44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 22, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley for his question.
He started by saying that he is not an economist. I am not an economist either. I am a philosopher. I can talk to the House about decency and indecency, and the duty to protect, but I will leave it up to my colleague from Joliette, who does great work, to talk about monetary policy.
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Madam Speaker, I look at today's legislation as relief for millions of Canadians. It is going to have a very positive impact on the issue of inflation. I would note, even though we recognize that inflation affects us all, it affects some more than others.
One of the things that I think is missing in the debate is the fact that, when we compare Canada to the rest of the world, our inflation rate is doing quite well. That does not mean we should ignore it. It is the reason it is important that we take measures, such as this legislation, to provide direct relief and money to support Canadians from coast to coast to coast. Would the member not agree that is a good reason for this bill, and that members should all be supporting it?
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Madam Speaker, I think that the member for Winnipeg North basically just answered the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley's question.
Our citizens do not live outside the country. They live here. We need to have the decency to put caring for people and their health ahead of any considerations pertaining strictly to inflation. It does not do any good to control inflation if people are starving to death.
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Madam Speaker, I just want to take a moment to share the concerns of my constituents in Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix about the current labour shortage. I very much appreciated the speech from my colleague from Trois-Rivières, who stressed the importance of taking care of seniors and the unemployed.
In my colleague's opinion, how can Bill C-30 help retain workers in regional markets, for instance in the tourism sector, and help improve the living conditions of seniors who could return to work, perhaps even part time, in order to participate in the economy?
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Madam Speaker, the reality is complex. I believe that incentives could and should be introduced. Doubling the GST credit is a good start. However, I think tax benefits are needed for people returning to the labour market. Certain monetary incentives, particularly on the tax front, could help address this problem.
I am not an economist, but I know that something needs to be done.
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Madam Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in the debate today on Bill C-30.
I am in Winnipeg now. I was in Ottawa as recently as this morning. Earlier this week, for the first time in the 10 years I have lived here, a couple of seniors set up camp in Park Circle here in Transcona, which is where we have our cenotaph. The Main Street Project has since visited, and the seniors have moved on from the park. I can certainly appreciate the concerns residents had and why they may not want somebody living in the park across the street from their houses, but I could not find it in my heart to be angry, because they are a couple of seniors who no longer have a place to live.
We have heard stories like this, and we are hearing more of them. People are seeing the effects of higher prices, and particularly higher housing prices, on people in their communities. There are folks who are camping out in bus shelters because they have nowhere else to turn. We are in this really challenging moment, challenging to be sure for the Canadians who are experiencing this directly and do not have a place to sleep, as well as for those who are now seeing people living in their communities in ways they never imagined they would and wondering what that means, not only for those folks, but also for themselves and their safety, because we know when people are desperate it sometimes results in some unfortunate behaviour that has an affect on the wider community.
People are experiencing this in all sorts of ways. At the grocery store, there are folks putting things back on the shelves or changing what they buy in order to change some of their family's habits to conform better to the realities of budgeting in the inflationary period we are experiencing. Even though, from a public health point of view, we are moving further away from the peak pandemic point, the fact of the matter is that our economy is still very much affected by the pandemic. We have not come back yet. That is one of the reasons people need help.
Members, and Canadians who have been listening to the news, will know there has been a lot of debate in this place about this moment of inflation and what the causes are. There was a good article published by some economists recently that essentially said that the main forces of inflation are energy prices, housing prices and grocery prices. When we think about the role that energy, housing and food play in our lives, if those are the things going up in price, we can imagine people really feel that in their budget.
There is no real alternative. We cannot choose not to have a roof over our head. We can end up in a situation where we do not have a roof over our head, but nobody is choosing to live on the street as a first option. We cannot choose not to eat. We cannot choose not to heat our home in the winter months in Canada, if we are lucky enough to have one. That is why people are feeling the squeeze. It is because the costs of the things we cannot do without continue to rise.
There are those in this place, particularly the new leader of the Conservative Party, who would have everyone believe that somehow this is simply the fault of big-spending governments, and if government would just get out of the way the free market would step in to provide housing for the homeless, provide affordable food for those who need it and cannot pay for it, or provide energy at a fairer price. I would call on Canadians to think hard about that line and the bill of goods trying to be sold to them by this new leader of the Conservative Party.
We all know that the oil and gas companies have not had the best interests of consumers at heart for a long time. That is not a news flash. Anyone who has filled up their car to go out to the lake on a long weekend knows that oil and gas companies have been there to gouge Canadians with every possible excuse. There are also some really challenging reasons out there in the world right now. Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine is just one that has caused some real supply issues in the oil and gas sector. We can bet they used that as an excuse to raise their prices, not because the gas currently in the tanks at gas stations got any more expensive or they had to retroactively pay a premium for it, but because of speculation about future oil and gas markets.
Really, it is just an opportunity to make more money now, and we are seeing that in the bottom line of oil and gas companies that are logging record profits. This is not just record revenue, but record profit, which means what they are taking home and giving to their rich CEOs, investors and board members is much more than it has ever been.
They are making that money. That money is not falling from the sky. That money is not coming from nowhere either. That money is coming directly out of the pockets of Canadians who need to pay for gas at the pumps to get to work, do the things they need to do in their lives and heat their homes.
In other jurisdictions, we are seeing governments that are willing to act. We have seen it in the United Kingdom, where there is a windfall profit tax levied on oil and gas companies to take back some of the additional profit those companies are making in these difficult circumstances and to invest that back in people.
That is just one example of a jurisdiction that recognizes what is going on is not simply government largesse driving inflation. It recognizes that corporate greed is playing a real role in driving that as well. Those profits being logged are coming out of the pockets of citizens, and they can be taken back to be reinvested in citizens, as we must do if we are going to keep our communities safe, our neighbours housed and make sure kids have a proper breakfast and lunch when they go to school so they can learn what they need to learn to become productive members of society and to enrich their own lives in all the ways a good education will do.
We do not hear outrage from the Conservative leader about that extra profit on the part of oil and gas companies. We do not hear him admonishing those companies for taking this moment as an opportunity to pad their pockets.
When we think about housing, which is another major driver of inflation right now, the new leader of the Conservative Party would have us believe that somehow this problem was created in the last two years. He would have us believe that somehow the liquidity the government made available to banks created it.
People talk about pandemic benefits and how they should have been wrapped up and how they drove inflation. People who normally might have made $4,000 or $5,000 a month were living on $2,000, and we are supposed to believe that was inflationary. That is ridiculous. I have said that many times in this place, and I will continue to say it.
If there is anything that actually caused inflationary pressure from the government's spending package, it would be these two things. One, and this one drives me nuts, is the wage subsidy program, which we know many companies benefited from and made extraordinary profits from at the same time. This is something that never ought to have happened. They should not have been allowed to take from the wage subsidy pot while they were logging huge profits, and there should have been a mechanism for paying some of that back if they were making extraordinary profits.
When we talk about an excess profit tax, this is part of what we are talking about. It is one of the reasons we think it is just and good to tax excess profits, because in some cases those excess profits were a function of public spending and went to rich CEOs, their buddies and investors, and it should not have. It never should have come out of the public purse for that purpose. That money was for companies to pass directly on to their employees to run their businesses as usual, and not to make extraordinary profits.
In some cases, that did happen. In many cases it happened, and that is good. It is something we called for and supported. What we did not support was it being abused, and from the beginning we said the government needed to have a mechanism to make sure it was not abused. There was no concern from the government to get that piece of the puzzle right, and there were really no proactive solutions proposed at the time by the Conservatives either to make that happen. There is certainly some frustration there.
Another place where there was a lot of public spending, and CERB and the wage subsidy public spending paled in comparison to what was spent on this, was the liquidity that was made available to major banks on day one.
That approach was also taken in the 2008 recession by the Conservative government. The Conservative government, on which, incidentally, the new leader of the Conservative Party sat at the cabinet table, also granted a huge amount of liquidity to banks. If that made investors feel more bold or made banks willing to lend more, there is a case to be made that it contributed to the acceleration of housing price increases, which was already off the chain long before the pandemic.
How did that happen? I know people do not always like a history lesson, but to really understand what happened, the fact is that it goes back to the mid-nineties when the Liberal government of the day cut the national housing strategy. It did not reduce it but got rid of it. That strategy was producing somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20,000 to 30,000 units of affordable or social housing every year, where rent was actually geared to income. That went on, and it meant that we did not get any more meaningful injections of affordable or social housing supply. It was left to the market. That is what happened in the nineties.
We hear the leader of the Conservative Party say to let the free market reign and people will having housing, as if there are a bunch of developers just waiting to give housing to people who cannot afford it. He says they are not going to do it now, but when the government gets out of the way, developers will discover their generosity. It is such a ridiculous story. I do not even know how people can listen to it, let alone how much it gets repeated, not just in this place but in the media, as if it is something that could possibly happen.
The only time we have made progress as a society in successfully housing people who do not have the money to pay market rates to own their own home has been when there have been ambitious, targeted, non-market strategies led by government. We have all benefited from those strategies. We have benefited by not having people live in our bus shelters. We have benefited by not having the effects of homelessness spill over into our emergency rooms and our prisons. We have benefited by not having to pay the cost of having people so destitute that they have nowhere else to turn. That is why it is so important that government gets back in the business of building housing.
This is not just about cities issuing permits to developers. There is such a need across an entire spectrum of types of housing that we absolutely need a plan and need non-market housing solutions. Whether those are co-ops, government owned and operated or rent-geared-to-income suites, we need to build far more housing.
Of course, it was not just in the nineties that this happened. The new leader of the Conservative Party was also part of the government that gave out operating grants. This was money the federal government gave to organizations that were running social housing so that people could pay rent that was a percentage of their income, usually between 25% and 30% of their income, whatever their income was. The federal government gave money to organizations that for 40 years successfully ran those operations and housed people who never could have afforded to live in rental housing at market rates. When this came up, the current leader of the Conservative Party was at the table when that government decided not to renew those operating grants.
In the last seven or more years now, unfortunately, the current Liberal government, despite running on a promise to do something about this, never really did. We have seen these affordable units come up, and the people who have been managing buildings for 40 years say they cannot manage on the model that they used to because they do not have the operating grants anymore. That is how they could offer rent at below market rates. Market rates are meant to cover costs and have some profit margin. If we want to have deeply affordable units that are actually geared to people's income, that money has to come from somewhere and it came from those operating grants.
The Conservative government of the day, with the member for Carleton sitting at the table, decided that it would not renew those operating grants, so these buildings are not sustainable now. They are going out on the market, and big developers are snatching them up, renovating the suites and evicting the tenants who were there before because they are jacking up the rent. That is how we end up with people camping out in bus shelters and setting up camp in parks. I beseech Canadians who are outraged to see that to carry their outrage past being mad about the problem.
That is what the new leader of the Conservative Party is selling. He is selling a lot of rage, and some of it is justified. I am mad about a lot of things, but we are not going to fix those things unless we focus on the solutions, and not try to pretend that every problem somehow comes from government when there are clearly a whole lot of actors in the economy with real power and real self-interested motives. They are not those we can trust to fix the problem, because they are deliberately blind to part of the problem.
Inflation is a great example, because as studies out there show, about 25% of the current inflation is actually attributable to increased profits. Price gouging is going on. It is a real thing. We would not know it listening to the member for Carleton. We would not know it listening to the government, which also, incidentally, is not acting the way it should. That is why we have been pushing it to take the tax on excess profits it has announced for banks and insurance companies and apply that to oil and gas companies, big box stores and others that profited hugely during the pandemic and continue to make record profits despite the hardship that so many Canadians are facing.
Doubling the GST tax credit is a way to try to get help to some of the people who really need it the most. We are talking about 12 million Canadians. That is a lot of people who receive the GST tax credit. They are going to see some kind of relief to help with these increases in costs. However, it is not going to be enough on its own, and it should have come a lot sooner.
This is something the New Democrats have been calling for, and for well over six months as inflation began to really take hold and we saw that it was not going to go away. We wanted a way to get help to people and also wanted a way to get help to people that would not drive more inflation. The problem, again, with the new Conservative leader is that any time we talk about having a plan to help people, he says it is just going to drive up inflation, and that is not true. There are certain ways the government could try to help and end up driving up inflation, but when we are serious about it and look at what is actually going on in the economy and at what the potential solutions are, there are ways. Doubling the GST tax credit is one of those ways.
This is why the New Democrats believed that was an important immediate step the government could take. Over six months later, here we are and the Liberals have finally seen reason and accepted that there is a need for action. However, as usual, it is a little slow, just as it was too slow for many seniors who were seeing their GIS clawed back. They had the audacity to accept the government at its word and apply to the CERB program they qualified for when they lost their jobs during the pandemic and needed the supplementary income. They then saw their incomes clawed back the following year.
We could see it from July 2020. It was coming like a slow train wreck. The government knew about it and did not act on it, and I think it knew as early as May 2021. Members will forgive me if I am wrong, as it was a little while ago and a lot of water has passed under the bridge, but I believe that to be the case. It was not until this year that they finally implemented a solution for that. Of course, we know that unfortunately some seniors took their lives in the meantime because they could not see a future for themselves and could not contemplate pitching a tent in a park and living there in the winter in Winnipeg in January.
This is a government that I think has been far too slow to act when it comes to helping people. However, there are solutions if we are intentional and if we do not rule out the very real and positive role that the public sector can play not just in times of need, but in structuring our economy so that we do not find ourselves in these kinds of crises, whether it is the housing crisis or other ones.
Employment insurance is something I love to talk about. Perhaps I will get a chance to do so during questions and answers. The government is reverting to the old EI system, even though that was always a disaster. The new system has been working better, although it is not great, but that is another place where the planning has not been put in place. Instead, we have actually gotten a lot of what the member for Carleton calls for, which is a hands-off attitude from the government and pretty well letting the market reign when it comes to these things. That is part of how we got here and that is why we need a different approach. This is a small down payment. Let us get it done quickly.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to what the member was saying, particularly when he was talking about housing. A lot has been coming from the other side of the House on this, particularly from the Leader of the Opposition, who talked about gatekeepers. He seems to focus a lot on these gatekeepers at the municipal level that are preventing development from happening, as if that is the golden ticket to the housing crisis we have now. I do not believe it is, and I am curious if the member can comment on that.
I would also like to hear the member's thoughts on co-operative housing. He mentioned it in his speech and offered it as one solution. It is a solution that, at least as I have seen in my riding, can be very effective at getting tenants and those who are in co-operatives to genuinely participate in the organization. It becomes a sense of pride and ownership to participate in that.
I wonder if he could comment on whether or not that is his preferred model of affordable housing when it is being built or if he envisions something different.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the points I was trying to make and I hope came across is that the member for Carleton has been a gatekeeper himself. When an important decision came up about maintaining affordable and social housing and continuing to make it available for people who needed it and who otherwise would be on the street, he chose to cut government funding to those very housing projects and allow big economic players to swoop in, buy those units, renovate and evict, or renovict, those tenants, jack up the rent and make a killing. That is part of the culture that has only accelerated in the pandemic years.
We know what this guy is like. We saw what he did when he had his hand on the lever. He decided to let those big players in to essentially dine out on the housing that had been built in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and make huge profits instead of preserving that housing for the people it was built for who actually needed it.
I would be happy to talk a little about co-operative housing another time. I see the Speaker is anxious to get to the next question.
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- Sep/22/22 5:51:01 p.m.
- Watch
It is just me being the keeper of the gate.
The hon. member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry.
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Mr. Speaker, I am so grateful for that very insightful speech from the NDP member, and here is why. NDP members are more excited to talk about our new Conservative leader than they are about anything else, including their relationship with the Liberal government. I think I know why. We are back from a summer around the riding, and I think folks in Elmwood—Transcona, people in Timmins and people on Vancouver Island sent NDP members a little message this summer to say they do not like the relationship they have with the Liberal government. Their policies are driving inflation, and what we are continuing to see is the same thing. If the member wants to talk about the new Conservative leader, I am happy to do so as well.
The question for the member, then, to put it on the record, is about our clear message this week. Payroll taxes are going to be going up, taking more off people's paycheques January 1. The carbon tax is going up April 1, and it is scheduled to triple. If the member wants to control inflation and wants to help people with their financial budgets, does he agree with us and with no new tax increases?
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Mr. Speaker, I am excited to talk about the new Conservative leader because I think that as people get to know him, they will come to feel about him as I do.
A clue was in the member's question, actually, when he talked about payroll taxes. What Canadians should know is that when the member says “payroll tax” what he means is their pension. When we are talking about increases to the Canada pension plan so that Canadians can have a decent retirement, the Conservatives call it a “payroll tax”.
People should know that somebody who thinks their pension is a payroll tax instead of what people actually work for and expect to bank on in their retirement is someone who is not in their corner and cannot be trusted to manage the affairs of the country. That is what people should know, and that is why I will keep talking about the new leader of the Conservative Party until everybody in Canada knows it.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.
I would also like to hear his thoughts on the government's bad habit of implementing a policy and then systematically forgetting to coordinate with Quebec. In particular, I would like to hear his thoughts on how a government can claim to govern for all Canadians while forgetting 23% of the population.
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Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question.
One other great example of this is the whole issue of the increase to old age security.
Seniors really need an increase to their fixed pension benefits, especially these days. The government thinks that the rising costs putting serious pressure on the budgets of Canadians and seniors in Canada affect only seniors 75 and over. The members of the Bloc Québécois and the NDP know that this is not true. All seniors across the country are under a lot of pressure, both in Quebec and in the rest of Canada, so the government needs to increase old age security for all seniors.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a very good moment for New Democrats when we can finally talk about the issues that most Canadians are already experiencing at the pumps or in the grocery stores, and that is corporate greed.
I heard the member speak a bit about that, which I would like him to elaborate on, but I will give some facts. Pasta has increased 30%, coffee 20%, oranges 16% and bread 16%, and there has been $3.5 billion in profits by big grocery stores. The NDP is the only party talking about the real cost of inflation, which is corporate greed.
Would the member please elaborate on how this cost of corporate greed is affecting Canadians in his riding?
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Mr. Speaker, the $3.5 billion is money that comes out of the pockets of Canadians, just as any tax paid to the government comes out of the pockets of Canadians. When we see that kind of extraordinary increase in profit that goes hand in hand with price increases, then we have to know that a significant amount of that price increase is not just to make up for increased supply costs, but in fact is companies taking advantage of a difficult situation in order to charge more for their products, and they are able to walk away with more of that profit because since the year 2000, the corporate income tax in Canada has dropped from 28% to 15%.
Another way that the Harper government, among others, has contributed to the real estate culture that is driving housing prices through the roof was by not doing anything about the capital gains exemption. It stands at 50% and it allows people to sell not just their stocks but also real estate beyond their primary residences and get a steep tax discount for doing their business through stocks and real estate instead of income, which is what most Canadians receive when they go to work. They get a salary or an hourly wage. However, if people are fortunate enough to be dealing in real estate or stocks, they actually get to pay 50% less tax, period, just by virtue of the way they do their own business. All of that has reduced government revenue, not just absolutely but as a share of GDP, between 2000 and now, and that is why we do not have the money we need in order to fund proper public services.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the member's focus on the excess profits of the oil and gas sector.
I do not like using the term “excess profit” and I do not like using “windfall profit”. Let us be clear about what we are talking about: We are talking about immoral war profiteering. That is what we are seeing right now. If hon. members across the way want to laugh, let me refer to the business columnist in The Globe and Mail, Eric Reguly, who called this out in his August 8 column. He pointed out that the profits of oil and gas right now have nothing to do with business acumen and everything to do with war.
I would ask my hon. colleague if he agrees with the Parliamentary Budget Officer that by doubling from 15% to 30%, the additional $8 billion coming into the Canadian economy and the government coffers could help us take care of the poorest of the poor.
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Mr. Speaker, yes, I absolutely believe that the additional profit those companies are making, as the member said, not because of their business acumen but by taking advantage of global circumstances in order to have a fig leaf as an excuse for why they are raising prices, should be taken back and invested in the things that we need in order to succeed as a society. We need housing. We need better health care. We need to tackle the climate crisis. We can create good jobs for people by doing that. We need money to pay for this. The money is out there. The government collects a lot less, in relative terms, than it used to, even 20 years ago, and it is time we start going back after that.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to this very important piece of legislation, which, from what I am hearing, all members in the House will be supporting, or at least that seems pretty clear from the NDP and the Conservatives. I think people realize that this is something important. It is something that is critical and it is something that people need right now.
What are we talking about? We are talking about a six-month increase of the GST rebates that are given to individuals. This would have a real, meaningful impact for people, in particular those who are struggling the most and those who really need it. For single individuals who have no children, the total GST rebate would be $467. Married or common-law partnerships would see $612, and then there would be $161 for each child under the age of 19.
This is about trying to help individuals, particularly right now, when we know we are experiencing this inflationary problem that has developed over time as a result of a number of different things that have been going on in the world, a number of things outside of the control of any individual country, and we have landed where we are.
We know that we need to take care of each other, and that is what this really comes down to. It comes down to taking care of each other and supporting each other through programs. That is what government is all about. The government is here to establish programs and policies that can have an impact throughout society.
If we took the approach of “every person for themselves”, which, unfortunately, it appears in retrospect that the Conservatives wish we had taken when it came to the beginning of the pandemic, we really would not need much in terms of government. We would not need government to be there to support Canadians and to support each other.
We have heard a lot, and I want to reflect on a comment that the member for Elmwood—Transcona made a few moments ago in answering a question from our friend from Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, and he phrased it perfectly. We hear the Conservatives talking about EI and CPP as payroll taxes. They are not payroll taxes.
CPP is a pension plan. It is a plan that is paid into by the employee and the employer. It is a pension plan that many people rely on when they get to the age of retirement. When politicians, in my opinion, start toying with the idea of playing around with that fund or not properly ensuring that it has the resources or funds within it, it means that we are going to have problems, from a societal perspective, later on when we find out that it is underfunded.
Likewise, EI is employment insurance. This is an insurance policy. It is funding a policy that allows people to be able to withdraw when they need it the most, if they become unemployed or other circumstances put them in the position of needing it. I do not agree with the assessment of calling it a payroll tax. It is not a payroll tax. Neither of those programs is, yet we hear that.
I heard the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, the neighbouring riding to mine, pine back to the days of the UCCB, the universal child care benefit that Stephen Harper introduced. They pine about that program as though it is the gold standard for social programs of helping Canadians. The universal child care benefit was a program that literally gave every child, through their parents or guardians, a specific amount of money. It did not matter how much one made. It was not tested based on someone's need whatsoever. How can that be regarded as a social program?
Instead, this government has been focused squarely on putting money into the hands of those who genuinely need it the most. When we look at it, it is not just about supporting individuals. It is smart economic policy. What happens if we give a $100 or $150 payment to a millionaire, somebody who does not need it, quite frankly, through the UCCB? What happens? They will likely put it in a TFSA or they will put it in their bank account and collect interest off of it and it just sits there, because they do not need it.
What happens if we give it to somebody who genuinely needs it? They are going to go out and they are going to spend it. What does that do? That helps, creates and stimulates the economy.
When we pine back to the days of the universal child care benefit, as the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes did, that is not smart policy. It is not smart policy from the societal perspective of supporting each other, and it is not smart policy from an economic perspective. When we invest in people and we take care of each other, we will all be better off. We will see our economy grow in a way that is sustainable and that supports one another.
To that end, one of the arguments that I have heard come up a few times, and I heard it from the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola and the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, are the concerns over the inflationary impacts of a program like this. I think it is a valid question to be asked, because we know that, when we inject more money into the economy, we run the risk of inflation being attached to that. I think it is a valid question.
However, I would encourage them to go out and talk to some of the individuals, economists, who understand and know this. I will read two quotes from two economists. The first is from Armine Yalnizyan, an economist and Atkinson fellow, and this is what this economist said:
In truth the measures are so modest...that they amount to just over 0.1 per cent of nominal GDP and less than one per cent of current growth, hardly a tail that could wag a dog.
She also said:
Along with the childcare fee rebate, financed by the feds and promised by the Ontario government to start in April (money that has yet to arrive in mailboxes), there’s a lot of talk but not a lot of cash flowing to households. There’s no chance current federal measures will spur inflationary over-spending anytime soon.
Here is another one from David Macdonald, the senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives:
These transfers are unlikely to have much impact on inflation as inflation is being driven by external factors like the price of gasoline, supply chain issues and the like. These measures are quite targeted and to get the full value of all three, you'd have to be a family making under C$35,000.
In the best case scenario, you could receive about C$2,300 for that family which only amounts to 6.5 percent of income when inflation is running at 7.0 percent....
These measures aren't boosting incomes well above inflation, they are just helping lower income families afford the price increases that have already happened.
These are two economists who are putting to rest, at least in their professional opinions, the notions about inflation and what this could do to inflation, although I think it is a very valid and genuine question to ask, especially in the current climate. However, I hope that those two members, in particular, take comfort in knowing that these two economists do not agree that it would necessarily have a impact.
I do not want to take up much more time than I absolutely have to. I do not want to speak long enough that I have to come back and speak the next time that this comes up for debate. I want people and I want members to have the genuine opportunity to speak to this. I really hope that this is one of those bills that we can see pass quickly, because it really will have an impact on the lives of those who genuinely need it the most.
We need to assist those who need it the most, and I really hope that the House will not play politics with this issue. I hope we will let people have the opportunity to speak to it, but then, within a reasonable amount of time, get to a point where we can send it to committee, have it studied there and then come back, because, at the end of the day, this is about supporting the individuals who need it the most.
I really hope we can work together, because it appears as though we already all support it anyway.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Kingston and the Islands for his comments, but I do want to point out one thing about his comment on sending cheques to millionaires. The Auditor General herself pointed out that the Liberal government actually changed the tax code when it was giving away the child benefit bump of $500. It actually changed the tax code so that families making up to $308,000 per year were able to receive that benefit. When the member talked about sending money to people, to those in need, he overlooked that. I think it was $88 million of taxpayers' money that was sent to those über-wealthy.
However, my question actually goes back to the member's comment about helping those truly in need. I want to give an example. The member talked about the GST credit. My two children, whom I love, receive the GST credit. One works relatively part-time and one works relatively part-time and is in school. Their income is low enough, so they will receive a bump.
As much as I love my children, I do not believe that children of someone in our income bracket who are living at home should be receiving that bump. Did the government perhaps consider looking at an income means test based on family income so that we could give more to a single mom or those of low income living by themselves, or would the member consider that in the future, so that we are getting that money to those really in need, as opposed those living at home? We saw $5 billion in CERB going to children living in the homes of wealthy parents. Could we enact something to move that away and truly focus on those in need?
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Mr. Speaker, I am absolutely thrilled to hear Conservative members talking about programs that are tested based on need. That is a great step in the right direction, and certainly a move away from the model of the universal child care benefit.
Perhaps I did not quite understand the member clearly when he referred to families that are making $308,000. My wife and I combined are making that, and we do not get the money back that he is talking about. I do not know where he is getting that number. Maybe he could help me with that.
Quite frankly, I do not believe that people who are in my position need to get that money. I am not looking for it. I also believe that most people who are in my position would agree that when we get to a certain level of financial stability, there is not the need to rely on these payments. Instead, we could better direct them to those who genuinely need them and provide more to those who genuinely need them, and that is exactly what the Canada child benefit did. It looked at how much individuals made and gave money to individuals to help with their children, based on how much they made. Once they hit a certain threshold, they no longer got it.
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