SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 179 - Apr/18/23

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Apr/18/23 6:54:14 p.m.
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The hon. parliamentary secretary.

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Secretary

Apr/18/23 6:54:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member started off his four-minute question by talking about how the government was trying to hide things and was being secretive. A press release went out. When the government issues a press release, it is far from being secretive. I asked the member a question in a heckle. I know we are not supposed to heckle, but I posed a question across the way. I asked him to tell me what rule was broken and the member had no idea. I do not think he has any idea whatsoever what rule was actually broken. If I am wrong, he can please stand up and let me know I am wrong, but I suspect I am not wrong. He does not know what rule was broken, but it is good for amping this up and trying to make it look as if it is something that it likely is not. That is something the member across the way is fairly good at.

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All Topics

Mr. Michael Barrett (Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC)

Apr/18/23 6:55:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to talk about the issues affecting Canadians. I have heard regularly from folks in my community and from folks right across Canada about the struggles they are having with the made-in-Canada cost of living crisis. On April 1, the government made a choice to make things harder for people who are struggling to put food on the table for their families. It made a choice to make it harder for people who are putting gas in the tanks of their cars so they can get to work, get to extracurricular activities for their children like hockey, dance and soccer, and just get around. In communities like mine, folks do not have the option to change or modify their behaviour in the way that the government is looking for them to do. There is no subway, SkyTrain or rapid transit system to get people across rural southern Ontario or eastern Ontario, which is also true in many parts of this country. The reality of rising fuel prices at the pumps, the reality of rising prices at the grocery store and the reality of folks facing soaring costs to heat their homes is that people are making really tough choices. It is not like the tough choice the Deputy Prime Minister talked about to scale back on Disney+. People are skipping meals, working Canadians. Here is the best example I can give. The food bank in Brockville had to change its hours and modify its service delivery so it could accommodate folks who needed to get to the food bank after they finished work. People are working their jobs, taking home a paycheque and still do not have enough money to afford food at the grocery store or enough food to sustain their families, so they are going to the food bank. This is a devastating situation, and as we saw from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the average Canadian household is going to pay $710 more this year than they would have if there were no carbon tax in place. Therefore, after people get that rebate, they are still left over $700 more in the hole than they would be if they were not paying for this carbon tax. The carbon is not going to change the weather. The carbon tax is not going to change the changing climate. If the government was serious about climate policy, it would have a climate plan, not a tax plan that hurts Canadians and disproportionately hurts Canadians living in rural and remote communities. When is the government going to axe its carbon tax and put in place a plan that exports clean Canadian energy, displaces the high-carbon economies around the world that burn resources that are less clean than clean Canadian natural gas, displaces high emitters in favour of good, clean Canadian jobs and helps Canadians afford to put food on the table and heat their homes?

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Apr/18/23 6:59:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am sure the member's memory is at least as good as mine, and we were in a federal election not that long ago. He will recall that there were 338 Conservative candidates all over Canada saying to Canadians that they supported a price on pollution. That is the carbon tax. That is what the member was just talking about. Therefore, in the last federal election, 338 members of the Conservative Party of Canada went all over the country saying they supported a carbon tax. Then they got a nice, shiny, brand new leader, and now they say they want to be able to oppose the carbon tax, the price on pollution. That was the most recent flip. They have been all over the place. They are like fish out of water. Has anyone seen a fish flip and flop all over a deck? That is kind of like how the Conservative Party has been on this issue. To top it off, its most recent position is to get rid of the price on pollution, or the “carbon tax”, as the Conservatives like to call it. They say it is such a burden. Do members know that 80%-plus of the constituents I represent will actually get more money than they are paying into it? A vast majority of my constituents are going to realize a larger net gain because of the price on pollution. That comes out of the office of the independent budget officer, when we look dollar for dollar. As such, when the Conservatives say they are going to get rid of the carbon tax, they would be taking money out of the pockets of almost 80% of Canadians. That is what they would be doing, but they do not talk about that. When they talk about how we are going to increase the price on pollution, or the “carbon tax”, as they like to refer to it, they do not talk about the increase for the environmental tax rebate that is going to Canadians. These are the types of questionable comments we get from the Conservative Party of Canada. They are flip-flopping on all sorts of different issues, including the price on pollution, or the carbon tax. They are then trying to mislead Canadians by giving people in Winnipeg North the impression that, if the Conservative Party killed the price on pollution, they would benefit. In fact, it is the absolute opposite. A vast majority of my constituents would lose on the Conservative promise to get rid of the carbon tax. That is the reality. When a Conservative member stands up and says it is about the cost of living, we should deal with the cost of living. What is the Conservative Party doing? There is the dental plan expansion. Members can imagine the tens of thousands of seniors whom the dental plan would benefit, helping them with the cost of living. The Conservatives have voted against that. They are going to be voting against the budget; they told us that. That is where we would be getting the grocery rebate. Members can imagine the 11 million Canadians who would be getting a rebate for groceries, under this budget, to deal with the cost of living crisis. That very member has constituents who would benefit from it, yet the Conservatives ignore it and vote against the things that are going to benefit Canadians.

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Mr. Michael Barrett

Apr/18/23 7:03:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if the government were serious about addressing greenhouse gas emissions, it would build pipelines, export LNG and displace the emissions created by countries that are burning coal. However, it is not going to. That would have a substantive impact on global greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, however, the Liberals punish Canadians for living their lives. It costs them more. It costs the average Canadian household more than $700 more than it is going to get back after the rebate in the carbon tax pyramid scheme the government has cooked up. Canadians see it for what it is. It is not a climate plan; it is a tax plan. Canadians deserve better. When are the Liberals going to get out of the way so we can give it to them?

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Apr/18/23 7:04:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member said that we are not exporting natural gas, but what is LNG? The federal government worked with the NDP provincial government in B.C. on the biggest-ever government and private investment in the exportation of natural gas. That is one hit against what the member just finished saying. Then the member said that we do not build pipelines. What does he call Trans Mountain? Stephen Harper, in 10 years, could not build an inch of pipeline to coastal waters, yet we have Trans Mountain. However, we still understand and appreciate the important issues of indigenous consultation and the environment. That is why we passed legislation for net zero by 2050. We have set targets and brought in government tax benefits and programs of all sorts to ensure that we get to that net zero.

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Mr. Scott Reid (Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, CPC)

Apr/18/23 7:05:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I take it this evening my question will be addressed by the parliamentary secretary for all departments. On the final sitting day prior to the Easter break, I rose in this place to ask the immigration minister the following question: ...the immigration minister's program to admit the families of language and cultural advisers who assisted our troops in Afghanistan has such rigid criteria that it will freeze out almost everybody it should be helping. For example, only those who were still in Afghanistan after July 22, 2021 are eligible, so this rules out the Afghans who were in the most dangerous parts of the country and who therefore had to flee...before the Taliban overran their regions. These family members are now trapped in third countries and are in danger of being transported back to Afghanistan, where they will be killed. Will the minister change these restrictive criteria to fix the mess he has created? The response I received from the government benches left me puzzled. The hon. member for Orléans, who responded on behalf of the government, said the following: If it were a matter of will, there would be 40,000 Afghan refugees here already, but we know that in reality, with everything that has been happening, there have been challenges and obstacles. We are working very hard in addressing those, for instance through Bill C-41. There are a number of factors that we do not fully control, including safe passage. Now, the most obvious problem with this answer is that the particular impediment which I was addressing, the government's choice to refuse to admit any person who left Afghanistan prior to July 22, 2021, is absolutely a factor that the government does control. They could change that date. Therefore, I will just repeat my question in slightly different words. Will the government change this particular criteria and extend Canada's protection to Afghans who meet all of the eligibility criteria but who left the country prior to July 22, 2021?

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Apr/18/23 7:08:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one of the things I have learned, especially in comparing the current minister to the previous Conservative administration, is that there is a great deal of good will. Our minister took into consideration a wide spectrum of factors in coming up with a policy that has ultimately led to thousands of refugees, and I believe it is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 35,000, coming from Afghanistan. It is an incredible number, and we are still hoping to do more. I can appreciate that the member has some specific ideas and that he wants to share them with the House. I am sure that the minister will do what is in the best interest of all the parties sitting around the table and the people who are making these types of decisions. I say that because I am thinking of the Daoud family. The Daoud family are residents in Winnipeg North and Mr. Daoud is a translator from Afghanistan. I have had a meal in his home with his lovely wife and family, and I can tell members that it really warms my heart when I see people, such as those in the Daoud family, come to Canada. The service they provided to our Canadian forces personnel and others had a significant footprint in Afghanistan. In fact, it is interesting that we would be talking about this tonight. The first time I raised this was before Daoud had even came to Canada. I was the immigration critic for the Liberal Party then, when we were the third party, and the government Conservative minister was not open at all to translators. The record will show that I was, on behalf of the Liberal Party, advocating for recognizing our translators in Afghanistan, who were in predicaments that, ultimately, Canada should have been opening our doors for. That is why I am very proud that we have, in a relatively short period of time, increased the overall numbers and the manners in which people could come to Canada. When it comes to Afghanistan and Ukraine, they are virtually customized programs, so we can facilitate people coming from both Ukraine and Afghanistan. The safe passage issue is a very serious issue because it is not like we can just bring a plane into Afghanistan and have people exit from Afghanistan. When the member responded to the original question, it was legitimate to talk about safe passage since the incident we are all familiar with had taken place during the summer just prior to the last federal election. We are all very much aware of it. The difference is that we have a government that is a whole lot more sympathetic in taking actions, tangible actions, than the previous administration was. That was when I was the critic for immigration, asking for the same sorts of considerations for the Afghani translators who were supporting our Canadian troops and others.

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Mr. Scott Reid

Apr/18/23 7:12:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, of course it warms my heart to hear how deeply the current government cares, and how much more it cares than the people in my party care, so I will just repeat my question. Will this caring government change this particular criteria, which is 100% under the control of the caring government, and extend Canada's protection to Afghans who meet all other eligibility criteria but who left the country prior to July 22, 2021? I will add this final note: There is no need to send a plane to Afghanistan. These are people who are outside of Afghanistan, in Pakistan, for example, who could easily go from there to here, but who are in danger of being deported back to their homeland, where they will be killed.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Apr/18/23 7:12:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member, in a sarcastic manner, tries to say that it is nice that we are a caring government. I think that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being able to express compassion on such an important issue, because there are members of the Afghani community and others who might be following this debate. To try to give a false impression that the government is not sensitive to the issues that are being raised, including this one, would be wrong. We understand, very much, a wide spectrum of issues that are there, and we, whether it is within the ministry or with others, are taking those into consideration. I suspect, wherever we can and when we are provided the opportunity, we will act. If the member has some specific files, as I have one specific file, I would think the member would be using that—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Apr/18/23 7:13:55 p.m.
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The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1). (The House adjourned at 7:14 p.m.)

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