44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 27, 2022 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, I do not know if the member for Winnipeg North's mother ever used the expression, “Just because someone's friends go jump off a bridge does not mean they should too.”
It is true. There are other countries that have inflation. They followed the same failed policies the government did. There are lots of times in human history when there seem to be a lot of people making the same mistakes. That does not make it right. To the Canadian who is going through the grocery store aisle and buying things we make here in Canada at inflated prices, it is no comfort to know that other countries are paying higher prices too.
Other countries made the same mistakes. They printed money. They have inflation. Some countries did not print money to pay for their spending. Some countries, like Switzerland, maintained fiscal discipline, and that is why they are not experiencing inflation. That is the reason other countries—
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- Oct/27/22 5:02:39 p.m.
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The hon. member for Mirabel.
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Madam Speaker, we had a good, constructive opposition day this week. Throughout the day, both Liberal and Conservative members told us that there was no time to talk about such important issues in the House.
I would like to ask the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle if he believes that the fact that the Liberals and the NDP tripled the number of closure motions in the House leaves us more time to debate such important issues as the monarchy.
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Madam Speaker, I enjoy debating philosophical aspects.
I really enjoy esoteric philosophy-based discussions. I studied political science, and it is always interesting to talk about the best way to build a government and have a debate, perhaps over a glass of wine after dinner. However, I am sure that Canadians are more concerned about what their money can buy than they are about whose face is on it.
I basically agree with the member about government motions. We have had a few motions and bills that have nothing to do with the cost of living crisis.
I hope the government will present real solutions.
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Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague from Regina—Qu'Appelle. I did not hear, in his speech, any mention of dental care.
I imagine this is because he does not, in fact, support the idea of expanding universal health care to include care for people's teeth. I appreciate an honest disagreement as much as the next guy.
My question is around consistency. Through much of his remarks, he talked about his view that the government should not be providing directed financial relief to the people hardest hit by this crisis, because, in his view, it is inflationary.
Why, then, did he vote for Bill C-30, given that the measures in Bill C-30 are very similar to the relief measures in Bill C-31? The money all comes from the same place. I think people appreciate consistency more than anything. Perhaps he could explain.
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Madam Speaker, I am happy to do that. There is a big difference between lowering the tax burden on Canadians and new spending. It is as simple as that.
I just want to take issue with one of the major principles with the far left these days and this idea that the government has a big pile of cash and all we are really doing is fighting over how to spend it.
The government does not have a dollar that it does not first take out of the economy, that it does not first take out of someone's pocket.
Is the hon. member comfortable saddling Canadians with more financial burdens and higher costs of government? That cost, the cost for this program, has to be paid for by taxpayers. It adds to the inflation crisis, because the government has to first borrow to pay for it.
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Madam Speaker, I know my hon. colleague from Regina—Qu'Appelle well, and I was in this place and certainly a close watcher of the Harper administration for years. I would like to put to the member that if Stephen Harper had been prime minister at the beginning of the COVID outbreak, there is no doubt in my mind that he would have done exactly the same things the Liberal government did. That is because every economy and central bank throughout the G20 followed the same prescription. It was dictated to us through the International Monetary Fund. I urge the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle to check the June 17, 2020 report of the IMF. The central banks throughout the G20 followed all the same prescriptions: low interest rates and fiscal quantitative easing. Any member of the public can check it out.
The reasons for Switzerland's not having high inflation have nothing to do with what the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle said. The reasons have a lot to do with the fact that before the war in Ukraine the cost of living in Switzerland was already 51% higher than in Germany, because it has a very regulated economy. It has renewable energy locked in and high electricity prices.
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Madam Speaker, unfortunately I will not have enough time to point out all the errors that the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands just made in her statement.
I have here the “Economic and Fiscal Update 2021: Issues for Parliamentarians”, from the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. While there is no doubt that a Conservative government would have found ways to support Canadians through an unprecedented pandemic, there are lots of ways that governments can do it without running the printing presses at the central bank.
I just want to read a very important stat from the report: “[S]ince the start of the pandemic, the Government has spent, or has planned to spend, $541.9 billion in new measures...of which [$176 billion] is not part of the COVID-19 Response Plan.
That is the major point here. Yes, there was a pandemic. Yes, there were unprecedented actions that governments had to take. However, there were lots of things along the way that the government did not have to do. The Liberal government chose to use the pandemic to try to enrich its friends at the WE organization. It chose to use the pandemic to give contracts out to former Liberal MPs. It chose to use the pandemic to create—
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- Oct/27/22 5:08:29 p.m.
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Questions and comments, the hon. member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands.
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Madam Speaker, this bill is $10 billion in new spending. There is a $500 one-time payment in it. I was reading an article about mortgage rates, and from October 2021 to May 2022 the average mortgage price per month went up $800. I cannot even imagine how much it has gone up since then as interest rates have continued to go up. I am just wondering what my hon. colleague thinks prices would be like now.
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Madam Speaker, this is the devastating reality that many Canadians are waking up to in the coming weeks and months as mortgages come up for renewal. I have already heard from friends and relatives of mine who maybe had a 2% or a 2.25% interest rate four or five years ago and are now renewing at 6%, 7% or 8%. Many Canadians are going to be faced with the tragic, sad reality that they are going to have to just toss the keys back to the bank, because they will not be able to make those payments.
The Prime Minister erroneously said to Canadians that the government was going to go into debt so Canadians did not have to. This is how Canadians are paying for it. They are getting stuck with the bill. The Liberals got the party. Canadians are paying the bill, and the sticker shock on that bill is awful. It is one more reason we should come here with sleeves rolled up and pencils out to be finding new ways to lower the cost of government, rather than finding new ways to borrow money to spend.
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Madam Speaker, I have a question for my colleague from Regina—Qu'Appelle. Bill C-31 sets out a dental care program. That is part of health care, which, according to the Constitution, falls under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces.
The government chose to interfere in that jurisdiction rather than doing its job in its own jurisdictions. Meanwhile, in Quebec, we have a dental care program for kids that is almost the same as the one proposed here. However, the government fails to take Quebec's program into account in its bill. It is ramming its bill through by imposing gag orders. There is no harmonization with provincial jurisdictions. This centralizing government has no regard for jurisdiction and what exists elsewhere.
What does my hon. colleague think about that?
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Madam Speaker, I agree with the member that there are a lot of provincial programs and that this new program will increase the cost of government and interfere in areas under provincial jurisdiction.
However, it is ironic that this question would come from the Bloc Québécois, because the Bloc wants the government to increase the carbon tax, which is also an intrusion into—
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- Oct/27/22 5:11:23 p.m.
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Resuming debate. The hon. member for Mirabel.
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Madam Speaker, I would ask the consent of the House to share my time with the eminently honourable member for Joliette.
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- Oct/27/22 5:11:41 p.m.
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Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to share his time?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
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Madam Speaker, there are 338 members in the House. We were elected by people who went to the polls and asked us to work for them in a constructive manner to develop better public policies, better transfer programs, to improve their quality of life and the quality of services. I am utterly convinced that despite our different views on a number of things, the 338 people seated here today are here for the right reasons. That is why we need to work together.
When we develop public policies like the ones in Bill C‑31, we have to work hard in a non-partisan way to deliver better programs, especially with an ambitious bill like this. This forces us to collaborate, reflect, draft several versions of the bill, amend it, consult people, experts, the communities and respect the voice of those who elected us. That too is part of our job.
That is the part of our job we were prevented from doing with the botched process surrounding Bill C‑31, which was disrespectful of parliamentarians. This bill was concocted at the last minute in the middle of the summer because the leader of the NDP went on the news and said that their agreement might be off. Now we find ourselves stuck with Bill C‑31. Truly, this bill seems like it was drafted on a napkin. When something is cobbled together at the last minute, the parliamentary process becomes even more important. The role of members of Parliament and the opposition parties, the experience and the expertise on both sides of the House become even more crucial in improving this bill, which is obviously more likely to be flawed than bills that have been introduced once, twice or three times in the House and that have already been examined in parliament.
How can we contribute to this work? Through hours of debate in the House and the work we do in committee. That takes time, planning and preparation. We can speed things up a little, but it takes energy, time and witnesses from society at large. We cannot do our work in a vacuum. We cannot do that. The people who elect us deserve better. We need numbers, like the ones we get from the Parliamentary Budget Officer. It takes time to introduce amendments, to consider those amendments, to study and debate them. Sometimes, amendments enable us to ensure nobody is excluded by these policies. That is definitely true of Bill C‑31.
Then we come back to the House at report stage and third reading. The hours we spend debating bills to improve them are important. Anyone who truly believes in the parliamentary system and in our institutions sees the value in that.
I see the hon. member for Winnipeg North over there. He knows this better than most because he spends 23 hours a day debating in the House.
After doing that work, then at least we can be confident that the work was done. Obviously we are not all going to vote the same way. Most of the time, we are not going to agree, but we will all have the sense that we did what we were supposed to and that we are voting on work that is as complete as it should be.
In this case, we did not skip one step, we did not skip two steps, we did not skip three steps. We skipped every step of the legislative process. Parliamentarians were fully prevented from doing their job. We were subjugated by the executive branch of government. In effect, parliamentarians were muzzled, both in committee and here in the House. It felt like we were being told that we had nothing to say, that we were not being constructive, when the government imposed not just closure, but super closure.
After muzzling the House, the government told us we had nothing more to say. Apparently we did have things to say, things that could have improved this bill. Members on this side of the House are just as competent as members across the way. We were told that the committee would sit on a Monday evening from 7 p.m. until midnight. If the work was not done at midnight, if there was a fire alarm or some such interruption, the amendments would no longer be negotiated and would no longer be discussed. Our work would go in the garbage, and the bill would be adopted as-is at report stage.
We were prevented from hearing from some witnesses. Oddly enough, we had originally agreed to have four hours of testimony. We had an in camera meeting two days later, and the witnesses were gone. We had only an hour and a half with two ministers at the same time. I must say, the ministers were ill prepared and visibly uncomfortable with the bill. The Minister of Health is an excellent economist of international renown. I could see in his eyes how uncomfortable he was with certain parts of the bill. It was palpable.
Thus, it was decided that witnesses would no longer appear and, in the end, we wound up with a bill that was not amended by the committee. What is worse, we were prevented from presenting amendments after the ministers appeared, even though we had already been prevented from hearing from witnesses. The whole amendment process was therefore short-circuited. We know that sometimes amendments are not adopted. We know that the government and the NDP, which joined forces—that is not an accusation; it is a fact—might not have adopted the amendments, but those amendments still deserved to be discussed.
This bill is therefore going to be rammed through today without any parliamentary scrutiny. As a relatively new parliamentarian, I am very disappointed by that. This is not just a closure motion. It is a super closure motion.
I see members of the Standing Committee on Health here in the House. We are in the habit of working together, talking to each other and understanding each other. We do not agree on everything, but we are able to compromise. We know that we are capable of doing that. However, the government prevented us from doing so. I felt the discomfort on both sides of the House. I felt it from the Bloc Québécois and from the Conservatives. I also felt it from government members on Monday evening in committee because they were not being allowed to do their job.
Who pays for that? We know that voter turnout is dropping. People are becoming increasingly cynical about politics. People are less and less interested in it, and now we are showing those people that this is what the democratic process is like, that MPs serve no purpose, that there is no regard for their work. Then we wonder why the public has lost confidence in our institutions.
Who will pay because people were left out of Bill C‑31? It will be the progressive parents and children in Quebec who decided to pay for certain services for those 10 and under, services that are also paid for by the federal program but that we will not be compensated for. Progressive parents in Quebec are therefore being penalized, and future generations are being jeopardized.
The Liberals and the NDP say that dental care is health care, and rightly so. It is part of overall health, but we are talking about the future of universal public health care. Essentially, the provinces are being told that if they develop these services and eventually integrate them into their health care system, the federal government will penalize them.
Who will pay for that? It will be the 86,000 people who do not qualify for the housing benefit because they live in low-rent housing or co-operatives, which are progressive housing construction models adopted by Quebec. With a small, two-line amendment, we could have included these people in the federal program, but the government refused. My colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert and I wrote again to the two ministers concerned, the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion and the Minister of Health. Since they love the Queen and the King, we implored them to use their royal prerogative to include those people. We received an acknowledgement of receipt, but that is about all.
Despite all the good intentions, how can we encourage strategic assistance for housing with a bill based on such a principle? How can we encourage the provinces to create permanent programs for housing construction when the federal government establishes programs that will penalize them for it later?
The government is basically saying that since some provinces have made an effort, it will take Canadian taxpayers' money and send it to the provinces that have not made that effort. That is the issue. Clearly, this is a flawed and unacceptable process.
The Bloc Québécois would have liked to do more to improve this bill, but as it stands, we will not be able to support it at second and third reading.
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Madam Speaker, through previous questioning it is clear that Bloc members support the principle of providing dental benefits to children under the age of 12. They are not objecting to that. It also appears to be clear that they are not against us making that a government expenditure. It seems to me that they should be voting in favour of the legislation, unless there is an alternative reason. The reason the member is putting forward is they need more time and then they will support the bill.
I wonder if the member can be clear as to why members of the Bloc do not support it. I suspect it is because they do not want Ottawa to play a role in this, which I believe would be to the detriment of kids throughout the country, as it should be available to all children.
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Madam Speaker, we are talking about the children of Quebec, so we must try to be non-partisan when it comes to this issue.
We did not have enough time to contribute and reason with the government about the right way to respect Quebec's programs. Simply put, Quebec already has a program that provides this care. It could be more generous. The provision of care is enshrined in the Constitution as a provincial jurisdiction.
I think there should have been a discussion so that we could enhance the work being done for children. Today, we are demeaning all the efforts that have been made not only by Quebec, but also by Nova Scotia, to build this care. Under the pretext of taking action for dental care, the government is in fact taking action against dental care.
It is obvious that we cannot support this principle.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my Bloc colleague for really highlighting the hypocrisy coming out of the government when it comes to the different tools that it uses to limit debate in this House. We quite often hear when the Liberals limit debate at second reading that they will solve amendment challenges and get fixes done during committee work.
What is really concerning with this bill is they did not allow expert witnesses to testify at committee and provide their opinions so that we could develop the best bill possible and get the best legislation. I would like the member to expand on that a bit.
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