When we hear the opposition speak positively about public health measures but badly about vaccination, it confuses the public. We should be encouraging our neighbours to consider a third or fourth dose. We cannot have relaxed public health measures and more freedom without vaccination as COVID-19 continues to progress. We all have an obligation to ensure that our neighbours are aware of the opportunity for a third dose.
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- Jun/7/22 2:56:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the other thing we hear from the government is lots of statistics with respect to health care: We hear that 6,000 people die every month from heart disease, 3,500 die from diabetes, 7,000 die monthly from cancer and 600 people die every month from overdoses, which is four times the prepandemic number.
Clearly, these numbers are meant simply for context. These diseases are a reality in our lives, but Canadians do not live in fear. It is time for us to learn to live with COVID also. These mandates are clearly political science and not medical science. Is that not right?
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- Jun/7/22 2:57:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I said, I am not a medical doctor like my colleague opposite, and we have been collaborating on the health committee. However, I do not think that just because Canadians unfortunately die from things like coronary artery disease, strokes and heart attacks means that COVID-19 is less of a priority for this government. COVID-19 is beatable. With vaccines and social distancing and by wearing masks, we can beat COVID-19, but we need everybody in this House to participate.
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- Jun/7/22 4:37:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to speak directly to the issue of travel-related public health measures. I think it is fair to say that it is premature to lift every single federal public health measure related to travel, but I share the member's frustration that the government has refused to provide the basic information necessary to explain to Canadians why unvaccinated people still cannot fly within the country.
People simply want to see the evidence. They want an explanation. It is frustrating that those of us who support public health and support vaccination are unable to explain to people why this measure still exists when experts are calling it into question almost every week now.
Can my colleague talk about why she thinks the government is so reluctant to provide that information to the House and to Canadians?
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- Jun/7/22 7:37:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the city of Stockholm is at the forefront. I will not talk about the many praiseworthy elements of its urban planning, but, in short, it is a model city. Obviously, some will say that Sweden is a small country that does not face the same challenges as Canada. That is true. However, the real difference is that Sweden has the political will and courage to do things differently, with the common objective of meeting the collective imperatives.
What are the current collective imperatives? The climate crisis and even the survival of humans. We must acknowledge this and take action to counter the declining biodiversity and the material threats represented by all climate events, such as violent winds, forest fires and the destruction of infrastructure. These events are reported every day in the newspapers.
I have not forgotten about health. The World Health Organization just issued a new policy brief on the measures that countries must implement to address health issues related to climate change. This brief was released as Stockholm+50 ended. The WHO urges us to view health not just from the historical perspective of pollution and its links to cancer, but by also factoring in psychosocial well-being, anxiety, depression, persistent grief and suicidal behaviour.
It is David versus Goliath. David is the millions of citizens who are worried about their future and their children's future. David also represents the organizations that are trying to knock some sense into politicians. Goliath is big oil, which is dominated by foreign interests and whose ambitions are being legitimized by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, an influential third party, which is really worrisome.
In December 2021, the Council of Canadians released a report analyzing the system that is in place. It revealed an industry sector that is holding the government hostage and keeping it captive through intensive lobbying. This is the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. The author of the study is an economist, author and university professor. He uncovered a significant issue: CAPP was allowed to register as a third-party advertiser in the 2019 federal election, letting it run ads and advocate on key issues. Third parties are allowed to spend up to $1 million in the pre-writ period and up to $500,000 during the election campaign. One would think we were in the United States.
The Canada Elections Act prohibits a person or entity from making or publishing false statements during an election to affect election results. However, during the 2019 election, CAPP made two false statements on the Vote Energy platform website.
In its first statement, it wrote that “Canada's only credible path to meeting its Paris commitments is through increased exports of Canadian natural gas”. It was implying that fossil fuels were actually going to help us. In the second statement, it called for Canada to “acknowledge that Canada's oil and natural gas sector is not subsidized”. As false statements go, I do not think it gets any worse than this second statement.
We understand better now why the government cannot resolve the issue of fossil fuel subsidies. Obviously, hundreds of meetings in 12 months with ministers and other elected government officials produce results. How can we expect to make a real transition? We are even at the point where the Canada Elections Act would have to be amended in order to close another loophole. It seems to me that we have enough on our plates already. Let us not add to it, for goodness' sake.
We learned recently, after the supplementary estimates (A) were released, that Canada's six largest banks have quietly provided $10 billion in financing for Trans Mountain. Canada's Department of Finance had repeatedly refused to reveal who was behind the huge loan for the controversial oil sands pipeline. Bloomberg, the largest supplier of financial data, has confirmed that all the Canadian banks are listed as lenders. With the guaranteed returns on a loan this big, the banks are getting a good deal.
Everyone needs to understand something. Even if Trans Mountain does not pay back the full amount, the federal government's commitment means that the banks involved are in no danger of losing money. We will see why.
When was that promise made? The deal with the banks was signed on April 29, the same day that the federal loan guarantee was approved by the Prime Minister's Office, as first reported by the news website Politico.
The exact amount loaned by each bank is not disclosed, but if I divide the $10 billion by the number of banks, each bank would have loaned roughly $1.7 billion. Some observers have said that it was a formality. Why say such a thing? A $10‑billion loan coordinated between six banks is a complex agreement that would have taken months to prepare, which once again raises the problem of the lack of transparency. It seems like Export Development Canada's habit of not being transparent is starting to rub off on the Department of Finance.
Trans Mountain is a Crown corporation. It is funded in part by taxpayers' money. It should therefore be a paragon of transparency, not opacity. The government wants to build a pipeline, but it does not have any credible arguments for doing so. The Minister of Finance said in February that no additional public money would be spent on that project and that the necessary funding would be secured through third-party financing, either in the public debt markets or with financial institutions. She failed to mention that the government would guarantee these arrangements. Again, Canada's account administered by Export Development Canada is the account fed by the public treasury, meaning our money.
It is not like the Bloc Québécois has not talked about that account. We have not stopped talking about it. It takes some nerve to tell people stories like that. It is disgusting. It would be irrational not to be concerned about the current state of governance. If this were some kind of amazing, solid project that was a guaranteed money-maker and guaranteed to be safe for the climate while ensuring a future for our children and our health, I would bet anything that the government and Canadian banks would shout it from the rooftops, but no, this is all being done in secret.
This project is an environmental death sentence that violates indigenous rights and compromises the global community's efforts to slow the climate crisis. It is a financial disaster. It is a carbon bomb being built through the mountains. It flies in the face of climate science. Nobody can be proud of this project. It is obvious why they are not exactly advertising it, so it should come as no surprise that the latest developments in this shameful saga are being hushed up.
The arrangement shows how non-Canadian institutions feel about the financial prospects of the tar sands. It also speaks to the undue influence of the oil and gas industry, the loopholes in the Canada Elections Act, and finally, the consequences we will collectively face in the future.
To attract private lenders such as the big Canadian banks, experts say the federal government is likely to have subordinated its own debt, which means that private sector investors will be paid first if the project is completed and generates revenue. If what the experts say proves to be true, if that really is the case, an investigation will be in order to shed some light on the decision-making process. However, the government is keeping mum.
The Bloc Québécois has been systematically calling for an end to the support for Trans Mountain for a very long time. Are the Bloc members the only ones who are fed up with all the lies and double-talk?
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