44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 7, 2023 10:00AM
- Feb/7/23 3:06:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Prime Minister's incompetence, Canadians are out of money. Now we learn of more Liberal ineptitude.
Medicago closed its doors after receiving more than $173 million of Canadian taxpayer money to develop vaccines. The Liberals prepurchased $600 million of these vaccines that have yet to be produced or delivered. This week government officials said that Canadians are on the hook to pay for these vaccines.
Why is the Prime Minister paying millions of dollars of taxpayer money to a foreign company for vaccines we did not receive?
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- Feb/7/23 3:07:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I respect the member a lot. He is my critic. However, this is not the time for recrimination. This is the time for solutions. That is exactly what we are doing on this side of the House.
Yesterday, I spoke with the CEO of Mitsubishi Chemical in Japan. We all understand, in the House, what we should care about is preserving jobs, preserving the plant in Quebec City and making sure we keep the technology. That is exactly what we are doing. We are going to fight for the workers, because we know this is a technology that could save lives in the future.
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- Feb/7/23 3:07:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Prime Minister, the cupboards are bare.
While Canadians struggle to feed their families and pay their mortgages, the Liberals continue to invest in friends and ghost companies, including $120 million in contracts to Liberal insiders at McKinsey, and that number just keeps rising. Incredibly, experts say their so-called services were not even needed. However, wait, there is more. There was $2 billion from the finance minister to invest in a company that does not even exist.
When will the Prime Minister take accountability, stop this waste and get results for taxpayers?
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- Feb/7/23 3:08:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I iterated previously in the House, the work that we engage in and the decisions that are made to engage in those contracts are an independent process. They are run by the public service. They allow the public service to expand their impact without permanently expanding the number of employees.
That public service has been there for Canadians through an incredibly difficult time in the pandemic to make sure that we delivered critical services to Canadians. What these contracts allowed the public service to do was to expand their impact without permanently expanding the number of employees.
There are many wild accusations made by the other side. Already, many of them have been disproved. They have the opportunity in committee to be able to explore these issues and whatever other conspiracies they wish—
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- Feb/7/23 3:09:21 p.m.
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The hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.
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- Feb/7/23 3:09:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have been trying, since 2017, to make this Prime Minister understand that he needs to renegotiate the safe third country agreement with the Americans to resolve the situation at Roxham Road. Instead of dealing with the issue, he is letting it deteriorate.
Now we have learned that New York City is giving out free bus tickets to send migrants north, and they are crossing right at Roxham Road into Canada.
Why will the Prime Minister not admit his mistake and why will he not close Roxham Road so that we can help the people who are waiting to legally enter the country and whose applications are mired in red tape at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada?
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- Feb/7/23 3:10:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. member that we are taking the issue very seriously, and we are working to verify the claims that were reported in the Post just a few days ago.
The reality is that a long-term solution is being negotiated with the United States through the modernization of the safe third country agreement. We are working very closely with our provincial counterparts in the meantime to ensure, as they work to support some of the vulnerable people who have made their way into communities, that their basic needs are being met.
Speaking of their needs being met, I would point out to the hon. member that it is one of his colleagues on that side of the House who refused service to a vulnerable person on the basis that they sought asylum in Canada in an irregular way. We need to treat these issues with compassion at all moments, and we will continue to do so on this side of the House.
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- Feb/7/23 3:10:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, since yesterday we have had such devastating news from Syria and Turkey. As we have heard in the House today and across the country, our thoughts and hearts are with everyone affected by these major earthquakes and who have sustained such unendurable loss.
In this difficult time, countries around the world are mobilizing to provide urgent support following this great catastrophe. Could the Minister of International Development tell all Canadians more about what our government is doing to support those people affected by these earthquakes?
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- Feb/7/23 3:11:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our government stands ready to support those affected by these devastating earthquakes. This is why today I authorized an initial emergency humanitarian response of $10 million to support the people of Turkey and Syria. This is in addition to the $50 million in funding that we provided for disaster response in Syria, and our international partners on the ground have already initiated emergency response activities. We are also conducting need assessments because we will be doing more.
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- Feb/7/23 3:12:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, indigenous peoples are overrepresented in the homeless population. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that it would require $27.5 billion to close this housing gap. The Liberals' allocation of $300 million over five years is a drop in the bucket. While the NDP forced the Liberals to roll this out over two years for urgent need, more needs to be done.
The National Urban, Rural, and Northern Indigenous Housing Coalition is calling on the government to commit $6 billion in budget 2023. The NDP fully supports this. Will the Liberals make this commitment to help end the housing crisis for indigenous peoples?
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- Feb/7/23 3:12:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are fully committed to working with indigenous people to co-develop an urban, rural and northern indigenous housing strategy. Through budget 2022, we are investing over $4 billion in indigenous housing through co-developing processes, including for the urban, rural and northern indigenous housing strategy. Some of that work is already under way. More than 41% of all the units delivered under the rapid housing initiative are going up in indigenous communities, not only because the need is there, but also because indigenous communities are stepping up and leveraging federal dollars to build rapid housing for their communities.
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- Feb/7/23 3:13:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, too many seniors in Canada are in serious poverty. Last week, I moved a motion to apply equal OAS payments to all seniors, regardless of age. Sadly, the government voted against it.
My office was contacted by a senior who is now making a human rights complaint against Service Canada. Why? It is because this government is participating in discrimination based on age.
When will the minister finally admit that she is allowing some seniors to fall below the poverty line and lifting others? She needs to do it. It is time.
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- Feb/7/23 3:14:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we recognize the challenges seniors are facing. That is precisely why we have been there for them every single step of the way. That is why we doubled the GST credit for six months. That is why we have increased the guaranteed income supplement, which has helped over 900,000 seniors and has lifted 45,000 seniors out of poverty. That is exactly why we increased the old age security by 10% last year, and that is why we are, of course, enhancing the CPP.
On this side of the House, we are going to continue to support all Canadians, including seniors.
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- Feb/7/23 3:14:42 p.m.
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I wish to draw the attention of members to the presence in the gallery of the Hon. Mickey Amery, Minister of Children’s Services for the Province of Alberta.
Some hon. members: Hear, hear!
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- Feb/7/23 3:15:12 p.m.
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Pursuant to order made on Thursday, June 23, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion to concur in the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.
Call in the members.
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- Feb/7/23 3:27:50 p.m.
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I declare the motion carried.
I wish to inform the House that, because of the deferred recorded division, Government Orders will be extended by 11 minutes.
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- Feb/7/23 3:28:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I was saying prior to the start of question period, it is unfortunate that we continue to see the same motion coming from the Conservative Party. It is pretty clear how the rest of the House, every other non-Conservative member, feels about this issue.
This is extremely problematic, in my view. All 338 Conservative candidates and every Conservative member who was elected in the 2021 election ran on a platform of pricing pollution. The Leader of the Opposition, the member for Carleton, ran on pricing pollution. Now, suddenly, the Conservatives have done a complete 180° and are trying to suggest that it is not the way forward.
I could understand if they changed their minds. One of them could stand up and say, “Yes, we changed our minds; this is our new plan”, but none of them will do that. They are completely ignoring this, and they will not explain why they are taking a different position now. More importantly, after 150 days of his leadership, we are anxiously waiting to hear the alternative plan to be presented by the Leader of the Opposition to Canadians should the unfortunate scenario occur that he be elected as prime minister.
In any event, I hope we will finally see the end of these frivolous motions that keep coming forward from the Conservatives. We are now on the seventh one. Hopefully, the next time they have an opposition day, they will find something that better contributes to genuine solutions and compromise to make the lives of Canadians better.
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- Feb/7/23 3:30:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member and all members of the government waxed poetically about how wonderful the carbon tax is and how it is saving the planet. If it is so effective and so fantastic, why has the government never met a single emissions-reduction target despite bringing in the carbon tax? Why have carbon emissions gone up under the Liberals every single year they have been in government except in the year of the pandemic, when everything was shut down?
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- Feb/7/23 3:31:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have answered this question several times in the past. When the member was asking a question prior to question period, he specifically brought up the PBO's report, and I referenced his question on that later on. If they are looking at how one element of something will impact the economy and society without considering all the other variables and inputs that go into it, they can draw pretty much any conclusion they want.
When I look at things holistically, either I can take up the anecdotal comments from the Conservative Party about pricing pollution or I can listen to the 99% of economists throughout the globe who say that putting a price on something will change and incentivize behaviour and habits in the marketplace. Forgive me if I do not listen to the Conservatives' rhetoric on this. I would rather listen to the experts.
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- Feb/7/23 3:32:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to start by noting that the member for Kingston and the Islands was the only member of the governing party who supported an opposition motion calling for the end of subsidies to the oil and gas sector just a few months ago, which included the false climate solution of carbon capture and storage. His voice on this is one of the most credible in the House. I wonder if he can share more about the importance of ending all subsidies to the oil and gas sector.
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