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House Hansard - 179

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 18, 2023 10:00AM
  • Apr/18/23 11:19:25 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a huge honour and privilege to be here on behalf of the residents of Courtenay—Alberni and to bring forward their concerns and thoughts around the budget. Some things in the budget are important to help relieve the pressure on Canadians and the people in my riding, in particular. There is the largest expansion of health care in our country in over 50 years with the expansion of dental care. There is the importance of continuing the $10-a-day affordable, accessible and quality child care, which will ensure that every child has the best start in life. It is certainly very important to the small business community, because it helps with the labour market challenges that many people face. The GST rebate will help support people right now, as we see inflation skyrocket, especially at the grocery store. There is the promise of a reduction in merchant fees, and I look forward to more details on that issue. I have worked really hard on this for the last seven years, as well as my NDP colleagues. I hope we see that come to fruition, because it has been a long journey. Also, there are investments in clean energy and a clean job centre, something my colleague from Timmins—James Bay has worked tirelessly around. The budget would remove the interest on student loans and increase grants of up to 40% for students. These are things New Democrats have prioritized, and we were able to secure them for Canadians in this budget. An area where we were able to get some success was getting $4 billion for rural and urban indigenous housing over seven years, but it is so far from what is needed. We need that per year over the next 10 years just to make any headway. Obviously, many things are missing. I will not get into the long details around those. However, one thing I will say is that the Liberals really missed out on an opportunity to go after an excess profit tax on the oil and gas sector, on increasing the tax they put on the financial sector, and on grocery stores and big chains that have had excess profits. This is where there is not a lot of difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives. They continue this pathway of corporate welfare. We have seen Conservatives in Britain step forward with an excess profit tax on oil and gas, but we cannot get the Liberals to do that here. I hear colleagues say that they cannot do everything and that there are too many bells and whistles. However, on a school food program, sending one in five kids to school hungry is not acceptable in a country where we have excess profits and record profits in an oil and gas sector. That is unacceptable. This could have been dealt with in the budget. However, I am going to focus on two things that are absolutely critical, that are missing in the budget and that are impacting every colleague in my House, their constituents and all Canadians. Those are affordable housing and mental health. I am going to tell a quick story about where I grew up. I grew up in a co-op housing complex in Victoria. My dad was a transmission mechanic. My mom worked for the federal government as a clerk. They were lower middle class, but they were higher income earners in the co-op, where 30% of one's income went to rent. Rent was geared to income, but there were many people in the co-op: single parents, seniors, people living with disabilities and other families. One thing we all had in common was that we had safe, secure and affordable housing. I cannot describe what that did for everybody, including for their mental health, but it gave everybody a fighting chance. I can go back to that co-op in Victoria, British Columbia, and see the other kids with whom I grew up. I also see their children and grandchildren. I know the importance of investments in non-market social housing. Back in the seventies and eighties, and in a minority government, the federal NDP under David Lewis was able to secure co-op housing, and it ranged from 18,000 to 25,000 units a year. That went on for two decades, and it made a significant impact on the distribution of housing in Canada. In fact, about 10% of our housing in the early nineties was non-market housing. I want to point out that Europe has around 30% non-market housing. People there do not see the homelessness. Nor do they see people living the way we do. They understand housing is a human right and it is not a commodity. They allow the free market and the non-market to coexist so they can have some balance in their economy and in their country. We do not do that. In fact, we have less than 4% non-market housing. One just has to go outside to see what it looks like in any community in the country. I want to remind the House, Madam Speaker, that I will be splitting my time with the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith. I am really grateful for her work. We live side by side. She has seen this crisis in affordable housing in her riding just like everybody else, but it has been exacerbated by many people moving to Vancouver Island. We are seeing an increase of our population and the pressure is forcing people out on the streets. We are hearing so many stories about that, but there are many solutions. I was just at the Canadian Mental Health Association, which had its advocacy week. I actually frequent it very often on many different occasions. Katrina Kiefer, the president-CEO of the local CMHA branch in Port Alberni, took me on a tour of some of its non-market housing units. It has low-to-medium barrier housing. The changes in the lives of the people who were in their housing was transformational. It gave them all a fighting chance. Many had come out of really difficult circumstances. Some were there for reprieve from situations at home or fleeing abuse. Some were in recovery from substance abuse issues. Ensuring that they had housing gave them the ability to connect with the important supports they needed, the mental health supports, the physicians and the support from the health sector as they were on their journey. We know this works. What does not work is the free market. It will not solve an affordable housing crisis. I cannot find anywhere in the world where an affordable housing crisis has been fixed by the free market. It will not happen. In this budget, the Liberals completely miss the mark, as the Conservatives did before them. They keep pushing this problem down the road. I very much support immigration. I know there are goals to expand immigration to 500,000 people a year for the next three years. I support that wholeheartedly, but we need to ensure there is housing for them to come here and find a place to live. We need to ensure that they can get to work, that we improve our transportation services and that we ensure they can get access to a doctor, but there is no cohesive plan. The rapid housing initiative that the Liberals have rolled out is so small in scale. The 6,500 units they put on the table, when it comes to co-op housing, does not even make a dent in the lost 500,000 units that they did not build, Conservative and Liberal governments alike, over the last 30 years. There is the continued corporatization of housing in our country. They are allowing these REITs to get a tax benefit that normal Canadians do not get and they are increasing their share of the overall ownership of housing. The Liberals need to put a stop to this. We cannot commodify everything in our country. Moms Stop the Harm hosted an event for the thousands of people who had died from the toxic drug crisis in Parksville, and I was able to join them. I really appreciated Jane McCormick, the brave mother of Jeffrey, who lost her loved one, for her courage in organizing that event and all the moms who showed up, and the fathers and family members who bolstered the courage. I also met some young folks from Risebridge. They are trying to address the homeless issue on the ground level. What they are seeing is that the federal government downloads to provinces, the provinces download to local governments and some local governments do not have the aptitude or they do not feel it is their priority to address the homelessness issue. They are left with not enough resources. We have people who are on the front line. Some of them are even traumatized by their own loss and they are driven by trying to ensure another family member does not get lost because of this. I am calling on the federal government to scale up its investments in housing, in non-market housing specifically. This is critical to the mental health of all Canadians. Everyone deserves a place to live in our country, a safe and secure place.
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  • Apr/18/23 11:31:43 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciate my colleague, who is always fighting for those important artists and cultural curators in our country. The government absolutely failed. This is the most impacted sector in our economy from COVID, which was left hung out to dry. We have even been asking for the CEBA loan to be extended for many of them, but many did not even qualify for it, so the government failed. We know Bill C-11 will bring forward some important funds and resources to support those artists, but it is not quick enough. In this budget, the Liberals should have been bridging the gap with some resources for that. I am disappointed to not get a question from the Conservatives on housing, because their free market approach has failed Canadians. It has left them hung out to dry.
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  • Apr/18/23 12:06:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am really happy to be able to stand today and talk about how this new budget we tabled is a building block on everything that we have been doing since 2015. It is in response to so many of the issues that I have been hearing about from people in my community. I would particularly like to focus on the work that we have been doing to support young families and people with low incomes, and our work on fighting climate change and building a strong, clean economy with jobs for the future. We have been doing all of this work, I should add, in a time of tremendous disruption since 2015. When we think about it, we had to renegotiate CUSMA. That was something so strong and important for our economy as a whole. After that, on another very important issue for an MP from Ontario to highlight, we made sure those automobiles and the parts here in our country were included as part of the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States. We can talk about other issues that have been in the background as we are working through these building blocks to support Canadians. There has been a pandemic. We do not like to talk about it that much because that was a very tough period of time for our country. Through it, our government was there to support Canadians and small businesses, and that was a lot of work that happened as we were trying to build and move these big building blocks forward. To say one nice piece after all of that, it is really nice to highlight the economy. The growth in our economy has been one of the highest in the G7 since the pandemic. We have record-high labour involvement of women in our economy. That is partly due to the child care agreements we struck and I am going to be talking a bit more about that. There is a final piece to highlight to show that we are doing hard work sometimes in a place where it is not always easy. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has been disruptive to global supply chains and it has been a big change for our country as a whole and the world economy. Through all of those disruptions, we have been there to support Canadians. Let me focus first on young families. I have to say one of the biggest disappointments for me when Stephen Harper's government formed was that the first thing he did was to scrap child care agreements right across our country. We were there. I had young children at that time. It would have been so helpful to have had affordable child care, and yet that was scrapped. In its place was a system that sent the same payment to everyone regardless of what their income was. There were no new child care spots; there was no affordable child care and no quality child care being provided. That is why, for me, one of the proudest pieces of this budget, and all the budgets before working as building blocks in supporting young families, is that we put in place the child care agreement. In Ontario, in my home community of Toronto, people already have seen a 50% drop in child care fees. That is thousands of dollars kept in people's pockets. We are not only doing that, but we are going to $10-a-day day care. That is already available in some of the provinces and territories. That will make such a change on affordability for young families. Let us also talk about what some of the first things were that we did back in 2015 when we formed government. On the Canada child benefit, I mentioned the $100 cheques; the same amount was sent to everyone regardless of what one's income was. We changed that. Not only did we put in place child care agreements with $10-a-day child care across the country, but we also helped to create essentially guaranteed income for children by making sure that instead of sending the same amount to everyone, we provided support for children who had the greatest needs. It is a means-tested system. According to Statistics Canada, the child poverty rates are now less than half the levels they were in 2015. That is an amazing change. That is supporting our future generation, supporting children and I think it is something that really needs to be highlighted. The next step was dental benefits and supporting children under the age of 12 by giving them access to dental benefits. That was put in place last year. This budget goes one step further. We are making sure that dental benefits would extend to all Canadians. It would be in stages, but we would be at a point where we would have that. When we think about where a young family was before we formed government in 2015 and where we are now, with child care agreements, with the Canada child benefit and with the dental benefits, those are a lot of important changes, and that is something I see and hear about when I talk with people in our communities. I talk about young families a lot, but it was not just about young families; it has also been a priority of mine to make sure we are supporting people who have lower incomes and are in greater need right across the community. The dental benefit, as I mentioned, would expand to cover not just children, but the entire community, with eligibility rules on income and whether people have insurance, but that would be a big piece. We doubled the GST support during the pandemic, we did it again to address inflation, and now we have a grocery rebate. Once again, that would help people with affordability issues. We are there to continue to provide these supports. Let us talk about housing. Just last week in my community I was at a WoodGreen location at Bowden. We are creating, through the rapid housing initiative, 50 units to support seniors who are at risk of experiencing homelessness or who are experiencing homelessness right now. This is in addition to, right nearby in my community at Cedarvale, another 60 units with the same profile, all with supportive services to help these seniors age in place in their new homes. In fact, rapid housing has created over 1,000 new homes for people who are experiencing homelessness or are at risk of experiencing homelessness in Toronto. The rapid housing initiative is bringing big changes to our communities. The objective is to create new units of permanent affordable housing for vulnerable people. We can create this housing and include wraparound services with the help of our partners from the non-profit sector. That is very important for our communities. That was about the rapid housing piece, but with a co-investment in my own community, we also saw affordable housing being built for seniors down at Gerrard and Leslie, and that created lower-rent affordable accommodations for people. I hear from people that they want to see these positive changes, and they are happening. I am actually seeing them being built in our community. Those are a few of the pieces on affordability. I know I only have a couple more minutes, but I do not want to leave without talking about environment and climate change, because that is such a central piece of what is raised by people in my community. This is also about creating jobs and a strong economy, and one thing I am very excited about is that just last week, the GHG inventory was submitted for the UN. We had that and it was made public. The numbers for 2021 for our GHGs show that we actually stayed below prepandemic levels in 2021. It is an amazing movement to be able to see, that we are actually showing a drop in our GHG emissions. The largest driver of that was moving off coal-fired electricity, so that is a really strong thing. Someone from Ontario would remember that we used to have 55 smog days a year. Now, there are no smog days, and that is because we moved off coal-fired electricity to clean electricity. We have one of the cleanest electrical grids in the world. What the budget would do through important clean electricity investment tax credits is help support the development a strong, clean electricity grid from coast to coast to coast in our country. That would help to attract investment from industry that is looking for places to build their businesses and their manufacturing where there is clean electricity. It would also mean cleaner air for Canadians, and it would mean we would be well supported as we make that transition. To the tax credit I mentioned, added in were investments on research, development, demonstration and deployment of new technologies. Like I said, we are talking about clean air, fighting and reducing our GHG emissions, and creating clean jobs for the future while attracting investment. It is a very exciting time for our economy. It is a very exciting time for Canada as we move forward.
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  • Apr/18/23 12:51:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Canada has made a remarkable recovery from the COVID recession. Canada’s economic growth is the best among the G7 countries. About 830,000 more Canadians are employed today than before the pandemic. Inflation has been falling for the last eight months. Our unemployment is at a record low, and in February, we had labour force participation for women aged 25 to 54 at a record high of 85.7%. However, we also face many challenges. As we know, globalization is winding down. We see a sort of Cold War-style era returning to the world now. The unipolar world is no more. It is bifurcating into a bipolar or even a tripolar world. Multilateral agreements that were the basis for global trade are also taking a back seat, with the WTO Appellate Body almost unable to function because of vacancies that are not filled because of issues related to some major countries. What we are seeing now, more than bilateral trade agreements, are free trade agreements among blocs of countries; we are also seeing more friendshoring. In fact, this concept of friendshoring is just starting up. While it is a challenge, this is also an opportunity for us. Protectionism is growing. This is not just from the traditional countries that were practising protectionism, such as developing countries; rather, protectionism is also growing in developed countries, especially countries like the United States. A few years back, in this chamber, I talked about the importance of artificial intelligence and how that technology will not only affect the corporate sector and the economy but also the entire society. We are already seeing the impact of artificial intelligence and technologies like robotics and automation on this society. I will be sharing my time with the member for Richmond Hill. The budget talks about transforming challenges into opportunities. It mentions a need for investment to manage the structural changes, which will not be limited to one sector or one aspect of the economy. Broad-based investment will be required to grow our economy and create good middle-class jobs in the years to come. The scale of required investment is massive, and the private sector alone is unlikely to mobilize the level of capital required in Canada at sufficient speed. However, although we say the private sector alone cannot mobilize, it is expected to invest about $100 trillion in the global clean economy between now and 2050. Many of the investments that need to be made will stretch over decades and involve high upfront costs, and that is where governments come in. Moreover, key sectors and technologies will have significant spillover effects by driving development of related industries. For example, fundamental inputs to clean production and the production of clean technologies, such as electricity; critical minerals; and carbon capture, utilization and storage, will provide foundations for an expanding clean economy. For related sectors, such as hydrogen and clean manufacturing, this will boost their productivity, support their resilience and help generate new middle-class jobs. Private investment decisions may not take full account of these spillovers, and this increases the risk of underinvestment. Without the right policy framework, as stated in the budget 2023 document, Canada could see underinvestment in critical areas and a slow pace of innovation in new clean technology. Together, these factors would result in Canada falling behind the United States and other countries that are moving forward aggressively to build their clean economies, create middle-class jobs and ensure more prosperous futures for their people. Canada must act decisively to ensure that it remains the location of choice for new investment in these sectors, particularly in the face of the U.S.'s recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. In addition to this act, we have to take notice of the U.S.'s CHIPS and Science Act, a $280-billion act. It will not only focus $80 billion on the manufacturing of semiconductors in the United States but also invest in around 20 technology centres focusing on advanced technologies, from transition energy and biotechnology to others. This combination of the IRA and the CHIPS and Science Act is called a once-in-a-lifetime, once-in-a-generation policy of the United States. It has fundamentally rewritten the entire industrial policy of the United States. We also have to consider the friendshoring that the U.S. is emphasizing now. That is a challenge for many countries in the world, but it creates opportunities for Canada that we are already seeing in the critical mineral sector. I will talk about this in a minute. Budget 2023 proposes substantial measures as the next steps in the government's plan to “crowd in” new private investment by leveraging public investment and government policy. The goal of this approach is neither to substitute government for the private sector nor to supplement market-based decision-making. Rather, it is to leverage the tools of government to mobilize the private sector. This approach is not about the government picking individual corporate winners in an effort to engineer a preferred vision for the economy in 2050. That approach did not work in the past, and it is even less likely to work in today's environment of rapid technological change. The tax incentives and investment supports proposed in budget 2023 are designed to set a framework for boosting overall investment while leaving the private sector to determine how best to invest based on market signals. Canada has been rich and prosperous because of the natural resources we have and the hard work of several generations of Canadians, including present-day seniors. However, the future is changing with the digital economy and the new technologies that are coming up. We have an opportunity, in these challenging times, to invest and grow. One growth aspect is the critical minerals, which are very important for the clean economy that is being envisaged all around the world. Before touching on that, I just want to mention two fundamental challenges. The first is that many of the investments that will be critical for the realignment of global supply chains and a net-zero future are large-scale, long-term investments. The second challenge, as I have already mentioned, is the U.S.'s IRA, with the related CHIPS and Science Act. In budget 2022, last year, we committed $3.8 billion to Canada's critical mineral strategy. In March of this year, last month, the government launched the critical minerals infrastructure fund, announcing that this new fund will allocate $1.5 billion towards energy and transportation projects needed to unlock priority mineral deposits. In addition to this funding, the federal government is entering into bilateral agreements with various provinces. Recently, we signed an agreement with Ontario, what we call the “Ontario table,” where the federal government and the province committed to work together to align resources and timelines and to have a common regulatory approach to promoting the critical minerals required for a clean economy. I also have to mention that although we have critical minerals and announced investments, and although we have already attracted investments in battery manufacturing and electrical vehicles manufacturing, we still have the stumbling block of the long regulatory processes that are required to see a critical mineral mine start and become operational.
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  • Apr/18/23 3:06:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the environment and the economy go hand in hand. I saw this first-hand during a trade mission with 25 clean technology companies from Chile last week. Consider, for example, the Quebec company Oneka, which uses ocean waves to create energy and desalinate seawater, or Summit Nanotech, a woman-led company that extracts lithium sustainably. That is why budget 2023 invests in the clean economy of tomorrow.
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  • Apr/18/23 4:11:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to rise today in support of budget 2023. I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Whitby. As we all know, the Canadian economy has come a long way. Recovering from the pandemic, we have delivered the strongest economic growth in the G7. Canada has recovered 126% of the jobs that were first lost in the pandemic. Almost one million more Canadians are working now than when the pandemic first began, and chief among them are women, young people and immigrants. Nearly 86% of working-age women are participating in the labour force and contributing to our economy, and as the parliamentary secretary for women, gender equality and youth, that makes me extremely happy. The numbers I mentioned and this boom in employment did not occur without effort. Our economy is strong because of the successive and persistent investments in our economy, in our industries, in our workers and in Canadians. Federal budgets of years past have paved the way for budget 2023, a made-in-Canada plan to build a stronger, more sustainable and more secure Canadian economy. Among the many impactful policies budget 2023 proposes, I am particularly excited about the commitment to green technology. Sharing in my excitement are the over 550 companies, which are big and small start-ups and scale-ups, in my riding of Kanata—Carleton that are inventing and innovating the clean technologies of the future. The world is looking for answers to the climate crisis, and Canada is making its pitch to solve this generational challenge. From semiconductors to zero-emissions vehicles and from critical minerals to clean electricity, Canadian industry is retooling to meet the needs of the green economy. We are undertaking this green transition not just for the future of our environment, but also for the future of our economy. We have learned the hard way, through the pandemic and through the invasion of Ukraine, how vulnerable our energy markets are to supply chain tangles and the whims of autocrats. These vulnerabilities drive up our costs here at home, so instead of doubling down, we are moving away. We are moving away from foreign supply chains and are moving toward building the technologies we need right here at home. We are moving away from autocratic oil and are moving toward clean Canadian energy. These clean, green investments make our supply chains more resilient, our economy more competitive and our country more prosperous. Already, Canada is a model nation for green energy and green technologies, and there are a number of examples of this in my riding of Kanata—Carleton. For example, Equispheres has become a leading supplier in aluminum powders and additive manufacturing, producing light-weight high-performance metal powders for the electric vehicles of today, among other industries. The technology workers at Ranovus design the world’s most advanced semiconductors in a growing number of phones and interconnected devices, and their cutting-edge intellectual property enables them to do so while cutting electricity usage by 30%. BluWave-ai is a Kanata clean-tech company that uses AI to help utility companies manage their electricity grid as they integrate renewable energy sources, ensuring renewable energy is utilized first. It also leverages AI to manage EV fleet operations while reducing energy consumption and carbon-emitting vehicles. Strengthening these industries is central to Canada's competitiveness moving forward. Budget 2023 proposes a tool kit for the clean economy: three tiers of federal financing initiatives for cutting-edge clean technologies. First among them is an anchor regime of clear and predictable investment tax credits made available to a broad range of companies. Companies that invest in new machinery and equipment to manufacture clean technologies or process critical minerals can earn a tax credit equal to 30% of the cost of these investments. Companies that embark on new clean electricity or clean hydrogen projects will also receive federal tax credit support. Through these clean technology investment tax credits, Canadian clean-tech manufacturers will continue to innovate and produce the products needed to power the clean, green economy. To ensure the workers behind these companies see the benefits of our investments, we have made it clear: To take advantage of these tax credits, they must pay their workers prevailing wages. These efforts are coupled with a second tier of low-cost strategic financing initiatives. I have heard from companies throughout my riding about the hesitation and uncertainty surrounding investing in proprietary clean technologies. These risks will stall innovation, restrict capital and draw talent away from our country. If we want Canadian tech to succeed, we need confident investors. In response, we have created the Canada growth fund, with an experienced, professional and independent team that stands ready to make important investments in support of our country's climate and economic goals. We will use the Canada growth fund to invest in scale-up projects, project certainty into the market and unlock the capital that Canada needs now. The final tier includes targeted programming. We will use federal initiatives like the strategic innovation fund to respond to the unique needs of the clean-tech sector and invest in projects of national importance. The companies in my riding of Kanata—Carleton are no stranger to the strategic innovation fund. The companies I mentioned, like Ranovus, which designs some of the fastest, smallest and greenest semiconductors in the world, have recently had their work supported by federal innovation funding. The Minister of Innovation and I had the honour of visiting Ranovus's lab and meeting the extraordinary talent that makes this company successful. The strategic innovation fund alone has contributed to over 105,000 good-paying Canadian jobs, including thousands in my riding alone. I have no doubt that countless more jobs will be created when budget 2023 expands the strategic innovation fund to include clean technology and emissions-reducing innovation endeavours throughout the next decade. There is no doubt that budget 2023 looks to support clean, green Canadian innovation. A few weeks ago, we welcomed President Biden to this House to share his thoughts on the future of the Canada-U.S. relationship. He said, “The United States chooses to link our future with Canada, because we know that we'll find no better partner...no more reliable ally and no more steady friend”. The friendly competition between our two nations has led to tremendous growth and tremendous benefit. As Canadian companies compete in the global marketplace, I am proud to be standing behind them in support. Our government is here with budget 2023 to support our Canadian companies and the incredible talent that makes them what they are. As local technology companies in my riding scale up and grow, I am proud that we are giving them the tools and tax credits needed to reach their full potential. I fully believe, as I know the Minister of Finance does, that this is a country of big ideas, big opportunities and hard-working people who can do big things. Let us seize the moment, as the Minister of Innovation aptly says, and write the future of clean technology and a clean, green future in this country together.
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  • Apr/18/23 4:37:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as we know, inflation is a global issue that everyone can acknowledge is a product of supply-chain disruptions left over from COVID-19 and the war that Russia has waged on Ukraine. There are many factors associated with global inflation, but what we have to acknowledge is that fighting climate change is a part of the solution to combatting inflationary pressures in our economy. That is exactly why our government is saying that we cannot really fight inflation without fighting climate change. 
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  • Apr/18/23 4:40:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the question is a good one. Obviously, the intentions are to reduce emissions across our entire economy. Budget 2023 builds on many other measures that are bearing or starting to bear their fruits. What we are talking about is a massive transformation of the economy and that is going to take time. To realize the emission reductions it takes time. Obviously, the adoption of electric vehicles is going up. We are seeing major deals with the manufacturing of clean technology in Canada. There are many aspects of this transition; it is going to take time to realize those benefits, but I am sure that they are coming. I am sure the things that we are doing are grounded in principles that will bring about the outcomes that we are all looking for.
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