44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 26, 2022 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I will try to keep it short.
Those things are exactly what we did in this last budget, where we increased the expectations on banking and insurance companies. We expect them to able to contribute a bit more during this period, so we are doing some of the measures the member opposite is suggesting. I am not going to do it on a class warfare basis and criticize people who are successful. We certainly take the view on this side that we want to increase taxes on the super-rich in this country. That is what we have done, but we can do it in a tactful way instead of just attacking individuals and corporate entities across the board in this country.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in today's debate on Bill C-30, the cost of living relief act, no. 1. As my colleague has already mentioned, inflation is a cause for concern for Canadians and their families. While inflation is definitely a global challenge, the impacts on Canadians are nonetheless real, which is why our government has been working directly to help Canadians have more money in their pockets.
Investments we have already made in the last two federal budgets and the new measures in today's legislation and in Bill C-31 will help Canadians who need it most. For example, the government's $12.1-billion affordability plan includes doubling the GST credit for six months, as proposed in Bill C-30. This would provide $2.5 billion in additional targeted support this year, to roughly 11 million individuals and families who already receive the tax credit. It will also enhance the Canada workers benefit at a cost of $1.7 billion in new support for workers this year to put up to an additional $2,400 in the pockets of low-income families. As well, there is a 10% increase to old age security for seniors over 75, which will provide up to $766 more for seniors. That will impact over three million seniors this year alone.
The affordability plan includes cutting child care fees by an average of 50% by the end of this year. Looking at the child care fees in my riding, for example, families are paying $1,800 a month per child, at least. When we think about it, a 50% reduction in fees means $900 back in the pockets of those families, not to mention that in some families, both parents do not go back to work. This, in essence, supports families in having two incomes. That is almost a mortgage payment for many families.
Dental care is another one that we have added to the affordability plan for Canadian families earning less than $90,000 a year, starting this year with hundreds of thousands of children under 12. That will obviously be extended to seniors and individuals with disabilities in years to come.
We also must remember that our affordability plan has indexed to inflation a number of benefits, including the Canada child benefit, the GST credit, the Canada pension plan, old age security and the guaranteed income supplement. The federal minimum wage, which we increased to $15 an hour, is also indexed to inflation. Also, a $500 payment will go out to 1.8 million Canadian renters this year who are struggling with the cost of housing.
I want to talk a little bit about the housing challenges that we have experienced and some of the solutions. My colleagues have already eloquently touched on some of the aforementioned points, including the doubling of the GST credit for six months that is proposed in Bill C-30. I would like to focus my remaining time on the housing measures proposed in Bill C-31, introduced by the Minister of Health earlier this week, which is a critical component alongside Bill C-30 in making life more affordable for Canadians.
Our government believes that everyone should have a safe and affordable place to call home. However, that goal, one that was taken as a given for many previous generations, is increasingly out of reach for far too many Canadians. Young people cannot imagine being able to afford the house they grew up in. Rents in our major cities continue to climb, pushing people further and further away from where they work. All of this has an impact on our economy as well.
This is why Bill C-31 proposes a one-time top-up to the Canada housing benefit program that would consist of a tax-free payment of $500 to provide direct support to low-income renters. This payment would provide direct help to those most exposed to inflation and those who are experiencing housing affordability challenges. With the support of this House, the payment would be launched by the end of the year. Specifically, the benefit would be available to renters with adjusted net incomes below $35,000 for families, or $20,000 for individuals.
The Canada Revenue Agency would deliver the money through an attestation-based application process. In order to determine eligibility, the CRA would proceed with an up-front verification of the applicant's income, age and residency for tax purposes. Applicants would need to have filed their 2021 tax return and provide information and attest that they are paying at least 30% of their adjusted net income on rent, are paying rent for their own primary residence in Canada, which would include the address of the rental property, the amount of rent paid in 2022, and the landlord's contact information, as well as consent to the CRA to verify their information to confirm eligibility.
It is estimated that 1.8 million low-income renters, including students, who are struggling with the cost of housing would be eligible for this new support. In total, the proposed funding will be $1.2 billion, of which $475 million were committed in budget 2022. This is a one-time top-up and would not reduce other federal income-tested benefits, such as the Canada workers benefit, the Canada child benefit, the GST credit and the guaranteed income supplement.
That is not to say this is our only measure that impacts people who are having affordability challenges with housing. The one-time top-up is part of a broader set of initiatives introduced in budget 2022, indeed probably the largest chapter in the federal budget, that will provide more than $9 billion to help make housing more affordable, including by alleviating the supply shortages that are one of the main causes of the high price of housing. These are measures that will put Canada on the path to double our housing construction over the next decade, including with a new multi-billion dollar housing accelerator fund.
Our government has a comprehensive plan to make housing more affordable by both funding and incentivizing new builds and by helping people get into the housing market.
We are, for the first time, directly tying federal funding for infrastructure in transit to a requirement for municipalities to approve the building of more homes. All of this is in addition to further investments in affordable housing, the building of new social housing units and an additional investment of half a billion dollars to help end homelessness.
While no government can solve the challenges of affordability overnight, we remain hard at work to address the cost of living and set Canadians up for greater success. We are also doing so by laying the foundation for longer-term economic growth.
What today's legislation means is that most of our most vulnerable in Canada will receive more financial support now and, when combined with other measures in our affordability plan, will continue to receive new support in the weeks and months to come.
For the Canadians who need it most, this will make their lives more affordable exactly at the right time. This is why I strongly encourage all members of the House to support Bill C-30.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on something the hon. member mentioned right at the beginning and that is inflation being a global phenomenon. I am not going to dispute that. We know that other countries are facing inflation as well. The part the member forgot to share was the fact that, in the countries that are spending more money, we see the correlation of higher inflation such as we are experiencing here in Canada. The PBO has confirmed that. Economists across the country have confirmed that as well. The government continues to ignore the fact that higher government spending leads to higher inflation.
I am wondering if the member would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge that this government spending has exacerbated inflation and has made it far worse than it ever had to be here in Canada.
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Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear an hon. member on that side of the House acknowledge that inflation is indeed a global problem and also acknowledge that Canada fares much better than many of our peer countries around the world.
Inflation obviously is a challenging problem and the inflationary pressures that we see today are not just the result of pandemic relief spending, which I know the Conservatives continually purport in the House, falsely. I really believe that Canada has been set up for success. That is why we have seen the economic growth and the job recovery rate. In comparison to our peers, we are faring much better in terms of job recovery and growth. We really have set ourselves up to come out of the dip in our economy from the pandemic. We have seen a strong V-shaped recovery. Now we have to work on labour challenges, supply chain disruptions, etc.
I do not believe that these new affordability measures will increase inflation.
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Mr. Speaker, no one can be against sucre à la crème, but the proposed measures are temporary, whereas the problems are permanent.
My hon. colleague said earlier that housing construction would double. First, since there has been a shortage of 100,000 units per year since 2016, does that mean that, basically, 200,000 units will be built per year?
Second, will these still be $2,500 units with a 10% discount?
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Mr. Speaker, the affordable housing challenges we experience today are deeply problematic for many reasons, but what we have seen is a market dynamic that has exacerbated the problem that has been around for a while.
What our government has done in addition to the national housing strategy, which is a massive and sizable federal government investment in addressing that problem, is it has created greater supply and impacted over 500,000 Canadians already. As well, many rental construction projects have been happening. That plan has been rolling out with many investments across the country.
There are many examples of projects, such as the rapid housing initiative. On top of that, we have added a whole host of new measures to help curb foreign and domestic speculation in the marketplace, increase supply and really help people get into the housing market and purchase their first home.
There is a whole package of measures that are really designed to get at more of the root cause of the problem.
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Uqaqtittiji, the New Democrats agree with this bill and the necessary relief it would provide for families. Unfortunately, the amount does not address both inflation and the high cost of living for my constituents. All the figures mentioned by the member are not reaching my constituents.
In what way will the government ensure all these investments he mentioned are reaching my constituents, who I am sure he agrees are in the most vulnerable communities he talks about?
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Mr. Speaker, I do agree there are members of her community, my community and all our communities who are vulnerable.
As I think about this package of affordability measures, I think about a low-income family of, say, four people, which I think is, generally speaking, the average size of a Canadian family. It might be less than four, but let us just say four for the sake of it.
Low-wage workers are going to receive the workers benefit. There is a housing rental benefit of $500. There is the GST credit they will be able to take advantage of. There is dental care coming online for kids in low-income families. They are getting a 50% reduction in child care fees and the Canada child benefit is increasing at the rate of inflation.
I think there is quite a lot there to support the most vulnerable families across Canada.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Kenora.
It is an honour to rise to speak on behalf of the constituents of Saskatoon West, but before I speak to this legislation, I would like to let everyone in Atlantic Canada know that my thoughts and prayers are with them as they recover from this weekend's terrible storm. This is a very difficult time, with property destruction, injuries and deaths, and I know that the rest of the country stands with them and is ready to help with whatever they need.
Over the summer, I spoke with many constituents, and all of them had the same message: The cost of living is really starting to hurt. Seniors are struggling to get by on their fixed incomes, and all Canadians know about the high cost of groceries, at least those of us who actually buy our own groceries. I am talking about grocery prices that are up by almost 11%. They are rising at the fastest pace in 40 years.
Here we are in week two of our new parliamentary session. Is the government talking about reducing the sky-high cost of food? Is the government talking about stopping planned payroll tax hikes, such as the tax increases on January 1 that will reduce everybody's paycheques, or the coming carbon tax price increase on April Fool's Day, which is all part of the government's plan to triple the carbon tax? Is this what we are debating? No, we are here debating legislation that was born out of a cynical coalition deal between the NDP and the Liberals to keep this tired, worn-out government in power.
Yes, this legislation, Bill C-30, is nothing more than a scheme cooked up between the NDP and the Liberals through a tweet. In the summer, the NDP leader tweeted that the Liberals needed to do this or that to count on his unwavering support, and the government responded with Bill C-30 and Bill C-31. Close to $5 billion will be used and, to use the words of the Minister of Tourism last week, thrown into the lake to keep the NDP happy.
I do not believe that government should be throwing money into the lake just to cling to power. Governments exist to serve the people who elected them, so today I have good news for Canadians. Our party just elected a new leader who is well versed in economics. He is a man who actually understands how economic works. For years, the member for Carleton warned the government about reckless and out-of-control spending. What was his simple message? It was that excessive government spending would lead to out-of-control inflation. Well, guess what? Inflation is rampant and out of control. Our new leader predicted this, and he has a solid plan to get us out of this. In the meantime, we will continue to hold our Prime Minister to account and work hard to encourage the government to implement sensible policy.
Let us talk about this piece of legislation, Bill C-30, and the financial implications for our treasury, our economy and, most importantly, the everyday taxpayer. The government is telling us that this a limited, one-time doubling of the GST rebate that will provide $467 for the average family. When I look at this, on the one hand, who will argue if the government wants to hand them some cash? It is welcomed relief coming at a difficult time, but it is a short-term band-aid that does not get to the heart of the problem. If we do not fix the core problem, then more band-aids will be proposed, and indeed we are already seeing this. While the government says that this is a one-time payment, it is openly admitting that this is just the start of a larger government spending package. Bill C-31, for example, includes more inflation boost in cash injections, which is just the start of an even bigger spending program that the health minister cannot even quantify right now.
I think this would be a good opportunity to take a moment to provide the government with some information that it may not understand. You see, I, like many of my Conservative colleagues, studied economics. Like me, many of my Conservative colleagues have run businesses and created jobs prior to being elected to this great House. I used sound economic principles to build my successful business and run my own household with the help of my wife. Together, we understood some of the basic economic principles and used them successfully. Now, we are not particularly smarter than other Canadians. In fact, I would suggest that most Canadians understand these basic economic principles and use them every day to manage their own households.
What are some of these basic principles? First, there is only so much money. It is not infinite. There is not a magic money tree in the backyard where we can go when we need a little extra cash. No, we have to make some hard choices. We have a limited amount of money with unlimited ways to spend it, and so we have to sit down together, weigh the pros and cons of the various options available and make a choice. Sometimes that choice is hard, especially right now. Families have to choose between inflated food prices and paying the carbon tax on their heating bills. These are not easy choices, but people are creative. Families find ways to scrimp and save in one area to allow them to spend in another. That is the first principle: Money is finite.
The next principle is that borrowing money is like playing with fire. It needs to be done very carefully and in a controlled manner. Yes, sometimes we need to borrow money, when we are borrowing to purchase a house, for example, but loan payments can become a heavy financial burden, especially when interest rates start to rise.
That is why most families understand that borrowing should be temporary, and that is why, when loans get paid off, there is great celebration in a household and a wonderful feeling of freedom. That is the second principle: borrow with caution. How does this apply to the government? If the government applied these two simple principles, the results would be lower taxes and lower debt. Canadians could keep more money in their pockets and have the freedom to spend their money the way they choose.
There is a third, very important principle I also want to talk about. This one is a larger principle that governments really must understand and apply. The third principle is the law of supply and demand. The easiest way to understand this is through an example. If consumers have $10, and the store has 10 loaves of bread, then consumers will pay $1 for each loaf of bread. If the government suddenly gives consumers an extra $10, but the amount of bread does not increase, now people are going to pay $2 for each loaf of bread. That is inflation. The loaf of bread goes from costing $1 to $2, and that is exactly what is happening in our country right now.
The government has dramatically boosted the amount of money available to people with $500 billion in the last two years. This extra money has bid up the price of everything that we buy. This extra money has also been tacked onto our national debt, resulting in increased interest payments, an obligation that our children's children will have to deal with long after we are gone from this place. When the Prime Minister famously said he does not think about economic policy, this simple principle is what he was not thinking about, and because he was not thinking, we are in this mess today.
I will once again remind everyone that the Conservative leader does understand these principles and is committed to running government according to them. What would it look like if Conservatives were in charge right now? Let us say we had a Conservative prime minister and that we believed the government should provide some GST tax relief to Canadians, just as Bill C-30 proposes. How would we implement something like this?
First, we would understand that money is finite and that we cannot go to a magic money tree to implement this bill. We would task our government to find savings somewhere else to pay for this new program. We would recognize that a new dollar spent would require a dollar to be saved somewhere else, just like all Canadians do every day when they manage their own households. If the government behaved like this, it would not take long for inflation to back down and for taxes to be reduced. That is how Conservatives would govern.
I need to come back to the topic of high prices and the rampant inflation that we see every day. There is a grocery store a few blocks down 22nd Street from my constituency office. The folks who shop there know that I sometimes set up shop there on the weekends to shake hands, hand out reusable grocery bags and chat with my constituents in Saskatoon West.
I also shop there for groceries with my wife Cheryl. Cheryl and I have seen our grocery bill go up every month. It may be salad ingredients, such as lettuce and tomatoes. It might be meat and potatoes, or the side dishes and vegetables. Bread, milk, coffee, pop and chips, everything, has increased in price, and prepackaged portions are decreasing. I am not just talking about small increases. Look at the cost of meat today versus two years ago. It has nearly doubled in price. That is 100% inflation.
Chicken breasts used to go for five in a package for $10. Now we only get three for that same price. They have cut the portion size to hide the cost increase. I was just at Costco this weekend, and I bought a four-pack of bacon. It used to cost $20, but now it costs $30. That is 50% more.
Is this a result of Russia invading Ukraine, as the Liberals would have us believe? How much beef, chicken, lettuce, potato chips, rice, coffee and milk do we get from Ukraine? It is probably zero. The vast majority is farmed and harvested right here in Canada. It is the domestic policy of the federal government, such as printing cash for the past two years, that has put Canada in this inflation period. It is domestic policies, such as the Bank of Canada aiding and abetting the federal government by underwriting its massive debt load instead of sticking to its mandate to control inflation. It is domestic policies, such as the carbon tax and fertilizer reductions, that are hurting our farmers and causing food prices to soar. It is domestic policies, such as ramming massive spending legislation through the House of Commons to keep a marriage of convenience with the NDP alive.
As I wrap up, I want to focus on accountability. Who is accountable for the $5 billion the government is shovelling out the door to satisfy a Twitter outburst from the NDP leader? I know it will not be the Liberals and the NDP, as they ram the legislation through Parliament and pat themselves on the back like they like to do. Instead, it will be the people of Saskatoon West left holding the bag through more inflation, higher taxes and reduced benefits from the government. Rodney Dangerfield famously said he gets no respect. Unfortunately for Canadians, from the Liberal government, they get no respect either.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened quite carefully to what the hon. member has said over the last 10 minutes. I just cannot get my head around something.
He says the increased interest rate is causing inflation to increase, which I disagree with. If the United States increases its interest rate and we do not follow, that would depreciate the Canadian dollar, which would be an even worse situation with the inflation here in Canada.
My question goes to his comment on national debt. He thinks the government spends so much money increasing the national debt. Almost in the same paragraph, he said that the government should cut taxes. If we cut taxes, we reduce our revenue for the government.
Would that not increase our national debt even more?
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Mr. Speaker, I think the member's question demonstrates quite clearly the issue that we have here. The government does not really understand how economics work. All economists are willing and very happy to explain to people that, when governments add a lot of money to the economy, it causes inflation. It is a proven fact. It happens all the time, and we are seeing it right now.
Yes, it is happening in different countries around the world, but it gets worse depending on how the government impacts that. In Canada, our government has shovelled so much money into the economy that our inflation is actually hurting us more than it needs to. That is what we will be fixing with the new Conservative government.
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Mr. Speaker, we all agree that the price of pretty much everything will go up. We see it at the pumps, at the grocery store, in our rents, everywhere. The member is suggesting that we lower taxes to give taxpayers a break. I can understand how he feels. However, it is still a temporary measure. What permanent, predictable measure can he suggest to give taxpayers a break in the medium and long term?
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Mr. Speaker, it is a good point. We need permanent solutions to these problems. A temporary tax relief measure like Bill C-30 is helpful, as I said, but it is only temporary.
What we need to do is get government out of the way of our economy. The government is stepping in and messing around with the economy in ways that cause businesses to make decisions differently than they would have before. It causes us to lose jobs. It causes our economy to not have the economic output that it should have, which affects everything from jobs to incomes, from paycheques to government revenue. This is the direction we need to go in. We need to help the government get out of the way so we can let our economy do what it is supposed to do, which is better for everyone, including government.
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Mr. Speaker, I always laugh when I heard Conservatives talking about smaller governments and for the government to get out of the way.
We can look at Phoenix. They farmed out the payroll system for the government to save $70 million a year. It is going to cost $2.2 billion by the end of next year. They gutted Veterans Affairs by a third, which has led to a backlog of 50,000 applications for disabled veterans, the people who put their lives on the line. These are applications that are not even open yet. They were also a train wreck for DFO. They gutted DFO. I live in a coastal community. I know how that plays out.
One thing the member said in his speech was about those of us who buy our own groceries. What about the MPs who do not pay for their own dental care? It is unconscionable. Ted in my riding from Parksville is 77 years old. What did the Conservative member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan say? He said that Ted should go back to work.
Ted's teeth have fallen out. Does this member believe Ted should go back to work?
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Mr. Speaker, the government has a role to play in helping our economy in many ways. Helping people who are not able to work and who need a leg up is part of the whole role of government. It is one of the key roles of government.
However, governments cannot do that effectively when they are crippled financially. That is the whole point. We need to keep government out of the areas that it should not be in so it can excel and focus on the areas that it should be focusing on. When government is messing around in things it should not be in, it takes away the opportunity for government to help people like the one my colleague referenced.
We can have it both ways. The government needs to step aside, let the economy do its thing by generating the cash and the revenues, and then the government can turn around and do the things it needs to do, like defence and helping those who need help. We can accomplish this, and we will accomplish it.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for the warm reception. It is an honour to be joining the debate today and to be the closer of business this afternoon before a very important discussion later this evening.
Of course, I want to thank my colleague from Saskatoon West for being so gracious as to split his time with me today. I appreciate his comments. I have to say, despite being a fan of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, he is actually a great guy and a valued colleague in this House.
This is also my first opportunity to rise for a speech in this new session of Parliament. I have to say that I am very excited to be back here at work. I hope my colleagues on all sides of the House had a very productive and restful summer and had some time to spend with their families and loved ones as well.
Given the recent circumstances that led to the debate we are having later this evening, I want to take the opportunity before I begin my remarks on Bill C-30 to say that my thoughts are with all those in Atlantic Canada right now. I know that everyone across the Kenora riding feels the same in the wake of the terrible destruction and the pain the recent storm has caused. I want to express my sympathies to everyone in Atlantic Canada right now and reiterate the comments made by the Leader of the Opposition and Conservatives earlier today, when he said that our party stands ready and able to work with the government and assist it in any way we can to ensure its efforts are supported and that we are doing everything we can to support people who are suffering right now.
Going back to Bill C-30, the topic at hand, as I have a few more minutes here, I am honoured to be able to speak to this, given the incredible challenges that Canadians and those in northwestern Ontario are facing. It is really a shame to me that it has taken so long for us to get to this discussion, because I know the Conservatives were raising concerns about the cost of living many months ago, before we rose for the summer. Other members in other parties were doing the same as well, pleading with the current government to bring forward a plan to address the affordability crisis. However, throughout the summer the government sat on its hands and allowed the cost of living to continue to skyrocket, while many in my riding and across the country fell further behind.
This plan put forward in Bill C-30 to double the GST credit for six months is something I am certainly happy and relieved to see, but it is unfortunate that it took so long for the government to finally move forward on this. If we look at essential things like groceries, they are skyrocketing. Of course, every family needs to buy them. In fact, nearly a quarter of Canadians right now have cut back the amount of food they are able to buy, just to try to keep up with the rising prices. Butter is up 17%, eggs are up 11%, bread is up nearly 18% and fresh fruit is up over 13%, making it hard for every single person across this country to get by.
These issues are really exacerbated in the north, in my riding, in the municipalities I represent, and especially so in the remote northern first nations, where we can expect costs to be at least 1.5 times higher on a good day. This inflation that we are seeing, which has been driven by the government's reckless spending, is really having an impact on remote, rural and northern communities, like those I represent in northwestern Ontario. That is why we are continuing to see the rates of food insecurity continue to skyrocket. In fact, in some parts of northern Ontario, food insecurity rates are as high as 70%, and we have seen over the past few months more people turning to food banks and other areas of support because they are unable to get by.
Therefore, this support that we are talking about in Bill C-30 is certainly long overdue and welcome. We hope the government will continue to bring forward solutions such as this and continue to work with the opposition. As I said off the top, we have been advocating for supports such as this for quite some time now.
Speaking of time, that is probably it for me. I appreciate the opportunity to share a few thoughts, and I look forward to continuing this debate at the next opportunity.
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- Sep/26/22 6:29:52 p.m.
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When we return to debate, the member will have four minutes and 30-odd seconds left in his time.
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- Sep/26/22 6:30:30 p.m.
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The House will now proceed to the consideration of a motion to adjourn the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration, namely hurricane Fiona.
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- Sep/26/22 6:30:34 p.m.
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moved:
That this House do now adjourn.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it is truly an honour to rise here this evening to begin this debate on the federal government's response to hurricane Fiona and the devastation it has brought upon Atlantic Canada. As the NDP critic for emergency preparedness and climate resilience, I felt it was an urgently needed debate, and I would like to thank the Speaker for granting my request and the Conservatives for agreeing that it is a necessary discussion.
I want to start by saying that my thoughts are with all the Canadians on the Atlantic coast who have been affected by this catastrophic storm. My thoughts go to the friends and families who have lost loved ones, to those who have lost their homes and to those who have lost their livelihoods.
I lived on the island of Newfoundland for three years, including some months in a remote lighthouse, so I know very well both the ferocity of Atlantic weather and the resilience of Atlantic Canadians. I have travelled widely in Atlantic Canada over the past 40 years or so, including visits to P.E.I. and Nova Scotia just this year, so I am familiar with many of the communities that have been devastated by hurricane Fiona.
Hurricane Fiona was no ordinary Atlantic storm. It was the strongest storm ever to make landfall in Canada. Atlantic Canadians remember hurricane Juan in 2003 and hurricane Dorian. Fiona combined the intensity of Juan with the size of Dorian. Fiona recorded the lowest-ever atmospheric pressure in Canadian history and packed winds of up to 180 kilometres per hour. The storm surges swept across the coast like a series of tsunamis.
The human cost has been catastrophic. Several lives have been lost. Hundreds of homes were destroyed by storm surges or high winds, and many were swept out to sea. Roads, wharves, airports and other infrastructure have been badly damaged. Fisheries infrastructure has been destroyed in the middle of the fishing season; agricultural crops were compromised just before harvest, and close to a million Canadians are still without power.
I must pause to say that I will be sharing my time with the MP for Victoria.
We knew this storm was coming. As it tracked north up the Atlantic coast from Bermuda last week, the forecasts were uniformly calling for a record-breaking weather event. I want to give credit to the scientists of Environment Canada for their strong modelling, which informed preparation for hurricane Fiona. It was those strong warnings, I am sure, that kept the injuries and deaths to an absolute minimum. I have heard people comment time and time again that it was a miracle that more people were not injured and killed, so for that I thank the science and the warnings that went out.
I received a call from the Minister of Emergency Preparedness on Saturday, and I thank him for that update on the federal response. He mentioned that the armed forces would be helping with cleanup efforts. I have since heard that the naval vessel HMCS Margaret Brooke will be travelling along the south coast of Newfoundland to carry out wellness checks in many of the small outports there that have no road connection.
These are critical tasks and I am happy to hear they are being done, but important questions remain: How prepared were the armed forces for this storm that we knew was on its way ahead of time, and is there more that could and should have been done in the days before the storm?
I know that most communities have armies of volunteers that step up in these situations to help with organizing accommodations and food and other emergency supplies for residents who have lost or been evacuated from their homes. I thank the volunteers, as well as the neighbours who helped people clear down trees from houses and driveways and first responders who are helping with immediate and emergency cleanup, including the power company workers who are working around the clock to bring power back to hundreds of thousands of cold and hungry Canadians.
As critical and important as these initial responses are, perhaps even more important is that we look ahead to the coming days and weeks and, unfortunately, often years for the government role in rebuilding efforts that must take place. It is late September, and winter is not far away in Canada. We have systems and programs for government support to help people who have their homes damaged by disasters, but those systems are embedded in bureaucracies that often turn anxious weeks into anxious months, while winter sets in and families still have no place to go. They are forced to rely on the kindness of neighbours or relatives, or forced to move out of their communities entirely while waiting for help to rebuild their homes and their lives.
We have government programs, such as the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund, which are meant to help communities hit by overwhelming events such as fires, floods and hurricanes. In my experience, these communities, especially small communities, are left to do a lot of the heavy lifting in the rebuilding process, while they have neither the financial capability to pay for those actions nor the manpower capacity to navigate the bureaucracy to access the programs.
There are a couple of examples from my home province of British Columbia. The town of Princeton was badly flooded by the Tulameen and Similkameen rivers in last fall's atmospheric river event in southwestern B.C. It faced about a $20-million bill in costs to repair infrastructure. Ordinary federal-provincial government revenue-sharing agreements dictate that Princeton and other similar communities would pay 20% of those costs. It might sound like a good deal to a large community, but the entire annual tax budget of Princeton is only about two or three million dollars. It simply cannot afford 20% of a disaster. We need to come up with a permanent change to these cost structures to accommodate small communities.
Second, there is the example of Grand Forks, a town in my riding that was devastated by flooding in 2018. After months of wrangling, some intense and difficult work by the community itself and difficult decisions to radically change parts of the community, a funding agreement was reached whereby the provincial government would cover about $38 million of the cost and the federal government about $20 million.
The City of Grand Forks waited an entire year to get a response from the federal government on their first request for funding under this agreement. They received repeated messages from the federal government that the basic agreement was changing and they would have to be responsible for more and more of the costs. They had to repeatedly resubmit detailed funding requests. It was a bureaucratic nightmare for a small community that was trying to recover from a natural disaster nightmare.
This kind of behaviour from the federal government has to change. We have to have a kinder and more co-operative relationship between the federal government and communities in these situations.
I will finish by commenting on more long-term issues. We spend about $5 billion every year fixing damages from weather-related disasters in Canada. Those costs are largely born by individuals and insurance companies; the federal government is covering only about 10% of those costs. That annual expense is expected to rise to $50 billion by 2050, 10 times what it is now.
If we are to face the rising costs of these climate events and if we are to maintain our economy and communities in this onslaught of fires, floods and hurricanes, we have to start investing serious amounts of money in climate adaptation. We need investments in community infrastructure that protects Canadians, so they do not see their homes wash away on a storm surge; investments in heat pumps that would allow low-income Canadians to have air conditioning, so we will not have a repeat of the 619 people dying in a heat dome event in metro Vancouver last year; and investments in FireSmart programs to protect neighbourhoods at the interface with forests.
Reactive funding is necessary, but surely we can see the economic and community needs that point to investing for the future we all know is coming. In the meantime I just want to reiterate my support for the people of Atlantic Canada. I know they will use all of their ingenuity and strength to recover from this catastrophe, and I hope all levels of government will be there to help them when they need it.
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- Sep/26/22 6:40:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as we witnessed earlier today during question period, we had members from all sides of the House, whether it was the Prime Minister or other opposition and government members, expressing their thoughts and goodwill with regard to what has taken place. In fact, from coast to coast to coast, because of media, including you yourself, Mr. Speaker, bringing to the House's attention last week that we had a storm that was coming to Atlantic Canada and was also going to affect the province of Quebec, there was a tremendous amount of goodwill. Canadians from coast to coast to coast watched, and now part of the solution is to allow for those Canadians to express that sense that a part of our nation is hurting by making a donation.
I am wondering what the member would have to say about how else Canadians might be able to be involved besides giving some money, offering a prayer or, possibly for some of them, even going to the east coast.
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