44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 6, 2022 10:00AM
- Oct/6/22 3:48:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as always it is a great honour to rise and speak on behalf of the people of Timmins—James Bay, particularly at this time of incredible uncertainty. We noticed and are very pleased to see the Russian army suffering defeats in Ukraine, but we are in a time of major global uncertainty. We are in a time of crisis in prices and crisis in supply chains. Workers are being told, with respect to their lack of ability to get higher wages, that if they somehow got a more level playing field, it would exacerbate the inflation crisis.
What New Democrats are calling for today is to focus in on where these inflationary problems are being driven. They are being driven by gouging by some very major and powerful corporate interests. On the oil sector, around the world there are questions being raised about the massive profits coming out of the pockets of ordinary consumers, who cannot even afford to heat their houses.
The other really disturbing issue we are seeing is the crisis in the affordability of food, and that is directly tied to the price gouging that has been under way throughout this crisis. What we are asking for is very straightforward. We are asking the Competition Bureau to launch an investigation into grocery chain practices, to increase the penalties for price fixing and to strengthen competition laws to prohibit these companies from abusing their dominant positions in the market, which exploit both consumers and agricultural producers.
We are also calling for the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food to look into this, because we want to make sure we are dealing with issues of fairness, as people are being gouged and cannot afford to pay their bills.
It is very interesting and indicative that we are debating this today, when the New Democratic motion on doubling the GST tax credit has received support from this House, because we came into this Parliament saying we were going to fight for people who are being left behind in this time of uncertainty.
We brought forward three major initiatives for the fall. First, the doubling of the GST tax credit will get money right back into the hands of people, families and seniors so they can buy their groceries. Second, for low-income renters, the $500 supplement is essential support at this time of gouging and particularly high housing prices. Third, of course, is the initiative the Liberals have now moved to agree with us on, which is a national dental care plan. If a person cannot afford to get their kids' teeth fixed, all other issues pale in comparison. A mother or a father who cannot afford to get their child's teeth fixed is in a situation that should not be allowed to happen.
My friends in the Conservative Party have been very much against these initiatives. I appreciate the flip-flop on the tax credit, but the word they have been using is that actual steps to help people in this crisis would somehow be “vaporized” by inflation, as though inflation is some kind of magic thing. I am interested in the term “vaporizing”, because the only thing I noticed that vaporized over the summer was the price of cryptocurrency after the leader of the Conservative Party told us that he gets his financial advice from a conspiracy blogger on YouTube.
I know they got a lot of their medical advice from anti-vax conspiracy bloggers on YouTube, but the idea that the leader of the Conservative Party was promoting cryptocurrency, which dropped 70% in value after he began promoting it, is something we should think about for a minute. I know a lot of working-class people in northern Ontario who do not have savings, who are insecure and who thought maybe crypto would be a way of allowing them to get some kind of savings. They listened to the Conservative leader. Seventy per cent of that value vaporized.
I will tell members what is not going to vaporize, which is getting that $500 cheque if someone is a low-income renter, or getting the $460 to $600 GST rebate so people can pay their rent. What is not going to vaporize is the hopes of children to get dental care. That is what New Democrats came to Parliament to do. It was to get results for people.
What we need to do is strip off a lot of the mythologies and misrepresentations on what is causing inflation. Now, I mentioned the Russian war at the beginning, and we know that has destabilized the situation globally, but when we drill down on the numbers in Canada, it becomes very clear that certain powerful interests are using the fears of inflation to drive up their profits and their corporate lines.
The CEO of Sobeys was paid $8.6 million in compensation this year. What does this guy do to deserve this? Groceries rose nearly 11% in that time. It is supposed to be inflationary growth that caused the 11% rise, but the profits we saw from Sobeys, Loblaws and Metro are much higher than the rate of inflation. The rates of wage earnings are much lower than the rate of inflation, so workers who got an increase this year did not contribute to inflation; it is the gouging that is going on. The CEO compensation at Loblaws was $5 million; at Metro it was $5 million, and at Sobeys it was $8.6 million.
I want to focus in a bit on the Weston family, on Galen Weston, living in his gated community. He was found guilty of price-fixing with respect to bread, for crying out loud. I want to thank Irene Breckon, a good northern Ontario woman from the mining town of Elliot Lake, who led the class action lawsuit. Does anyone think that Galen Weston is ever going to be punished for ripping off families with respect to bread? That is not what happens to the super rich. They get free gifts, for example, $12 million to fix Galen Weston's fridges.
My mom, and I am thinking of Loretta Lynn today, is a coal miner's daughter. I had to explain this to her. She called me to ask what was going on with the Liberal government fixing Galen Weston's fridges, and whether it would fix her fridge. I told her that I knew it was really not right and that we were trying to deal with it. Then she came home and told me about the grocery prices she is having to pay and asked about Galen Weston and all the money he is making. I told her not to worry, that we are going to make this right.
That is why we are in the House today. Across party lines, we need to start saying to these CEOs that they cannot use inflationary fears anymore to gouge working-class families that have no choice but to go to the grocery store and pay for the food they need for their children.
In our motion today we are not talking about the oil price gouging that is going on, but that has been one of the other massive drivers of inflation. At the beginning of October, when the price of a barrel of oil was $80, prices were still 13% higher than they were the last time the price of a barrel was that high. I am sure other people in the country know this too, but anyone in northern Ontario knows that the second a hurricane hits the southern Gulf coast the price of gas at our local pumps jumps up 30¢ overnight, but when everything is going fine that price does not come down. There is consistent gouging.
Members do not have to believe me. I know people think I am the wild New Democrat from northern Ontario, but I would say that my good friend the CEO of Shell agrees with me, because he is saying that the situation around the world is so unstable due to the gouging of the oil companies that this crisis can no longer be left to the markets. He says it is time we started to tax that windfall back.
We are not saying it is wrong to make profit. Profit is good. It is what drives industry. However, companies are gouging people over their fears of inflation and using the Russian war to pad their pockets. How are they padding them? Let us talk about the $52 billion in the second quarter of this year, which is an increase of 235%. That is the kind of gouging that is going on.
The United Nations, California, the EU and even President Biden are talking about the windfall tax that is necessary to pull some of that gouging back and restore it to ordinary Canadians. That is our job in the House of Commons, to stand up for the people who do not have a voice in the back rooms of power, who do not have the lobbyists and who do not have the Cayman Islands to hide their tax accounts. They have to go and feed their kids. They deserve dental care. They deserve an investigation into the gouging that is going on in the grocery stores right now.
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- Oct/6/22 3:58:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, to those who say there is no such thing as miracles, I note that my hon. colleague from the Liberals, who until just recently was dead set against a federal dental care plan, has seen the light. I appreciate that. When someone has seen the light, we have to welcome them into the light.
As for the leader of the Conservative Party, he has nothing to worry about with his pumpkin pie this weekend. He does not have to worry about how much sugar is put in there for his kids because he has had free dental care since he was elected at 20-some years old. His family has free dental care. All the Conservatives have free dental care. They just do not want working class parents to get free dental care. That is the issue I have.
I do not care how many pumpkin pies are put on the table. Nobody is going to swallow that malarky.
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- Oct/6/22 4:00:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one thing that always strikes me about the Conservatives when we are talking about people not being able to pay their bills is that they are very concerned that big oil is not getting enough of a free deal. Nine billion dollars is the figure for one year of climate damage in British Columbia. How many farms were wrecked by climate damage? We never hear the Conservatives worry about that, because they are focused on big oil. They believe that pollution should be free and that the big oil companies should be able to jack as much CO2 into the air as possible.
My issue with the carbon tax is that the Liberals do not seem to have a climate plan to go with it, so they are raising the money. I find it really concerning that when we are talking about price gouging and about bringing this forward so the producers are heard at the table, the Conservatives want to talk about the interests of big oil.
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- Oct/6/22 4:02:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I invite my hon. colleague to take a plane and go up to the north of her riding to see what people pay in the northern stores. They are ripped off consistently. Does she think that the northern stores are not making massive amounts of money? The northern stores' CEO is making millions as well. This is happening to her constituents.
Loblaws made $901 million, up $132 million. Metro made $680 million, up $49 million over the last year. Sobeys made $744.8 million, up $46.7 million. The member can talk about input costs and COVID, but we are talking about price gouging.
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- Oct/6/22 4:10:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in response to that, because we do have a tradition in Parliament, I would like the hon. member to clarify whether he thinks the member for Carleton was just trying to attract incels in general, or maybe even some on the back bench.
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- Oct/6/22 4:28:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I guess the issue for me is the massive disconnect that is happening as people are struggling and we are see announcements of massive profits. Yesterday, I was watching the news and Loblaws was bragging about its newest innovation, which is that it is not going to bother having drivers in its vehicles. It is going to have driverless vehicles. People are standing in the grocery line because they have to do their own checkout now, working for Loblaws for free.
The message Loblaws is sending is that not only is it making record profits, and not only is it gouging us, but it is also going to fire its drivers and go to driverless so Galen Weston's gated community can have more money coming in. At a time when we need good jobs, a good solid economy and good corporate behaviour, what kind of message is Loblaws sending us?
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