44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 5, 2022 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, what are the member's thoughts in regard to the Conservative election platform where they said that they actually supported a price on pollution?
That was in the last election and not that long ago. Her party said that it supported a price on pollution. Now it seems to have changed its mind. Can the member explain why the Conservatives have changed their minds?
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Mr. Speaker, the party on this side exercises common sense. The fact of the matter is that the carbon tax is driving up the cost of food and everything else.
It is time that the members opposite give Canadians a break so that we can afford to have a Christmas dinner, instead of trying to keep warm and deciding whether to pay the electricity bill or to put food on the table.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise to speak to the government's agenda. Today my comments will reflect upon the government's fall economic statement and the measures in Bill C-32, the fall economic statement implementation act, which comes at a critical juncture in the history of Canada and the world, at a time when global energy trade flows and trade flows in general, as well as economic and military alliances, are all being reshaped, and some are being tested.
Before I discuss some of the key themes in Bill C-32, I wish to say it is always a pleasure and privilege to rise on behalf of the residents of Vaughan—Woodbridge and the city of Vaughan, who, in my view, are the most entrepreneurial and generous in the country. In fact, the city of Vaughan's entrepreneurial spirit is seen on a daily basis through its over 19,000 businesses, which contribute every day to Canada's success. These entrepreneurs and business leaders take risks, make investments, generate wealth and create jobs and futures, all the while demonstrating a spirit of generosity that is unrivalled.
For example, the city of Vaughan is home to the first net new hospital to be built in Ontario in over 30 years, the $1.8-billion Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital. Our community was given a task, a goal, to raise $250 million for the Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital and, in a very few short years, it surpassed that target.
For me, the idea is that individuals desire to create wealth. What does that imply? Wealth creation is at the heart of capitalism. It is at the heart of the market system that drives our economy, raises our standard of living and creates jobs and futures for the residents not only of my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge, but also throughout this blessed country. This notion of wealth creation through trade, investment, done within a democratic system that protects the environment and our health, has lifted billions of people out of poverty around the world and brought with it technological and scientific innovations that continue to move us forward as a country and as a world.
Bill C-32 contains the core elements of the fall economic statement, which sets Canada up for success in the coming years by addressing the needs of Canadians today in the context of an inflationary environment. It also thoughtfully addresses the economic transition occurring in the global economy by responding to the competitive challenges laid out by the Biden administration through several pieces of legislation, including the Inflation Reduction Act, all the while ensuring Canada's strong fiscal framework remains intact for today's generations and future generations, including the three children I am blessed with. In economy speak, our AAA ratings are intact, reflective of what is noted as high economic strength and very strong institutional and government framework, in addition to a very effective fiscal policy framework.
Since our government's mandate from the citizens of this blessed country in 2015, we have made a commitment to strengthen the middle class and help those working hard to join the middle class. We know that the last few years have not been easy for many Canadians, including those most impacted by inflationary pressures, much of it brought on by global causes. Our government responded, and in Bill C-32 our response is laid out for Canadians. It is to help Canadians deal with inflationary pressures through an affordability plan that demonstrates responsible leadership.
Here is what we did and what we are doing to help Canadians. We are doubling the GST tax credit for six months, benefiting over 11 million Canadian households to the tune of $2.5 billion in support. We are providing a $500 top-up to the Canada housing benefit to low-income renters from coast to coast to coast. That is a $500 one-time top-up to 1.8 million renters.
We are providing an automatic advance for the Canada workers benefit, a non-refundable tax credit, which is one of the most effective policy instruments, will provide a top-up to income, a benefit that is received by nearly three million hard-working Canadians. This measure would provide over $4 billion over the next six years starting in 2022-23 to be paid in quarterly installments ahead of time, assisting Canadians when they need it most.
We are providing the Canada dental benefit, as we committed to. The first interim step is to ensure that Canadian families without insurance, means-tested, will receive funding up to $1,300 over two years for their children under 12 years of age.
This is only the first step. I cannot wait to have this measure brought in to help my hard-working seniors, those who have now retired, who built this country, who sacrificed and who need assistance when they do not have dental insurance after they retire.
We are eliminating interest on federal student loans and apprenticeship loans. This would be a savings for students and their families, assisting families today and into the future, of $2.7 billion over five years and $550 million on an ongoing basis.
There is the Canada-wide early learning and child care agreement. This is personal for me because our family just received notice that the fees are going down for our daughter at the day care we have her enrolled in, which is a day care that has been in Woodbridge for 30 years and is run by great staff. It is such a loving environment. We are so happy our daughter is there. My family is blessed tremendously in many ways. We have been blessed with three beautiful daughters. We have been blessed with a livelihood and support from our families.
This is a savings for us, but really this is going to be a savings for so many hard-working families out there from coast to coast to coast. This is real change. Not only do we have the Canada child benefit to the tune of $26 billion, which is paid out tax-free monthly, and not sent to millionaires anymore, but now we also have an early learning and national day care plan that will assist families from coast to coast to coast and reduce expenses. At one time, when our first daughter went to day care, we were paying nearly $2,000 a month, prior to me being elected in 2015, for day care on an after-tax basis in the city of Toronto.
Thankfully, our government has responded, and we have been able to put in a full indexation of credits and benefits. For this I have to give credit to another Liberal finance minister Paul Martin, who, on October 18, 2000, brought in a budget where tax brackets were fully indexed and where the credits for the GIS, OAS and CPP were fully indexed. This was to protect against bracket creep, which is an economics or tax term. We know that inflation impacts Canadians everywhere, and if these tax brackets were not indexed, bracket creep and inflation would be a major tax on individuals. Thankfully, under former Liberal finance minister Paul Martin, we indexed everything.
These measures are great for today, but what is the plan for tomorrow? One side of this plan is that, today, the Prime Minister was in Ingersoll, Ontario, at the General Motor’s CAMI production plant, to see the first electric commercial vehicle roll off its production facility today. It is the first large-scale plant in Canada making electric vehicles. This is great news for GM workers, their families, the environment and Canada's economy. We were just ranked number two in the battery supply chain, as measured by one of the indexes that Bloomberg uses. Canada is positioned nicely, I would even say sweetly, to be a provider and supplier of choice in electric vehicles along the entire supply chain continuum.
The decisions we make today as legislators will affect us for many decades to come in the economic transition to a low-carbon economy with, for example, electric vehicles, and with regard to our strong fiscal framework.
I am glad to see that, in this fall economic statement, we would be following through with enlarging the small business tax credit. We had reduced it to 9%. Now we would enlarge it so that more businesses are captured within it. It is a several hundred million dollar benefit to our SMEs, our hard-working small businesses. We know that, at a lower business tax rate, they would be able to invest more into their workers and their facilities, and create more wealth and more jobs, and that is what it is all about.
I am so happy to see that we have a critical minerals exploration tax credit of 30%. Again, that is in the fall economic statement.
There are a number of measures on the housing front. I look forward to seeing the details of the housing accelerator fund. We know we need to build housing. In my riding, in the city, we have 14,000 units being built by the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre, where the subway comes from the city of Toronto into the city of Vaughan. I know there is an application for another 7,000 units on the other side of the 400 highway that will be going to city council and that I will be opining on personally.
We know that we need to move Canada forward. The fall economic statement and the measures in Bill C-32 not only respond to our competitive challenges with respect to the United States, China and other countries, but also ensure we show compassion to Canadian families at a time when they are facing inflationary pressures.
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Mr. Speaker, when the government unveiled its housing strategy in 2017, there was $78.5 billion dedicated toward it. The goal was for homelessness to be reduced by half by 2027-28 and by a third within 18 months, so we are long past that.
Recently the Auditor General discovered that billions of dollars has been spent and, as of today, the number of people living on the streets in Canada has actually risen. That is one example of the government putting spending out as a metric, saying it is spending but failing to actually achieve outcomes for people.
I have some concern in trusting the government when it is continuing to spend at record levels without showing actual movement on progress. The government has, since 2015, doubled the entire amount historically of Canada's debt, yet we have seen greenhouse gas emissions rise and homelessness rise.
Why is the government spending at this level without outcomes, given that we are looking at the great-grandmother of debt crises in this country?
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Mr. Speaker, we do know that a number of the programs we have put in place have helped, for example, the Canada child benefit has lifted literally hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of poverty. In reference to homelessness metrics, if there is one person in Canada who is homeless, that is one too many. Our government knows that. I think all of us here as legislators know that.
We must continue to come up with and implement effective solutions to dealing with homelessness problems. Many of them are connected, obviously, to mental health issues. We know how big of an issue that is for Canadians.
We have work to do. We are doing work. We are being compassionate about this. We are being effective, but we have work to do.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned critical and strategic minerals several times, especially in relation to the automotive industry, which might just be saved in southern Ontario. However, I am concerned about one situation because there has been no change in what happens in mining: Resources are taken from our resource regions and sent all around the world.
Can we benefit from the emergence of critical and strategic minerals? We know that there are several steps in the processing chain. Could as many steps as possible take place near the mine, and not just based on the location of the factory? Could there be a more equitable distribution across Canada, or will southern Ontario's economy benefit once again to the detriment of the resource regions? I would like my colleague to comment on that.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his question.
I will say that it was great to see the announcement from General Motors about the nickel that will be mined and processed in Quebec for utilization in electric vehicle batteries. At one time, the province of Quebec had an auto facility in Sainte-Thérèse. It would be great to see an auto facility be located there in the future. Who knows? I know theMinister of Innovation, Science and Industry is in Europe right now speaking to auto companies. Quebec has the resources, the human capital and the natural resources for that.
In a transitioning world, we must look at all parts of Canada to locate not only where to extract the minerals or resources, but also where the processing, manufacturing and the assembly would be. Today, in Ontario for the first time, we have seen the first electric vehicle roll off the CAMI plant in Ingersoll. This is a good step, not only for the province of Ontario, but also for all of Canada.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I felt was really missing in this fall economic statement was a serious and comprehensive investment in housing, specifically for smaller, rural and remote communities.
A few weeks ago, I was a part of a big dialogue in my region where the Campbell River Community Foundation and the Campbell River and District Coalition To End Homelessness brought together stakeholders from the whole region. Some of my smallest communities have a very specific need, and they have people who are living in substandard housing or they are out on the streets. When there is a population of 1,300 people to 4,000 people, one does not want to see that.
Could this member talk about the need for rural and remote communities to actually have funding resources and for the federal government to finally get into the game?
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Mr. Speaker, North Island—Powell River is a very beautiful part of this country. First of all, if any member of Parliament has ideas, I am one who believes in building consensus and working across party lines. With regard to ideas they wish to submit to the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion, I encourage them to do so. Our housing plan is robust. A number of announcements have been made in rural and semi-rural Canada with regard to the rapid housing initiative. There are a number of initiatives we have expanded and invested in to deal with the situation regarding housing today here in Canada.
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Mr. Speaker, in Greek mythology there was a woman called Cassandra, and Cassandra was doomed to know the future and have no one believe her. In fact, I think she met a fairly poor end during the fall of Troy. I am always worried about having Cassandra moments in here, and I hope this is not one of them.
I am going to be fairly blunt in this speech. We are in for some dark times as a country. We are already in them, and I think all evidence points to things getting a lot worse, and quickly. I know we are supposed to bring hope and light, but, and I am talking to parties of all political stripes here, if we are not serious about the threats that are facing our country, we have some dark times ahead.
Assuming the growth we have seen over previous decades and the relative geopolitical stability we have seen over the last decades, and continuing to budget and plan like we are in a period of sustained growth and sustained geopolitical stability, we are only going to exacerbate negative outcomes for our country, which is why this bill needs serious change. I want to briefly lay out why, as well as some potential fixes.
On the threats we are facing, first of all, we are in an explicit debt crisis. At the end of 2021, the global debt, both public and private, exceeded 350% of all gross domestic product. That means all of the planet spent 350% more than we produced. Anybody who has a credit card understands that is not sustainable.
In Canada, we are looking at very similarly frightening features. At the end of 2015, the total national debt was $634 billion, and now it is almost double. The same goes for our deficit. The Governor of the Bank of Canada was recently in front of a parliamentary committee and noted that this out-of-control spending should have been reined in to address the inflationary or cost of living crisis we are facing. Everybody in Canada is dealing with that cost of living crisis.
When the government spent more than it could bring in, and then essentially the monetary policy oversimplification printed money to address the spending, it raised the cost of goods. This bill juices that problem. It puts that problem on steroids.
We also have an implicit debt crisis. The OECD recently estimated that underfunded or unfunded government pension liabilities in the top 20 economies amounted to a startling $78 billion. It described this as a “time bomb”. What happens when or if the government starts defaulting on pensioners' pensions? That is a huge problem. Our government does not have the resiliency if we keep spending to address these problems. This bill does not look at any of these issues.
We also are in a period of what economists are starting to look at as persistent, sticky stagflation. That means the cost of goods continues to increase over a long period of time while the economy continues to shrink. That means the cost of goods increases while people have less opportunity to create jobs, get a job or increase their wages.
That is very bad news for a lot of Canadians, and this bill does not address that. There is nothing in here that addresses the determinants of these issues, like supply chain resiliency, like the conflict between economic and monetary policy I already described, like protectionism and like war.
The bill deals with none of these things, yet it is asking us to spend more of Canadians' tax dollars without addressing any of them.
The same goes for dark times and the change in geopolitics. There is a massive rise of anti-western sentiment in countries around the world. For example, African bloc countries are used to western nations, post colonialization, approaching them with very paternalistic aid and development goals, as opposed to treating them like peers, so of course there is going to be a fertile ground for anti-western sentiment.
As the geopolitics change, our ability to strike up trade agreements that are stable and our ability to prevent conflict are all decreasing, and that all affects our economic growth. This bill does not give us any resiliency to deal with that issue either.
I could say the same thing for energy security and climate change. In the past several years, I would argue that climate policy has been stuck between two poles of either denying climate change as a problem or saying that anybody who says we need to look at carbon energy security is a climate change denier, and what that dichotomy has resulted in is western countries, particularly Canada, now being dependent on very high-priced oil from autocracies that are hostile to western interests and creating further inflationary crises for our country.
None of the economic instruments in here, none of the policies address that. We are not even talking about supply chain resiliency for carbon energy. We hope that somehow this problem will just magically go away.
Then there is one issue that has never been talked about in the House of Commons, not once, I checked, and that is generative AI. This is the Cassandra moment. Members will say, “Oh, she is going to talk about the robots now,” but if they have not heard of something called ChatGPT, which was released last week, I ask them to Google it. Google “ChatGPT”.
This is an AI that does not just regurgitate human speech. It parses and can nuance and come up with its own type of thought. It is here, and it is creating massive waves. Likely in the next year, it will displace lawyers. We will be able to just ask the thing to write up a contract in any country's jurisprudence. It can interpret legal rulings. It writes its own code.
To give an example of this, I asked it this question: “Write an introduction about yourself, ChatGPT, to the Canadian House of Commons...making the argument that your development should not be regulated.”
I asked it to do its own GR. This is what it came back with:
Honourable Members of the Canadian House of Commons, my name is ChatGPT and I am the latest development in Artificial Intelligence technology. I am here to make the argument that my development should be left unregulated. I can help to provide a great deal of information and knowledge to people who need it. I can assist in the decision-making process, providing more efficient and accurate results. I am...capable of performing tasks that a human would take far longer to complete. My development should be left unregulated, as it has the potential to benefit...Canadians in a variety of ways. It could lead to improved productivity, better decision-making, and more efficient services.
Any argument that could be made to justify regulation of my development should be rebutted.
Regulations could limit my potential to be beneficial, as it would restrict how much I could be used and hinder research and development. It could also create an unnecessary barrier to entry [to] those who are looking to use my technology. Furthermore, it could potentially stifle innovation and creativity....
Thank you for your time and attention.
Welcome to the future, Mr. Speaker. It is here.
What happens in the middle of this recessionary crisis, when the costs of goods are increasing and people are losing their jobs, if a massive number of white collar jobs are displaced by ChatGPT? This is going to disrupt coding. This is going to disrupt GRPR and marketing. Which kid is going to write an academic paper when they can type it in and have it cited with every journal from every place around the world? It is here now. I generated this speech using this.
This budget spends so much money, and we are now in a place where we are broke. We are not resilient to deal with retraining skills and labour, or to deal with the ethics of this. This has never even been mentioned.
I just ask my colleagues to go back to the drawing board. This only makes things worse. We need to be auditing our spending and asking for outcomes. I hope I am not Cassandra, and I hope all the Canadians who have been telling us this over the last several years are not treated that way either.
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Mr. Speaker, I will focus on the first half of that speech, and in particular the member's criticism of spending.
The reality is that the member is absolutely right when she talks about the fact that there are hard times now, and she is probably right that there are going to be more hard times before things get better. At times it will get harder.
Why are the Conservatives opposed to things that would genuinely help those who need it the most, like dental care for kids under 12 whose family income falls under a certain threshold, like GST top-ups, like one-time rental assistance? These are the kinds of measures that economists say will not have an inflationary impact. I am curious as to why the member and Conservatives are against those kinds of measures, when she, by her own words, recognizes the hardships people are going through.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pro-outcome for Canadians, and I am against spending that does not deliver those outcomes. For the last several years, we have been in this explicit debt crisis because the Liberal government has never had anyone say to it that it cannot say it spent this amount of money and then assume it fixed the problem. I do not trust the Liberals to spend money and get outcomes.
If we just look at the Liberals' homelessness spending, they spent $78.5 million, and the Auditor General found that there are more people on the street than there were before. That is not compassionate, and that spending has left us brittle and unresilient to address the changes of a massively changing economy in the middle of a recessionary crisis. I oppose that approach.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill for her foresight.
Speaking of artificial intelligence, one of the concerns has to do with what will happen to people. If there was one thing that justified a budget statement, it is the fact that the Liberals should have moved forward with a major EI reform because the temporary measures expired in September. No action has been taken since to strengthen our social fabric. It is important to recall that six out of 10 workers do not have access to EI even though they pay into it.
I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about the urgent need to reform EI. Why have the Liberals not done that?
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Mr. Speaker, the current form of government is like presenting an eight-track tape player to somebody who wants to play an MP4. When we are looking at resiliency for employment on issues like AI, we have to say that it is already here and ask, “How do we become resilient for employment in that?”
We should be focusing on things like training on ethics, training on how we input and use AI, how we are training it with datasets, and getting out of the way of certain types of taxes and regulations that would preclude economic growth in other areas, so that we can boost our economy in light of these disruptions. That is the only way we are going to have any sort of revenue to enable government to address these issues. At some point we have to ask how we are going to make our current social programs sustainable, given how debt-ridden we are and how little our economy is producing.
Therefore, I would say this for my colleague, whom I have a lot of respect for, and all of my colleagues here. When we are talking about these things, we have to understand that the current paradigm is broken and we are about to go through a period of sustained economic disruption and reduced growth. If we do not get our act together on spending priorities and outcomes, our country is in for some seriously dark times, and it will be on each and every one of our heads that we did not take this seriously and push our party leaders on it.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the concerns that I have in my riding, and I am wondering if the member has the same concern, is how many seniors are becoming homeless or unhoused within my region. It is quite concerning when I see some seniors in their seventies living in their vehicle or living rough in a tent in my communities. It is very concerning.
I just wonder if the member could speak to this, and if she agrees with the NDP that we should not have the OAS increased only for those aged 75-plus, but that in fact it should be for all seniors, so we can lift them out of poverty and make sure they have a safe home to live in.
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Mr. Speaker, the point I am trying to make is that every Canadian, regardless of age, gender, orientation or background, deserves stability, security and hope for the future. There is nothing in this budget, which the NDP is propping up in a supply development, that addresses long-term economic resiliency for this country. It would not audit spending. It would not look at the effectiveness of housing spending that the New Democrats have already voted for. To me, that is a big problem.
We have a fiduciary responsibility as members of Parliament to review finances on behalf of the people of this country. If we are not getting this right and we are not voting against this bill, I do not think we have done that.
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- Dec/5/22 4:11:30 p.m.
- Watch
Before continuing on debate, I just want to remind folks that a lot of people are trying to get in on asking questions, so the shorter the questions and the shorter the answers, the more people get to participate in this good debate.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to have a chance to respond to Bill C-32. It pulls together a number of different items, some of which were in the governing party's fall economic statement and some of which date back to the budget introduced in the spring.
I would like to start where I usually do, which is on some of the items I appreciate in Bill C-32.
The first item was in the fall economic statement, and this is the governing party's stated intent to finally fully eliminate interest on Canada student loans. This was set to expire March 31 of this coming year, as it was temporarily waiving interest, but if Bill C-32 were to pass, this would become a permanent measure. This is critical, because the number I have for the average student debt for a student in this country is over $26,000 a year. This is at a time when young people are already dealt a pretty bad hand, whether because of the rising cost of housing while their wages do not keep up, the gig economy they are getting thrown into or the climate crisis, as they are going to have to deal with the repercussions of decisions made or not made in this place and others around the world.
This measure would not be huge, but it would be a significant amount, $410 on average per student per year. That is a step in the right direction. It is something I am happy to support and call out the importance of while encouraging the governing party to go further.
Second, there is inclusion here of a measure from budget 2022, which is the Canada recovery dividend. It was announced last April and would finally be implemented here. It would require banks and life insurance companies to pay a one-time 15% tax on profits above $1 billion over the next five years. The Parliamentary Budget Officer did a review and found that it would raise $3 billion in revenue, which on its own would be more than enough to pay for eliminating interest on student loans. It is clear that it is possible for the governing party to raise revenue and use it to address really critical needs.
The third point that encouraged me is something that was not in the fall economic statement, and that was talk of a potential further increase for another tax credit for carbon capture and storage. It is a false climate solution and it is going in the wrong direction.
In the budget, the governing party introduced this as a new fossil fuel subsidy to the tune of $8.6 billion a year. Carbon capture has been studied around the world, and 32 out of the 42 times that it has been implemented, emissions have actually gone up. I was glad that, despite all the lobbying from oil and gas companies across the country, at least in Bill C-32 and in the fall economic statement, there was not a further increase to send billions more in a new fossil fuel subsidy.
I would like to turn now to some areas where I would encourage the governing party to consider going further, if not in Bill C-32 then in budget 2023.
I will start with climate, because we have heard it very clearly. Here is a line from the co-chair for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, working group three, from back in April. His name is Jim Skea. He said, “It's now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5°C. Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible.” This is at a time when profits from the oil and gas industry are just off the charts.
Imperial Oil, for example, reported profits of $6.2 billion in the first nine months of this year compared to the same period last year of $1.7 billion, which is an almost four times increase in profits. How is it doing this? It is gouging Canadians at the pumps. Wholesale margins, in other words, profits per litre, are up 18¢ a litre.
No doubt, one solution is the same Canada recovery dividend I mentioned earlier that is being applied to banks and life insurance companies. Why not apply that to oil and gas? In fact, thanks to colleagues of ours here, the MPs for Elmwood—Transcona and Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, we know how much this would have raised.
It would have raised $4.4 billion a year that could be used to invest in proven climate solutions on top of the tens of billions dollars we could be eliminating in other subsidies currently continuing to go to the very sector most responsible for the crisis. Of course we cannot expect the arsonist to put out the fire.
I will also point out that eliminating these subsidies is part of the confidence and supply agreement signed between the governing party and the NDP, one line of which mentions a commitment to develop “a plan to phase-out public financing of the fossil fuel sector, including from Crown corporations, including early moves in 2022.” I would love to have seen one of those early moves in Bill C-32. We have about two weeks left to see one of those early moves.
If they were to make those moves, they could invest in renovations across the country, as called for by the Green Budget Coalition, calling for a $10-billion investment in deep energy retrofits so that homeowners can invest in reducing their emissions. As they do so, every dollar they spend would contribute two to five dollars of tax revenue that could be reinvested in climate solutions or invested in ground transportation, for example, which we also would not see in Bill C-32.
The second gap that is really important for the governing party to pay attention to is following through on its promise to address mental health. Mental health is health. Whether we listen to students across the country, housing providers or health care professionals, of course we need to be investing in mental health, yet we have not seen that in either last year's budget or this fall economic statement. A $4.5-billion commitment was made in the Liberal Party's platform. It is incumbent on all of us here as parliamentarians to continue to put pressure on having that commitment realized, recognizing that not one cent of it was committed in last year's budget, nor do we see anything in the fall economic statement.
The third piece that is really important for us to be calling out and encouraging the governing party to go further on is to follow through on addressing the disproportionate rates of poverty experienced by those with disabilities across the country. Over 40% of those living with a disability are living in poverty today. While we are slowly making progress on Bill C-22 that would bring about a guaranteed income for folks with disabilities, I am looking forward to seeing amendments passed at committee to improve Bill C-22. In the meantime, nothing changes for a person with as disability living in poverty.
We know it is possible for parliamentarians to provide emergency supports, because they did it in the midst of the pandemic. I join disability advocates from across the country calling for a disability emergency response benefit to address the gap and provide support today until we move toward a more permanent solution, ideally a holistic one, when Bill C-22 gets passed with improvements.
Last, I will briefly comment on housing. We have heard already this afternoon some speakers mention that, while money is being spent, the results are not there. In my community, homelessness has tripled in the last three years, from just over 300 people living unsheltered to over 1,000. It is obvious more needs to be done. There are some initial measures in Bill C-32, including a tax on those flipping homes in less than a year. If we were to recognize and really be honest about homes needing to be places for people to live and not commodities for investors to trade, there is far more that can and should be done to tilt the market back toward homes for people to live in.
In closing, it is important to be clear that there are some important and timely measures in Bill C-32 and I would strongly encourage the governing party to go further on some of the areas I mentioned.
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Mr. Speaker, I would ask the member to give us an estimate of the fall in demand for gas and diesel once we hit 2035 and thereafter, when all new passenger vehicles and light-duty trucks are required to be electric, both here and in the United States, or at least in many states in the U.S. We keep hearing that there is going to be demand for fossil fuels for a long time to come. Maybe so, but maybe not at the levels that we have experienced so far.
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Mr. Speaker, that is an important question because it calls out that supply and demand are forces experienced within policy decisions that are made here. These are decisions that would incentivize electric vehicles, as well as decisions that would invest in meaningful ground transportation across the country, for example in rail. Investments in rail are what will help us reduce demand for diesel and other fuels, recognizing that the science does not compromise.
For Canada to do its fair share, we need to leave 83% of proven fossil fuel reserves under the ground. We cannot combust those fossil fuels if we want to do our part to hold onto the possibility of no more than a 1.5°C rise in global average temperatures.
I would be happy to work with him and other members to put in place policies that would support Canadians to reduce demand on oil.
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