44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 4, 2022 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this bill today but also to follow my friend from Vaughan—Woodbridge. I appreciate the opportunity.
First, I would ask for members' indulgence to address what many members already have this morning, and that is what we are seeing happening in geopolitical affairs, in particular in Iran. As I walked home last night, we saw the colours of Iran's flag flashed on Parliament Hill, but I could not help but feel just a little embarrassed because that seems to be what the government wants to do, which is to put out more signals or do things that do not cost much money as a way to show our solidarity.
It would be okay if we were doing many other things, but let us remember that the government said it would put these colours on the Peace Tower on Sunday. That was the first thing it said it would do when 50,000 people gathered at a rally to show their solidarity with what is happening with people in Iran and those who are fighting for their fundamental freedoms. It is almost like it was the same ministers holding up the sign that said, “I stand with Ukraine,” but never following it up with concrete actions.
I have to commend at least one member from that side of the House while I have the floor, the member for Willowdale, who had the courage to go on TV and say that the government has not done enough. I hope that more members in the House feel empowered to speak on behalf of themselves and the issues they feel strongly about.
Now let us talk about Bill C-30 while we are here. This is the temporary enhancement to the goods and services tax, the HST tax credit. I want to commend our chair for getting this bill through Parliament very well. It was a very lively committee with the minister. It is always a pleasure to have her there. I cannot say many questions were answered, but it was nice to see some co-operation on all sides of the aisle to get this bill back to the House in short order.
Inflation is at a 40-year high. The Bank of Canada says inflation crushes the most vulnerable people the hardest. That is why it is important we get inflation under control. I do believe this measure is supported on all sides of the House. It is important that we stand together with our most vulnerable. This tax credit would help those individuals.
The government needs to be doing more to help Canadians with inflation. This is why I was surprised the Deputy Prime Minister could not answer the question at committee yesterday of whether this initiative would lead to more inflation. I was not asking the question of whether it would lead to more inflation so we would not do this policy. It was so that maybe the government could take other steps elsewhere to reduce its impact on inflation.
We are paying for this with more debt. We are still in a deficit. Let us remember it was not long ago that people were questioning spending in this House and other people were saying it was irresponsible not to spend because interest rates were so low. Now, interest rates are much higher, so the cost of the debt we are putting on future generations is incredible.
The PBO says interest costs could potentially double if the trajectory of interest rates continues. That is a lot of money that is not going to be able to be spent on social programs in this country, programs that everyone relies on: health care, helping seniors, making sure that our social security safety nets are there for generations.
At committee yesterday, we were told that the government has a new-found religion called fiscal restraint. I think the young kids these days would say that fiscal restraint has entered the chat. However, I am not really sure if that is going to happen. Let us let history be our guide. This is a government that is addicted to debt and spending. It is placing an incredible burden on our future generations.
The solution to every problem that the Liberal government sees is more spending. The government has grown spending by well over 8% every year since coming into office. In fact, its spending is up 25% this year when compared to pre-COVID levels. Now we are to believe that, from this time going forward, the government is going to keep spending growth to 2%. I find that very hard to believe. In fact, some would say it is very unlikely.
If we were at a party and saw a teenager going back to the punch bowl and could not tear them away, and all of a sudden that teenager had one last big swig and said, “That's it. I'm done,” would we believe that youngster? I do not think so.
The dirty secret of the government right now is that it is awash in revenues. It has never made as much money as it is right now. The NDP want to discuss windfall tax profits from those corporations that are having record profits this year, but let us talk about a windfall tax on the government. Why does it not give some of that tax money back to Canadians or maybe cut some taxes to begin with? Every week that goes by it is breaking a record for the amount of money it is bringing in due to inflation.
I would submit the government does not need more money with additional tax increases. It has to provide relief to Canadians by either cutting taxes or providing additional relief. Germany, the U.K., France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and I could go on, but I think I only have four minutes left and I would exhaust that. These are all countries that have reduced taxes on fuel or paused tax increases. They have provided relief for people with energy bills in their countries. We are approaching a cold season. It is going to be hard for many Canadians across this country to heat their homes, yet they hear the government talk about how important it is that we pay a carbon tax.
Let us just take a break. We do not have to be all or nothing. If gasoline is at two dollars a litre, maybe the carbon tax could be reduced to zero. If gasoline is $1.25 a litre, perhaps the government could come up with a much lower number to be applied. It should at least give us a break. At two dollars a litre, people cannot afford it. It is not as though people have a choice. Many people have to put a certain amount of gas in their car every week to get to work, to take the kids to soccer practice and activities or to get to the grocery store. Not everybody lives near a subway line. Not everybody lives with public transit right around the corner. They cannot walk anywhere. We do not have horse and buggies everywhere, at least not in many parts of this province. Although some very wonderful people rely on that mode of transportation, it is not realistic for all Canadians.
Therefore, let us acknowledge that people are hurting right now. Instead of lowering our taxes like our peers, our answer to higher energy prices is to make them higher. The carbon tax is inflationary. The Bank of Canada admits this, but the government does not seem to want to answer that question. What is it that our government knows that all of these other countries somehow do not know? We are the only country in the world that is choosing to make energy more expensive.
As I conclude, I want to say that, on our side of the House, we were pleased to see this bill move forward quickly because it is going to provide relief, albeit a small relief, to Canadians in need. I appreciate that opportunity.
I would also like to say that I will be splitting my time with the wonderful member for Northumberland—Peterborough South, whom I very much look forward to hearing on this matter as well.
I welcome any questions from my hon. colleagues.
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Mr. Speaker, the hon. member across the way for Simcoe North mentioned one half of an equation, which is that Canada's debt level has increased over the last few years, particularly as we were dealing with COVID. In order to keep Canadians alive and well through those difficult times, the government had many programs in place to help.
The other side of the equation is GDP growth, which I did not hear the member mention. We are second in the G7 with respect to GDP growth. We are leading some of the countries he mentioned with two times the GDP growth. Our fiscal anchor is the debt-to-GDP ratio. Could the member comment on how our strong GDP growth is helping us get through what we are going through right now?
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Mr. Speaker, we have had some strong GDP growth, but we are also coming off of some significant GDP losses. In fact, the economy was quite slow and shrunk over a period of time, so we are actually coming up from a lower base. That is why we have GDP growth.
Let us talk about what GDP growth allows us to do. It provides a lot of revenues to the government in the form of taxation. Therefore, I do not understand why we need to talk about increasing taxes on Canadians when, as the member opposite has said, GDP is doing okay. By the way, when the Liberals ran in the 2015 election they said that a 1.5% or 1.6% growth in GDP was not enough, which is about where we are right now.
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Mr. Speaker, there is one thing the Conservative Party suggested to counter inflation: cryptocurrency. We learned in a recent Privy Council backgrounder that cryptocurrency offers no protection against inflationary shocks.
This summer, cryptocurrency lost half of its value compared with the beginning of last year. I would like my colleague to explain why it is that his leader, the hon. member for Carleton, claims that cryptocurrency protects against inflation. Specifically, I would like to know whether my colleague really believes that cryptocurrency is protected from surges in inflation.
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Mr. Speaker, I follow some of the financial markets, like my fellow colleague. I am not sure that members of the Conservative Party have said that cryptocurrency is going to solve inflation. If we say that Canada should be a destination for fintech revolution, I would welcome that.
Let us remember what is happening around the world and why some people use cryptocurrency. We can look at countries like Venezuela and Argentina where inflation is incredible. Those people have turned to cryptoassets as a hedge against inflation. Yes, the amount has come down in some cases by 10% or 20% or even 30%, but if we look at what is happening to inflation in those countries we see that those people are losing purchasing power at upward of 50% in some years.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague talked about how important it is not to put an additional burden on Canadians and not to increase taxation on Canadians. However, what I would like to point out is that it has been over half a century since corporations paid the same rate that Canadians pay, since 1952, in fact. I wonder if the member would be open to the idea of taxing corporations that are making massive profits right now so that they are paying their fair share and we would have that revenue stream in this county.
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Mr. Speaker, before we increase taxes on companies, why do we not just make the companies in Canada pay the taxes they owe? Why do we not start there? There was just a report from the Canadians for Tax Fairness that said there is upward of $30 billion, which I am sure will make my friends in the NDP happy, that the government is not collecting. Before we talk about increasing taxes on other companies and Canadians, why do we not just make the people and the corporations pay the taxes they currently owe?
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Mr. Speaker, I stand here in the House of Commons today in a very sheltered environment. Outside these walls there are many challenges. With the inflation rate now increasing to over 7%, we have seen in the last couple of months some of the highest inflation in the last 40 years.
The Conservatives, over the last seven years, have warned the Prime Minister about where the end of the road is and what the consequences are of his tax-and-spend agenda. However, our warnings have gone unheeded. This is perhaps not surprising from a Prime Minister who does not think about monetary policy.
Think about what that means, actually. The Prime Minister said this right before we headed into one of the biggest monetary disasters we have had in the last 50 years. He literally said that he does not think about monetary policy, which would later make single moms unable to feed their families and workers unable to put gas in their cars. It is unbelievable that he does not think about monetary policy. Perhaps he should think again.
As we talk about Bill C-30, it is important to put some context around the bill, and we need to start with the relationship between the economy and the government. Oftentimes, I find they unfortunately get confused in this House. We must first, as our bedrock, ensure that the goods and services produced in this economy, the wealth and prosperity of this nation, are primarily the responsibility of our businesses and workers.
It is through the delivery of those services and the production of goods that our country generates its value. When a company is able to produce more goods and deliver more services, or in other words increase our productivity, the prosperity of the nation increases. The secret of this, which is not often mentioned in this House, is that it is the most vulnerable who often benefit the most when the prosperity of the nation increases, and they suffer the most, as has happened in the last couple of years, when prosperity is under assault, this time by inflation.
A country can produce a modest, temporary and artificial increase in economic performance through monetary policy and the printing of money. When the government spends and spends on a spending spree funded by the printing of money, there is an initial exuberance that results as Canadians see money coming into their bank accounts. However, this exuberance is quickly replaced by disillusion as they realize the cost of everything has increased and benefits are now replaced by the stubborn and corrosive impact of inflation, which continues. Once it is out of the box, inflation runs and runs, eroding savings, eroding wages and eroding the pensions of seniors.
The true path to a more prosperous nation is not through the printing of money. It is through the creation of value. Specifically, we need to increase our productivity. When a nation can produce more goods and deliver more services more efficiently and effectively, it drives real value that increases the wages of workers and, dare I say it, increases the profits of businesses. It also creates jobs.
Unfortunately, the government appears bent on doing everything it can to reduce the productivity of businesses and workers, and we see the result of seven years of Liberal governments. Food inflation is at over 10%. It is 10.8%, to be precise. That is causing real-life struggles. Outside the comfort and shelter of these walls, there are people who will go to bed tonight hungry, and probably many more people than in the last decade or two decades. That is because of the impact of a Prime Minister who does not think about monetary policy.
Food inflation at 10.8% has caused a 20% increase in the last two years in the use of food banks. Think about that. Some 20% more Canadians are going to food banks now than did two years ago. In addition to that, 20% of Canadians have had to make changes in their diets. About 8% of Canadians out there are skipping meals. This challenge is not just for adults but for children. In fact, people who have children are now three times more likely to go to a food bank than those who do not. This is making life more difficult for all Canadians and the most vulnerable, and children are among them.
It is not that Bill C-30 is a wrong step. It is just unfortunately too little too late, as it were. I will be supporting this legislation because it is going in the right direction, but let us look at, first, the fact that it is months behind when any type of relief was needed. Second, let us look at the quantum or the amounts of that.
Keeping in mind the statistic that food inflation is up over 10%, it is increasing the amount that families spend on food by over $1,300 a year. This GST/HST temporary relief, according to the finance minister, who went before the committee, will create somewhere between $450 and $500 in benefits for the families that are eligible. However, as we have heard throughout this House, many are not. This is nowhere near the amount of relief needed. Ultimately, that relief will come from our workers and businesses, but they need to be empowered, not penalized.
Thomas Sowell once famously wrote that he never understood why it is greed to want to keep the money we have earned but not greed to want to take money that other people have earned. That is a lesson the government needs to hear loud and clear.
Some will say, and it was even in the news in the U.K., that tax relief is inflationary. I am here to say that when done correctly, it is not. In fact, it is the exact opposite of what happens when the government spends and is funded by debt or the printing of money. I will give four examples.
When John F. Kennedy cut taxes in 1963, the inflation rate the year before a massive tax cut in post-world war United States was 1.2%. In the year after his tax cuts, it was 1.28%. When Ronald Reagan introduced in the United States a massive tax cut in 1981, it came into effect in 1982. In 1981, the inflation rate was 6.13%, and the inflation rate in 1984 was 4.3%. That is a decrease of 2% after massive tax cuts. Once again the Reagan administration cut taxes in 1986. In the year before, the inflation rate was 3.9%, and in the year after, it was 3.65%. When Prime Minister Harper reduced the GST, the inflation rate in 2007 was 2.1% and the inflation rate in 2009 was 0.3%.
Inflation is not fuelled by tax relief. What is fuelled is our economy. We need to give more relief, and a great way to do it is to cancel the planned tax hikes that are coming into place. The government will triple the carbon tax by 2030, and starting this April, it will increase the taxation on nearly everything, which includes heating, gas and groceries. It is increasing the cost of everything. That, by definition, will increase inflation.
When we see Canadians working hard and trying to save what money they can, and when we have food inflation at 10%, is the government's response to reduce taxation? No, it is not. It is increasing the tax on paycheques starting April 1, and a sizable number of taxes will be increased. This is not the time for this. In my estimation, it is never the time to increase taxes given our current rates, but this is certainly not the time, as it will drive inflation and make our economy less productive.
When we look at what we need at the end of the day in order to solve this affordability crisis, we need to not drive artificial monetary policy through the printing of money, as we have seen what this can create. We do not need more government spending funded by the printing of money. We need our economy to increase its productivity. How we do that is by supporting our workers, empowering our businesses, supporting all Canadians, getting the government's hands out of their pockets and, instead, giving them a helping hand by reducing their burden in the future.
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Mr. Speaker, what we are witnessing today is universal support for Canadians at a time of need and inflation. Unfortunately, there are people exploiting the situation.
I will convey a text that I just received. It says, “You can now claim your GST rebate. Reply ‘yes’ to receive your payment.” After conferring with the CRA, it made very clear that it would never send a text like that. Scammers are fast and started sending texts right after the announcement was made about the GST. CRA is aware that there is something circulating and it has increased scam awareness messaging on all channels.
I am wondering if my friend could provide his thoughts about the types of people who exploit situations such as this. We should be warning constituents that there are scams out there.
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Mr. Speaker, it is sad that there are people out there doing this. Those folks should be held to account. That is why I am proud to be part of the law and order party. I do appreciate the member calling that out.
Being the former shadow minister for national revenue, I unfortunately became familiar with the many scammers out there. The CRA will not ask for anyone's social insurance number or bank information through email. When in doubt, pick up the phone, call the CRA and confirm it before providing any type of information. People can talk to those they trust. They can call their MP's office and we will be happy to help sort it out. I have seen way too many seniors and others taken advantage of this way.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Northumberland—Peterborough South on his speech. I hold him in high regard as a colleague. I had the opportunity to work with him in the previous Parliament on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
There are things in his speech that I agree with, and others that I do not agree with. I agree that this is too little too late. In the last federal budget, there were no special measures to help seniors, low-income Canadians or more vulnerable Canadians.
Here is the thing I do not agree with. The Conservative Party talks a lot about inflation and monetary policy. The Bloc Québécois is against populism. We strongly believe that the Bank of Canada, the central bank, should be independent of any political authority. In the last Conservative Party leadership race, we often heard the hon. member for Carleton, now the leader of the Conservative Party, say that he wanted to fire the Governor of the Bank of Canada. He is sending the wrong message. These are dangerous words.
I would like to know whether my colleague agrees that the central bank should be independent of all political influence, and if not, why not.
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Mr. Speaker, we have to acknowledge that the Bank of Canada got it wrong. It said that inflation was transitory and it was not. It said that inflation would not increase and it did. Our leader, who puts people first and thinks about monetary policy, got it right. That should be on the record. He was scoffed at. He was laughed at by the Bloc and other members of the elite saying that there would be no inflation. Well, guess what. We have food inflation at 10% and that should not be acceptable to Canadians or anyone.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to hear that my friend from Northumberland—Peterborough South supports the relief measure in this bill. He noted that it is months late, and we would agree with him on that. I would ask where he was when we were calling for it back in May.
This is targeted relief for the people most affected by inflation. There is another measure in another bill that is also targeted relief for the people across our country most affected by inflation. The revenue for each of these measures comes from the same fund. These are very similar measures, yet the Conservative Party is voting for one and not the other.
I wonder if he could explain to me why he is not voting to support the increase in the Canada housing benefit?
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Mr. Speaker, the government's tax-and-spend policies will create nothing but more inflation. As we are seeing, the initial exuberance of government spending will quickly be eroded by the corrosive impacts of inflation. If we want to make people poor, then let us spend more money and print more money.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to take part in the debate today. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, and I look forward to his comments.
The cost of living relief act is what we are talking about and how we help with affordability for Canadians who are facing the inflation we are now seeing as a result of global inflation as well as what has happened as a result of COVID-19.
When we went into COVID-19, one of the things that, early on, our government was focused on was setting Canada up for success on the other side of COVID, to make sure that Canadians would be able to return to their jobs through things like the wage subsidy program and keeping a relationship between the employer and the employee so that when jobs came back the employee would still be on their files. The CERB was to make sure that people who were really facing a tough time, those whose incomes had dropped and independent business owners, in particular, could get through what we were facing collectively as a society around the world with the global pandemic.
This bill is looking at what we do, going forward, now that we have protected our economy and have economic growth but have many people who are not participating in the success that other Canadians are taking part in. The once-in-a-generation COVID-19 pandemic has impacted other countries such as China, with its zero COVID policies. On top of that, there is the illegal invasion by Russia in Ukraine.
Here at home we have had housing prices skyrocketing so that we have had to work with the Bank of Canada, which focuses on monetary policy while we are focused on fiscal policy. The monetary policy that the Bank of Canada, which is an independent organization, has put in place is to increase interest rates, which almost immediately brought down the house price acceleration that we saw last year and even into early this year.
The inflation that we are seeing overall has come from the supply side. People are having trouble hiring and they are having trouble getting components out of their supply chains. Around the world, it is something that everybody is facing. In Canada, we have been able to temper that through good policy, with the government looking at inflation that peaked in June at 8.1% and has come down to 7%. Other countries are still on the increase. The United States at 8.3%, the United Kingdom at 9.9%, and Germany at 7.9% are all at higher inflation rates than Canada faces.
However, it does nothing for Canadians to say, “Yes, but the other guys are worse than we are.” This is why we are introducing the affordability plan. It is a targeted suite of programs of $12.1 billion that are being introduced this year, including doubling the GST credit for the next six months.
As monetary policy hopefully brings inflation back down toward the 2% target that the Bank of Canada has, we have to have something that bridges us through the hump that we are going through right now. This measure is Bill C-30, which would make life more affordable for Canadians. As an illustration, some of the measures that the plan is working on to fight inflation are to help with access to dental care and with the rental costs people are facing. There are parts of the bill that will be coming back to the House, hopefully in the next few days, and passing quickly so that Canadians will have access to other supports. As has been mentioned in the debate today, all of these things are there to help people who are vulnerable and who are being impacted by the inflation we are all going through.
For more than three decades, the Bank of Canada has had the mandate to tackle inflation here in Canada, and our government reaffirmed this central mandate last December. As the Bank of Canada is working on inflation and bringing it down, we have to work on the impacts on Canadians who are facing higher interest rates, the higher food costs that have been mentioned in the debate this morning and the other higher living costs that we have.
As we get down toward the 2%, and it is really the bank's job to help us get there, we have to look at the supply route constraints that are also impacting businesses and the labour shortages. How do we help businesses find the workers they need with the right skills? How do we help the people who are looking for jobs get those skills, so that they align with the needs of the businesses? The better we do this and the faster we do this, the better Canada will be positioned to continue the growth curve we are on.
The last recession I remember was the 2008 major recession. We just coasted on the other side of it, and we did not have economic growth. The result of that was that we fell behind. We are now in a position to continue our leadership position in growth in the world and provide clean technology jobs and the jobs of tomorrow around climate change solutions, nanotechnologies and emerging technologies, but in order to do that we need labour.
To rebuild communities that have been ravaged by the impacts of climate change, like the communities in Atlantic Canada and eastern Quebec, we need skilled trade workers, so we have to work as a government to help position people for success to get into those projects. In Guelph we have had six projects recently announced, with $45 million to create 263 housing units. Those housing units are being built, but it is a strain on the local labour. In fact, we have one crew that is in Guelph from Prince Edward Island doing steel work, and they are doing it quickly because they want to go home. There is a local benefit to our getting some labour force in Guelph to help us build the housing as well as help the communities in Atlantic Canada that need the help they need on the economic front.
The plan we have is rooted in fiscal restraint. We are looking at how we can provide supports without fuelling inflation. The suite of measures we are putting forward through the affordability plan, like the GST credit for the next six months, are going to support Canadians with the cost of living without adding fuel to the fire of inflation.
We look at what other programs we are supporting in addition to the doubling of the GST credit. It is going to provide $2.5 billion in additional targeted support for this year, and that is going to help 11 million individuals and families who already receive their tax credits through their tax filings. The relationship we have with Canadians through the Canada Revenue Agency helps us to deliver these programs.
We will also be delivering the Canada workers benefit to put up to another $2,400 into families' bank accounts this year. A 10% increase in old age security to help seniors over 75, which began in July, is providing up to $766 more for three million seniors this year. We will deliver a $500 payment this year to 1.8 million Canadian renters who are struggling with the cost of housing through a one-time top-up on the housing benefit. We are cutting child care fees by an average of 50% this year. Dental care for Canadians, hopefully getting passed through the House of Commons, for people earning less than $90,000 would provide hundreds of dollars to Canadian families this year. The indexation of inflation of benefits, including the Canada child benefit, the GST credit, Canada pension plan, old age security, the guaranteed income supplement and the federal minimum wage will carry us through normal economic times, when inflation is back down to the 2% level we are shooting for.
We are trying to manage the fiscal situation in an inflationary time by providing benefits to the people who really need them when they need them, and they need them now.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Guelph raised the Bank of Canada multiple times, as he also raised the ideas of helping struggling Canadians and the need to fight inflation. On March 11 of this year, Tiff Macklem, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, wrote to the finance committee, and I am just going to take an excerpt from that:
According to the Bank's calculations, if the charge were to be removed from the three main fuel components of the consumer price index (gasoline, natural gas and fuel oil) it would reduce the inflation rate by 0.4 percentage points. In other words, if that policy had come into effect at the start of the year, January's inflation rate would have been 4.7% instead of 5.1%.
That is the governor saying that the carbon tax is inflationary. The member for Guelph said it is important to support struggling Canadians. Would he say exactly why he supports the government in tripling the carbon tax on gas, groceries and heat? Does he not believe this is a time to take a pause and give Canadians a break?
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Mr. Speaker, the price on pollution is going from $50 a tonne to $65 a tonne. In my math, that is not tripling.
When we look at the sustainability of the planet, we cannot separate the sustainability of the planet from economic sustainability and social sustainability. We need to support Canadians in all areas, economic, social and environmental, so that we still have a planet for future generations.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech. Inflation did not fall out of the sky like a hot summer rain. It is the result of several factors, including external factors. One of these factors is very important: the supply chain.
It is important to understand that the war in Ukraine and the global pandemic disrupted the supply chain. Many of our companies rely on the availability of products or consumer goods.
The Bank of Canada observed that, during the summer, approximately 50% of companies found themselves facing a bottleneck. That means that their supply chain is blocked. They are awaiting parts to be able to resume production.
There is a way of fixing this and ensuring fewer inflationary shocks. It is by making sure that our supply chain is more flexible, agile and resilient.
Does my colleague agree that the government should be doing more to make sure that we are less dependent on the products we need to import from foreign countries?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques not only for that question but for the questions he has posed throughout the day. They are always very thoughtful questions.
One of the lessons of COVID was that we have to have more reliance on Canadian supply chains. When it came to getting PPE and things to help people in medical need in Canada, having that product built in Canada made a lot of sense as supply chains from other countries were cut off. I agree 100% that we have to look at developing business in Canada and developing innovation in Canada so that we can get the economic benefit from it, as well as that security going forward.
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Mr. Speaker, I welcome the comments the member just made about the Canadian supply chain. I want the member to know that in my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam there was a supplier that retooled their factory instantly to be able to create PPE, but they were unable to get a contract from the Canadian government. I also know of vaccine suppliers in the country who were not identified by the government. In fact, I think there was a lack of coordination on the government side to even know who was producing PPE and vaccines here in Canada. That is what I understand.
Would the member like to share some thoughts on why Canadian suppliers of PPE and even vaccines were not able to get contracts with the government?
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