44th Parl. 1st Sess.

October 5, 2022 02:00PM

Oct/5/22 5:49:03 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-30

Mr. Speaker, I am splitting my time with the member for Vancouver Kingsway. I talked about dental care at the very beginning and I was supposed to mention it at that time, so I will return to that subject later on. I appreciate the intervention, because I did not officially recognize that I was splitting my time. I will continue. One of the things I want to move to is some of the conditions we put ourselves in with regard to inflation and competition, and the lack that we have. A number of members have referenced gas prices. This House, in the past, with credit to Dan McTeague, a former Liberal, and Paul Crête, a former Bloc member, and this is something I worked with them on as well, passed a gas monitoring agency. This was supposed to be implemented under Paul Martin but it was not. What ends up happening is a lack of competition in this country, because there has been a lack of refinery development. We do not even have the same reporting process the United States have. One of the key things creating a lot of uncertainty and some frustration among Canadian consumers is that we do not even have a good advocate for that. The Competition Bureau has some powers but very little. At the same time, gas prices are going up with very little explanation, and more importantly, less accountability, which has a cascading effect on our entire economy. If we look at the specifics related to this, how many more refineries had to be closed in Canada? There was Montreal, Oakville and a number of others, including one in Vancouver. What was taking place was vertical integration in the industries, and a country like Canada is facing the same challenges when it comes to telecoms and others. Right now, additional charges will potentially be placed on credit cards, as well as extra taxes, where Telus wants to introduce an extra tax on Canadians. All these things start to eat away at the pocketbooks of Canadians. For as much as we do, such as increasing the GST in this instance, it is going to be lost because of increases in services and fees. At the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, we looked at issues during the pandemic such as food costing and food workers. What is interesting is that the record profits companies were enjoying also included record bonuses for the CEOs. What is amazing, and we cannot do anything about this because of the lack of supports in our legislation, is that all major grocery chains ended pandemic pay for their workers on the very same day. That is as close to collusion as we can possibly get. What was discussed at committee was the fact that the lawyers were okay because the CEOs could talk to each other under our current system. This comes from an industry the Competition Bureau fined for fixing the price of bread. They actually had to come to a settlement on that. The number one staple for lower- and middle-income Canadians, which is bread, was actually price-fixed by these organizations similar to a cabal that would take advantage of people. This is one of the problems we have with some of our industries, where we have this vertical integration. I want to talk a bit about where we can find a difference, and that would be with Bill C-31, the dental care bill. The member for Vancouver Kingsway has done a great job. Often we talk about it in terms of helping the children, and later on it would be seniors, persons with disabilities and the general public. As the industry critic, I can say our health care has always been a standard principled point to get investment for the auto industry and manufacturing, even during the darkest times, when the United States, with its different states, or their federal government, and other places like Mexico were lowering wages. All those competitive factors that go against investment in Canada were offset by our having a public health care system that was paid for. That is one of the major controllables we have. When we look at small businesses and medium-sized businesses, SMEs have really struggled. Now their employees, and even the people who own these businesses and often do not have any benefits themselves or have very basic ones, will have that relief. When it comes to labour unions with large contract negotiations, it will also open up the door and take the pressure off for increased medicines and costs that can create some types of labour disruptions because of fights over benefit programs. One of the things I really want to highlight is that these types of structural improvements are more important in the long term than Bill C-30, which is something that is short term. The long-term investments we are going to get in this other package will be very significant. I know from the CEOs, the investors and all the other different people, the labour negotiators, that those types of infrastructure pieces that we have, including employment insurance, which needs a major overhaul, are things that will get investment and keep investment in Canada. That includes research development and innovation. We have a terrible record for patent development to go to manufacturing, for bringing products to market compared to other parts of the world and for getting our university innovation together, but these are the assets that we have. As I wrap up, I want to say that I appreciate the fact that Bill C-30 is not necessarily the biggest solution that we have for this problem of structural inequality, but at the same time, it is a measure we can control right now. The quicker we get the bill through the House, the quicker we can get more investment, more innovation and more jobs for Canadians, because it is a structural point that we need to compete.

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Context: House Hansard - 108 - Oct/5/22

Ms. Monique Pauzé (Repentigny, BQ)

Oct/5/22 5:56:41 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-30

Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke at length, especially in the first half of his speech, about oil companies. I would like to take the opportunity to come back to that. I would like to remind members that the price of gas jumped 33.3% between December 2020 and December 2021. That was a determinant of inflation. We can all agree that the price of oil is set in New York and London, and that there is not much we can do about it. However, since the price of oil is fluctuating a great deal, we could try to stop relying on oil with an energy transition that would shelter our economy from fluctuating oil prices. Could my colleague comment on this Bloc Québécois suggestion?

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House Hansard - 108