44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 16, 2023 10:00AM
- May/16/23 3:19:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we just heard from House staff that the kitchen is made completely of tinfoil.
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Mr. Speaker, I did not hear it in her speech specifically, but I know Conservatives have expressed concern about clause 43 and moved to take it out of the bill. Can she affirm her support for removing clause 43 and explain to the House why she thinks that is so important?
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Mr. Speaker, I will remind the member that removing clause 43 is one of the Conservative amendments at report stage, so I would encourage her to do her homework on her party's own amendments. If she does want to take a little time to let us know whether she is in favour of or opposed to a Conservative Party amendment, I think we would all appreciate knowing whether she supports her party's amendments or not.
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Mr. Speaker, there is an established rule that members are not to reflect on a decision made by the House. The House did decide to have extended evening sittings for the purpose of hearing members who rightly want to speak to the bill, but they are not to reflect on a decision of the House that was made to not require quorum in order to create more time for members to offer their thoughts about the bill on the record.
The line of argument that my colleague is adopting makes it harder for the House to adopt such motions in the future, which I think would be very unfortunate because they are critical to providing the space and time for members to put their thoughts on the record about legislation before the House.
Mr. Speaker, I thank you for trying to enforce established rules of the House and I support you in continuing to do that.
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Mr. Speaker, I am at a loss as to how to proceed. I think the Speaker has made it clear that the line of argument infringes upon certain rules of the House. I appreciate that the member already wrote his speech. As somebody who does not use notes, and I know that the member knows the content of the bill very well, I just encourage him to get out of his notes and speak to the content of the bill. In this way, he will not be infringing upon the rules of the House or upon your recent ruling.
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Mr. Speaker, I am not laughing. What I would say is that if I wrote a speech before entering the House that infringed upon a ruling of the Speaker or rules of the House, I would expect that, it would not be okay for me to if I breach those rules simply because I wrote it down before coming into the House. I would be expected to adapt to rulings of the Speaker on the fly.
The member has a prewritten speech, but if it is infringing upon the ruling of the Speaker, simply having written it down beforehand does not mean that he is allowed to continue.
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Mr. Speaker, perhaps the member intended to rise on a point of order himself, intending to say that these sittings of Parliament to debate Bill C-21 are not constitutional. However, I wonder why this is coming up in the context of his speech, instead of as a challenge to these extraordinary sittings of the House, in order to consider the bill.
If he wants to make a point of order, he can do that. The appropriate time to do that is at the first possible moment, once the breach of our rules of order has come to light. However, Conservatives have been participating in these extraordinary sittings for some time, without having raised a point of order of this nature.
I think we are past the point where that point of order could be raised. I wonder why we continue to reflect on a decision of the House.
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Madam Speaker, earlier in his speech, the member talked about sport shooting. I know there are provisions about sport shooting in the bill with respect to the handgun freeze. I know conservatives have proposed to delete clause 43, which talks a bit about that sport shooting issue. I wonder if he can confirm his support for that Conservative amendment and speak a little to the issue of sport shooting.
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- May/17/23 12:03:36 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, at the outset of the pandemic, a number of very young adults graduated out of foster care. Of course, in the first summer of the pandemic, there was no employment because the economy was effectively shut down for public health reasons. Normally, kids graduating out of foster care, if they did not have employment, would apply for social assistance with the provincial government. The Government of Manitoba told them that it would not even entertain their applications unless they had applied for every other possible source of revenue. Of course, at that time, CERB had just been made available, so the provincial government gave those kids the link and said they should go and apply. The provincial government knew full well that it was a no-fail application process. Those kids did what the government told them to do. They applied for the CERB and started receiving CERB because they were not eligible for social assistance.
Then, much later, they were told by the federal government that they were not eligible for social assistance and that they had to pay all the money back. Of course, the provincial government was not going to give them back pay on the social assistance that they otherwise would have been entitled to. These are some of the people who are now struggling to pay back that CERB debt. To insist on these kids' paying that debt back to the federal government is a surefire way to undermine them as they try to get a start in life after a difficult childhood.
The federal government says it is going to deal compassionately with these cases using a case-by-case approach, but the evidence is that a lot of people are getting the bills in the mail. They are having a hard time getting through to the CRA. They are not getting the debt relief they require. The compassionate thing to do would be to have a general policy of debt amnesty for low-income Canadians who got CERB but were not eligible. That is the compassionate approach, but the government refuses to do it and, instead, insists on this case-by-case approach.
Let us contrast that with the treatment of companies under the Canada emergency wage subsidy program. As early as December 2020, the Financial Post was reporting that at least 68 companies that got the wage subsidy were paying out dividends to their shareholders. Some of those companies include Imperial Oil and Suncor, which would go on to make record profits. I mean that they made more profit than they have ever made, ever in their entire history, over the course of the pandemic. Do members know how much the government has asked them to repay? It is zero dollars.
Let us talk about the Ottawa country club that got the Canada emergency wage subsidy. It actually ended up having a banner year because it had a way for people to play golf in a socially distanced manner. It decided to advance its capital plan to repave its parking lot by about three years with the money it got from the emergency wage subsidy program. Do members know how much it has been asked to repay? It is zero dollars, not a cent.
In Edmonton, Cessco Fabrication and Engineering Ltd. locked out its employees and used the wage subsidy to hire scab labour to come in behind the picket line and perform the work of unionized employees who were exercising their legal and constitutional right to strike. Do members know how much it has been asked to pay back? It is zero dollars.
Why is it that foster kids graduating out of care in Manitoba during a global pandemic, who were told by government to apply for the CERB and just did what they were told, cannot get any compassionate relief policy out of the government, but giant corporations that got money they were not entitled to, which then went on to abuse workers, spend money on parking lots or pay it out to wealthy shareholders, are not being pursued by the government in the same way? Where is the fairness in that?
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- May/17/23 12:11:49 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think my friend needs a slight history lesson. He will recall that it was actually the NDP that called for the wage subsidy program in the first place. The Liberals proposed a 10% wage replacement rate, and New Democrats argued for a 75% replacement rate because we understood that this was an important program.
This is not to take away from the good work CEWS did, just as the CERB did a lot of good work, but the difference is that in the case of the wage subsidy the people who abused it, who should not have received it, were big corporations making a lot of money. In the case of CERB, there is a whole bunch of people who did abuse that program by committing identity fraud and through other ways of getting it. The New Democrats have been very clear that this money should be pursued.
However, for the folks who applied in desperation and who continue to have low incomes, New Democrats believe compassion has to be shown. Why is there compassion for giant companies and not compassion for the poor?
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