44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 26, 2022 11:00AM
- Sep/26/22 2:09:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, great communities do not just happen. They are built on the values of partnership, teamwork and community spirit. Yesterday, all of these values were on display as hundreds of residents from the city of Vaughan came together for the annual Run for Vaughan.
Organized by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association, and now in its 19th year, the Run for Vaughan supports excellence in health care in our city. Since 2003, the annual event has raised over $1.2 million, with this weekend’s event adding an additional $275,000 in support of the Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital. Impressively, this is a youth-led initiative by my dear friend Zohaib Malhi, with the run expanding this year to over 15 cities across Canada.
The community spirit and generosity of the Ahmadiyya community is something that makes the city of Vaughan a more inclusive community and underpins the phrase that diversity is truly Canada’s strength.
As chair of the Ahmadiyya parliamentary association, I wish to thank the entire community.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my dear friend and colleague, the member for Ottawa Centre.
On behalf of all the residents of Vaughan—Woodbridge, I would like to send our deepest sentiments, thoughts and prayers to all Canadians living on the east coast who have been impacted by hurricane Fiona. This past summer my family and I drove out to the east coast, visiting P.E.I., New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. It is truly a beautiful part of the country, consisting of beautiful Canadians who are just so kind and generous. We deeply enjoyed our time there.
Bill C-30 is our government's response to helping Canadians, and I would say helping the middle class and those working very hard to join it. It is a bill that provides direct relief to Canadians impacted by inflation, which we know is not only here today in Canada but across the world, particularly in developed countries. We have seen it.
We have gone through a period over the last few years with the COVID shock, which was considered an exogenous shock to our economy. Battling through that, helping Canadians and being there for Canadian businesses and Canadian citizens who were impacted, our economy literally came to a standstill during that period of time. Then, proceeding to the events we saw with the unjustified, barbaric invasion of Ukraine by Putin's Russia, we have seen the impacts of that. We have seen an impact on grain shipments throughout the world. We have seen an impact on prices of commodities and so forth, through our supply chain and on to inflation, which is impacting Canadians.
We know Canadians, particularly seniors, individuals on fixed incomes and working families, are impacted, and we are there to help. Fortunately, our government has been focused since 2015 on helping Canadians succeed, helping the middle class and helping those wishing to join the middle class. We have been strengthening the fundamental backbone of our economy, whether it has been working with the private sector unions or introducing the Canada child benefit, which we know is helping nine out of 10 families, unlike the prior program, which sent monthly, tax-free cheques to millionaires. Those types of programs have literally lifted hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of poverty, especially children, but also strengthened our middle class.
Our government also introduced two cuts. The first tax cut, for the middle class tax bracket, was asking the wealthiest 1% to pay a little more, which was the right thing to do. The second tax cut, which Canadians are still benefiting from, was raising the basic personal expenditure amount to $15,000. Again, this literally took people off the federal tax rolls, helping seniors, students and all Canadians, which is great to see.
Bill C-30, an act to amend the Income Tax Act, is something I advocated for within our caucus for several months. It is something I truly believe in as an economist, as someone who participated in and worked in the financial markets, both domestically and internationally, for over 20 years of my life. The GST tax credit is a very effective instrument for assisting Canadians dealing with this specific issue. It is a significant policy tool that allows direct payments to Canadians who need it the most. I am very glad to see this legislation. I understand that His Majesty's loyal opposition is also in agreement with this legislation. I could be corrected if I am wrong, but that is what I read. I am glad to see other parties in the House suggesting the idea, and I am also glad to see other parties in the House supporting the idea.
This would support literally 11 million Canadians, giving $2.5 billion in direct payment to Canadians at a time when it is fundamentally needed. We have been dealing with inflationary pressures. We have seen the prices of food, rent and so forth, our daily necessities, rise. My family is very fortunate. We are raising three daughters, and I go to the grocery store. I see the prices. I fill the vehicles we have. My wife and I see the cost of gas.
I am glad to see our government act, demonstrating empathy to Canadians through a policy measure that we know will provide real relief to Canadians. Canadians do not really need to do anything, because the payments will arrive by year-end. I would ask people to please file their income tax returns. We know that when Canadians file their tax returns, they receive a ton of credits and benefits that ensure that not only they and their families have a good quality of life, but our seniors have a good, secure and dignified retirement.
As I said, under the GST credit, for example, a single mother with one child and an income of $30,000 will receive almost $400 for the July through December 2022 period and another $386.50, to be exact, for the January through June 2023 period. In total, in this manner, an individual would receive nearly $1,160 for the entire year through the GST credit. These are real funds helping real Canadians, those working hard day in, day out to put food on their tables and make sure their kids get to school. This is real assistance for Canadians at a time when we are dealing with persistent inflationary pressures in the interim.
As another example, under the present system, a couple with two children with an income of $35,000 will be receiving $467 for the July through December 2022 period and another $467 for the January through June 2023 period. Again, it is real assistance for those families. In total, they would receive $1,400 for this benefit year through the GST credit.
This is just another piece of legislation we brought forward that helps Canadians. I will repeat that it is helping the middle class and those working hard to join it, but also, very importantly, it is what I would call responsible leadership and a prudent fiscal picture. We have a AAA credit rating in Canada. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is on a declining trend. The provinces have come out with their fiscal picture, which is much improved. I know that under the stewardship of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Canada will maintain a strong fiscal balance sheet going into the future so there can be a prosperous future for all children and all families in this blessed country we call home.
With regard to our seniors, when we ran in the prior election, we campaigned on a 10% increase to old age security for seniors 75 and above, benefiting over 3.3 million seniors in Canada, like my parents and aunts and uncles, who are in B.C. these days. We did that; we fulfilled that promise. It was a promise made and a promise kept, as we say. When we think of the timing of that increase, which came in the month of June, seniors will receive up to $800 more in old age security payments. Again, that is real assistance. It is timely and dedicated to individuals who have built this country in the last few decades. I am very proud to serve the over 20,000 seniors in the riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge.
If we look at the Canada child benefit, which I cannot mention enough, it delivers over $60 million, the last time I had the numbers, to my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge. It assists hundreds of thousands of families in our country. It is another measure that we were able to provide. There is legislation on the table for the Canada dental benefit and the Canada housing benefit one-time top-up.
To reference the Canada dental benefit, I am a bit of a fiscal hawk. I believe in free markets and I believe in capitalism. I have worked on Bay Street and Wall Street, but I grew up in a small town in B.C. With regard to dental coverage, I have heard too many stories from seniors who come to my office. They do not have dental coverage and have to spend $1,000, $1,500 or $500 out of pocket when going to the dentist. They cannot afford it. It is literally the difference, on a monthly basis, between our seniors putting food on their tables or getting dental coverage. We are doing the right thing.
The same applies for children under 12 years old. I am so happy that I am part of a government that is moving this forward. If other parties want to make changes or suggest things, they can go ahead, but at the end of day, the premise is to help Canadian families and make sure they are getting ahead. That is most important.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Beauport—Limoilou.
I will say that these measures we put in place are there to assist Canadians. As we go longer term and look toward the fall economic statement or next year's budget, I know with regard to stakeholders and constituents in my riding that everything is about economic growth and raising the standard of living for all Canadians from coast to coast to coast. I will continue to push for the types of measures that spur job creation and investment and that increase productivity and lift productivity in this country. That translates, for an economist, into making sure that Canadians have a higher standard of living tomorrow versus today.
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Madam Speaker, if we look at the record over the last seven years, in terms of job creation and the number of policies we put in place not only to have what is called inclusive growth but, most importantly, to grow our economy, the record speaks for itself.
On the productivity front, we need to put in place more measures to continue to spur investment. If we look at, for example, the auto sector here in the province of Ontario, as the member and I are both from the province of Ontario, we will see the number of record investments that have taken place. It is nearly $20 billion in investments. Today, I actually had an auto caucus meeting with representatives from that industry, which will create over 17,000 jobs by being a critical supplier within the battery supply chain as we transition to EVs.
Our government is working with industry. We are consulting and we are listening, and that is the direction we need to continue on.
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Madam Speaker, we have introduced a number of measures that have lifted literally hundreds of thousands of single mothers and children, and families for that matter, out of poverty. We will still continue to introduce a number of measures.
We have also come out with a number of measures that have asked the wealthiest to pay more. There are measures here on the corporate income tax side for corporations. There was a series of PBO reports issued last week that refer to the revenues that would be collected from those tax measures. I encourage all members of the House to take a look at those PBO reports. They are quite interesting and quite detailed.
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