44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 5, 2023 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, given the critical nature of this debate, I wonder if you could confirm that the House has quorum.
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Madam Speaker, I welcome colleagues, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak about Bill C-281, the international human rights act, and to congratulate my colleague. Over this journey we have had together on this bill, I have been working to get his constituency's name right. It is Northumberland—Peterborough South. I want to recognize the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South for putting forward this bill. I spoke at report stage about the provisions of this bill, and I want to focus on something else at third reading, which is how people will be able to use this bill.
I spent the entire parliamentary recess week in the greater Toronto area, meeting with different communities, with the primary goal of sharing and discussing Bill C-281. There was a lot of support from different communities, from the Yazidi community, the Persian community, various African communities, the Hong Kong community and eastern European communities. There is a lot of support for this bill in the impact it would have. People were asking how we would use it and what concrete difference it would make.
My hope is that Canadians of all backgrounds would eagerly await, every year, the government's publication of its annual report on international human rights. People will be able to look through that report to say, “What does the government say it is doing? What are the areas where the government is not doing enough?”
They will then be able to hold the government accountable and say, “Why has it not talked about Ethiopia? Why has it not talked about Yazidis? Why has it not talked about Rohingya this year?”
They will be able to look to see where the areas of action have been and where the areas of inaction have been and then hold the government accountable to ask why more has not been done. They can then look at the following year's report to ask if there has been progress in relation to the previous year's report or not. Are there individuals that communities want to see the government advocating for, in terms of their release? Are those names in the report? If they are not in the report this year, there is a jumping-off point for advocating for their inclusion next year
Right now, so much of this advocacy, whether it concerns prisoners of conscience, human rights in general or listing individuals under various sanctions provisions, happens in a bit of a black hole of information. There are no requirements right now around this sort of reporting. If people want to advocate for individuals to be listed, for sanctions to be considered in various ways or for human rights advocacy, it can be very difficult to know what the government is doing and where the access points are for that advocacy.
This bill strengthens the Canadian government's engagement on human rights, we hope. It strengthens the tools that parliamentarians have, but it also provides broader tools for communities across the country who are concerned about human rights issues.
If one wants to see somebody sanctioned for human rights abuses they are involved in, one can advocate directly to members of Parliament, who can then put forward motions at committee. If one wants to know whether the government is doing anything on a particular human rights issue, one can look at the human rights report and ask if it is doing anything, if it is not doing enough or if one is satisfied. Then one can advocate for the government to change its approach and hope to see that change in approach reflected the following year.
This is important for communities of people who are concerned about human rights issues, not because this bill is going to usher in nirvana, and not because things will be perfect after the bill is passed, but because it provides critical tools of advocacy and mechanisms for people to know what is going on, to advocate and to make a difference.
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- Jun/5/23 3:48:34 p.m.
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moved that the 20th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts presented on Thursday, October 20, 2022, be concurred in.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to be able to speak to this very important committee report. It has been an honour for me to work as part of the team on the public accounts committee. I will be sharing my time.
The 20th report deals with the public accounts themselves, which are the volumes that come out every year, detailing the government's spending. There are various important items in the report. I particularly want to highlight the dissenting report the Conservatives submitted, because it talks about an issue that is top of mind for many Canadians: the carbon tax. Our dissenting report highlighted how the public accounts revealed key information about the cost to Canadians associated with the carbon tax, and, in fact, the action we want the government to take, namely to cancel the carbon tax.
The dissenting report from the Conservatives highlights something we have been saying in the House for a long time, which is how the cost of the Liberal government is driving up the cost of living. We are seeing out-of-control spending by the government and higher taxes. This is driving up the cost of living for many Canadians. The more the government spends, the more it costs Canadians and the more those costs are seen in terms of taxes, as well as higher prices, which are the result of inflation. Every time the government spends money, it has an impact on Canadians in terms of higher prices and higher taxes. The dissenting report from Conservatives highlights how grocery prices are up; they are rising at the fastest pace in 40 years. The average family of four is now spending over $1,200 more each year to put food on the table. We have seen particularly astronomical increases in costs in areas like housing and rent.
The carbon tax applies to the fuel that Canadians use, as well as to the goods that need to be transported using fuel, which is almost everything. It is the things we eat and many of the things we buy. The carbon tax is baked into those costs, and Canadians are seeing those costs increase. In the past, the government has tried to claim that this is a tax that will not cost anybody anything, a rather convenient but absurd claim. The public accounts revealed, and Conservatives were able to identify in our exploration in the public accounts committee, the enormous cost to Canadians associated with the carbon tax. One way the carbon tax is obviously not neutral is the GST. The GST is charged on top of the carbon tax; it is a tax on a tax. I recall a time when a former Conservative MP, the late Mark Warawa, I believe, put forward a private member's bill to take the GST off the carbon tax, but Liberals opposed it. They voted in favour of double taxation, which is clearly not revenue-neutral.
For Canadians who are concerned about the cost of the carbon tax, I am sorry to say that, as long as the Prime Minister remains in office, it is going to get worse. The Liberal plan is to triple the carbon tax, and to do so in the coming years. Hopefully we will see a Conservative government reverse those plans. The Conservatives' plan is not only to not increase the carbon tax, but also to eliminate the carbon tax. We want to bring tax relief to Canadians. We want to focus on deploying technology, not taxes, as the tool required to move us toward our environmental objectives.
The Liberals do not have an environmental plan. Their plan is clearly not working. Their only plan is to increase taxes on Canadians, and this is hurting Canadians. It is driving up the cost of living and making everything harder for Canadians. I am—
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- Jun/5/23 3:53:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I apologize for that and I apologize to the interpreters.
Canadians are struggling because of increasing costs, and these costs are the result of a failed fiscal policy from the current government. We listen to the way the government talks about spending, and whenever things go wrong, it is not the Liberals' fault. Whenever the Liberals are spending money, they have no sense of the source of where that money comes from. We hear members of the government, ministers and other members, say that costs are high and things are challenging. It is as though when bad things are happening, they wonder, “How did this happen? We have been in power for eight years and costs are going up; surely it has no relationship to the policies we have pursued.”
It is actually very clear to Canadians that there is a direct, causal link between the decisions the government has made and the pain Canadians are experiencing. It is the Liberals' policy to increase taxes, especially in the area of the carbon tax. We actually just had a vote on what is, in effect, a second carbon tax that the Liberals want to impose. Not only do they want to triple the existing carbon tax, but they also have a second carbon tax in mind. They are constantly lying awake at night trying to think of creative new ways of taxing Canadians. The result is that Canadians are paying more. They are paying more to the government, but also, as government spending continues to grow and in even greater proportions outstrip the amount we are seeing in terms of tax increases, we are seeing rising prices driven by inflation and by more money chasing fewer goods.
All of this was in the Conservatives' dissenting report for the public accounts committee. Conservatives have called for tax relief for Canadians. We have called for more freedom for removing the gatekeepers, for eliminating the carbon tax, for not imposing a second carbon tax, for not having a tax on a tax and other such attacks on Canadians' efforts to live an affordable, prosperous life.
There are some other things I will share from the discussions we had around the study of the public accounts at the public accounts committee. It was interesting to me to note that there are instances where the government has provided loan forgiveness to various corporations. They could be very large and profitable corporations that have benefited from loans from the government, to which the government says it is going to forgive those loans, so, effectively, those loans turn into a subsidy. Therefore, as part of the public accounts discussion, we asked whether the government would be willing to provide the names of those companies and to release information about who is benefiting from a corporate subsidy. It seems to me to be a common sense proposition that, at the very least, if a large profitable corporation is benefiting from a federal government subsidy in the form of debt forgiveness, that is, the stakeholders took a loan they were supposed to pay back and did not pay back, and the government says they do not have to pay it back, then at that point, they should have to tell not only the government; Canadians should also be able to know that the company benefited from a public subsidy.
Many people would want to ask questions, and the company operators should be expected to provide some kind of explanation. Corporate welfare should not be something that is provided in secret. Maybe it should not be something that is provided at all, but certainly it is not something that should be provided in secret. Therefore, we asked, as part of the public accounts committee process, whether more information could be given with respect to which companies are benefiting from such loan forgiveness. That information was not forthcoming.
We have asked for similar information through Order Paper questions as well, by the way. Some points were raised earlier today about the government's not answering Order Paper questions and that it provides what are very clearly non-answers to Order Paper questions. Answers are supposed to provide information. Again we see, in the public accounts committee, in responses to Order Paper questions and in other areas, this decline in terms of the willingness of the government to provide information in general in response to queries from members of Parliament, committees, the public and journalists, etc.
However, as I say, the main thrust of our dissenting report is about the fact that life has become more expensive. It has been eight years under this Prime Minister. Everything feels broken. Costs are up. Rent, housing and food are up and the government members want to behave as if it is not their fault and it is all some accident, as if to say, “How terrible that bad things keep happening to the country while we are in charge” and “What terrible fate we have.”
That is obviously not the case. The Liberal government is pursuing policies that are making life less affordable. It is piling taxes on taxes. It has the second carbon tax, in addition to the tripling of the first. Inflation is up because of government spending. We have seen the accumulation of more debt under the Prime Minister than in the entire history of the country up until this point.
It is clear that the Liberals are not working. Their policies are not working. They are not making life better for Canadians. They are not making life better for the middle class and those working hard to join it.
That is why we need an alternative policy prescription that recognizes the creativity, potential and creative genuis in every individual, and that seeks to harness that creativity to create more space and opportunity for individuals to go out and pursue their own ideas without the kinds of impediments that we are constantly seeing from the Liberal government. We need to unleash the creative potential of Canada by removing the gatekeepers and the barriers, and that includes reducing the regulatory burden on Canadians and lowering taxes. That is why we have put forward concrete policy proposals that move us toward—
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- Jun/5/23 4:00:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member would like us to believe that the Liberals have a plan.
How is that plan going? The carbon tax was supposed to fix this problem, but then the member comes to me to say that we still have a problem. The Liberal plan is not working. The Liberal plan is not achieving results. Conservatives do not believe that increasing taxes on Canadians is the solution. The more effective alternatives, the ones we have proposed, emphasize technology and not taxes.
Let us be honest about this. The carbon tax was an excuse that the government put forward, calling it an environmental plan, with the goal of simply generating more revenue.
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- Jun/5/23 4:01:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question from my colleague.
It is a generally a pleasure working together on the public accounts committee, although today we had to sit through extensive filibustering from the Liberals because they do not want to allow us to look at documents from the Trudeau Foundation. Nonetheless, it is usually a pleasure, and any lack of pleasure is not the fault of the hon. member.
The third recommendation, which the member points out, calls on the Government of Canada to consider requiring Crown corporations to divulge all expenditures in the same manner as federal departments, and it goes on from there. As the member would recall, sometimes we have to negotiate to break through filibusters with government members of the public accounts committee. If I remember right, I suspect that there was some negotiation required. I would have preferred a stronger recommendation there, but it points in the right direction.
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- Jun/5/23 4:03:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am surprised that the NDP House leader knows so little about the procedural workings of this place. I had no idea that New Democrats were planning to request an emergency debate.
Maybe it is on the member's Twitter. I do not follow him on Twitter, so I really had no idea, but—
Mr. Peter Julien: It is in the media. It is on TV and in the newspapers.
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- Jun/5/23 4:04:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have raised a motion that is not a dilatory motion. It is a debatable motion. We are debating it. When the debate on this concludes, we will proceed with the daily routine of business, which will provide the member an opportunity to make his request for an emergency debate.
I suggest that, if he wants to learn more about these procedural issues, the Conservative House leader would probably be available to share a little more with him about what happens during a concurrence debate and what happens afterward.
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- Jun/5/23 4:06:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, of course there is a wide variety of factors that impacts energy prices. There is a wide variety of factors that impacts prices for anything, but when we add a tax on top of energy prices, then we are saying that, whatever the market price would have been, we will make it higher by taxing it. It is inevitably true that, regardless of what the market price will be and the other factors influencing it, the carbon tax has, as its purpose, to increase the price of fuel.
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- Jun/5/23 6:07:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to present a number of petitions to the House today.
The first petition is the same as the petition my colleague presented with respect to the human rights situation in Turkey, Pakistan and Bahrain. The petitioners are concerned about officials in all three of these countries committing human rights violations against thousands of Turks, including Turkish Canadians in particular.
The petitioners are concerned about the killing of hundreds by Turkish officials, including the killing of Gökhan Açikkollu. Also, the petitioners say that Turkish officials have wrongly detained over 300,000 people without reason and that multiple international human rights groups have confirmed gross human rights violations in Turkey.
The petitioners call on the government to closely monitor the situation in terms of human rights in Turkey, to sanction those officials who have committed these violations against these Canadians as well those involved in the killing of Gökhan Açikkollu, and to call on the governments of Turkey, Pakistan and Bahrain to end all human rights violations in their respective countries.
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- Jun/5/23 6:08:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the next petition highlights the ongoing, horrific and unjust detention of Mr. Huseyin Celil.
The petitioners note that they were very pleased to see the release of the two Michaels who had been detained for 1,000 days in China. They note that Mr. Celil has been detained for over 5,000 days, that he is a Canadian citizen and a person of Uyghur ethnic origin who had been vocal on advocating for the human rights of Uyghurs. Of course, Uyghurs face ongoing genocide, as has been recognized by the House and most of the parties in this place.
The petitioners call on the Government of Canada to take a number of steps to support the human rights of Uyghurs and to seek the release of Mr. Celil: demand that the Chinese government recognize Mr. Celil's Canadian citizenship and provide him with consular and legal services in accordance with international law; formally state that the release of Mr. Celil from Chinese detainment and his return to Canada is a priority of the Canadian government of equal concern to the unjust detention of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor; appoint a special envoy to work on securing Mr. Celil's release; and seek the assistance of the Biden administration and other allies around the world in obtaining Mr. Celil's release.
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- Jun/5/23 6:09:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the next petition is one I had a number of copies of and has been in my desk for a little while. It is, in some respects, a little bit dated, but I think it is always worth a reminder. The petition calls on the Government of Canada to end all COVID-19 mandates. I am pleased to table that as well.
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- Jun/5/23 6:10:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am going to table a number of petitions that relate to the human rights situation in Hong Kong.
First of all, the petitioners note how recent Hong Kong graduates can apply for open work permits under a temporary public policy for Hong Kong residents. In June 2021, there were two pathways, stream A and stream B, announced to Hong Kongers who worked or studied in Canada to obtain permanent residency in Canada.
Stream B required graduates to have one year of work experience in Canada and have graduated within the last five years from a Canadian or foreign equivalent post-secondary school. On February 6 of this year, Canada announced an extension and expansion of the open work permit program for eligible Hong Kong residents by extending the open work permit for an additional two years. However, this extension failed to address time constraints that stream B applicants face while pursuing eligibility for permanent residency. The 2016-17 graduates who met the five-year graduation requirement at the time of applying for the open work permit are falling out of eligibility to apply for permanent residency under stream B of this scheme by the time their work permits are received and they have fulfilled the hours of work requirement.
The petitioners call upon the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship to remove the five-year restriction to include all persons who fulfill the educational credential requirements of stream B.
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- Jun/5/23 6:11:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the next petition is also about the situation in Hong Kong.
The petitioners note the injustices that have been inflicted against Hong Kong and how people who have been involved in the democracy movement might have faced politically motivated prosecutions and, as such, they might be considered inadmissible to Canada under the current approach being taken. The petitioners are concerned about people being asked for police certificates and so forth. It would be difficult for those who have been involved in the democracy movement and faced politically motivated prosecutions to get those certificates.
The petitioners call on the Government of Canada to recognize the politicization of Hong Kong's judiciary; to affirm its commitment to render all national security charges and convictions irrelevant and invalid in relation to section 36(1)(c); to create a mechanism by which Hong Kong people with pro-democracy movement related convictions provide an explanation for such convictions on the basis of which government officials can grant exceptions to Hong Kong people who would otherwise be deemed inadmissible; and to work with the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Australia, New Zealand and other democracies to waive criminal inadmissibility of Hong Kong people convicted for political purposes who otherwise do not have a criminal record.
With that, I move, seconded by the member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry:
That the House do now adjourn.
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