44th Parl. 1st Sess.

October 5, 2023 10:00AM

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Oct/5/23 11:27:26 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-56

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to join the debate today virtually to continue the discussion of Bill C-56, which aims to and claims to address the dual affordability crises of the affordability of housing and of food and groceries. There is no question on any side of this House that we are seeing very difficult conditions for most Canadians, and particularly for anyone who is not in the billionaire class. We are seeing very difficult conditions in affordability, particularly for those who are not in the housing market yet and need to find ways to meet increasingly challenging costs of rent, and, for those who are in the housing market, the increasingly high costs of maintaining their mortgages as interest rates rise. It is with some irony I remember that during the early days of the COVID crisis, and I would say probably it was in 2020, we had at the Standing Committee on Finance the then Governor of the Bank of Canada, Stephen Poloz, appear. Some of the members said to him that we were spending this money and asked him what would happen afterward. They asked if we would suffer inflation. I remember the former Governor of the Bank of Canada said, on inflation, “That's a problem I'd love to have.” They were so certain at that point inflation was not the threat and deflation was the threat. What happened? It was not that his analysis was wrong; it is that conditions changed dramatically. Why are we seeing rising food prices? Let us look at food for a minute and then look at housing. Bill C-56, while well intentioned, would not make a big difference for Canadians in the cost of housing or food. That is not because the Liberal government is malevolent, but it is because it has taken the wrong approach, as have the Conservatives. We really need to look at this and ask if we can really fight what we are seeing in rising costs or if we should make sure we top up government revenues, sources, such that we can provide the sources of income and revenue to Canadians so they can survive what is coming at them economically. Let us step back and look at this. Certainly, the fact we went from a fear of deflation to inflation was an unexpected event. Putin's attack on Ukraine had the effect of driving up oil prices all around the world. The attack on Ukraine also had an impact on food prices, because, as we all know, Ukraine is part of the breadbasket of the world and provides grain in massive exports, which have been significantly challenged by blockading Russian ports. Occasionally we have grain deals that let grain go through, but there is no question the biggest impacts on driving up prices in Canada in our grocery carts have been Putin's attack on Ukraine, the rising costs of fossil fuels as a result, and the supply chain disruptions in growing food and shipping out grains. This is combined with climate crisis events, which have created droughts, which affect access to food, and which have created extreme weather events. As an example, there are the extreme weather events that affect the island of Mauritius where most of the vanilla is grown. There are massive typhoons that keep hitting because of climate change, which drives up, by the time it goes through the supply chains, the cost of ice cream in Canada because vanilla costs more. We are looking at a complex web of pressures that have driven up prices. If we look for guidance on what we are now experiencing, there was a 2005 book called The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century by James Howard Kunstler. He accurately predicted what we are experiencing: war, climate crisis and instability in fossil fuel production as we hit peak oil. That is what he was looking at in 2005 when the book came out. We need to look at this and ask if we are able, with Bill C-56, to confidently say to Canadians that this will bring prices in their grocery carts down. I do not think we can, and I do not think anyone wants to say that or hold out this false hope to Canadians. We actually need to look at what we are facing. The climate crisis will drive up the price of certain foods. As long as the war in Ukraine persists, we are looking at cost impacts throughout our economy. In fossil fuel production, where Russia has hit Ukraine, it has also had an impact on fossil fuel production and on excess profits to the fossil fuel sector. Let us step back and examine it. The approach of this bill is to create more supply for rental housing, which is good as far as it goes. I do not think any of us on any side of the House object to the idea that we should take the GST off the construction costs of building more affordable rental housing. Will that solve our housing crisis? Not when we allow short-term vacation rentals, such as the Airbnb sector, to continue to suck up what we have as available homes, making them inaccessible to people who want to live there. We must provide a very different model for how we use buildings that should be homes because they have become investment properties. The more we can take speculation and investment interests out of housing, the better off we will be, which is why the Greens have been calling for ages to get rid of real estate investment trusts, which operate to make money off housing in a way that was never intended. I completely agree with the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni, who mentioned in his speech the importance of co-op housing. We need to return to that. It is a complex question on two key issues. Looking at this, we can approach rising prices by saying that we are going to do what we see in Bill C-56, and I am certainly going to vote for Bill C-56, which is trying to get a Competition Act extension to look at the lack of competition in the grocery food sector. This is good as far as it goes, as the big five control too much, but that does not go to our immediate problem, neither does getting rid of the GST on building rental housing. We need to make some rather large structural changes, like not having our GDP growth depend so much on rising home prices. Breaking our cultural addiction to rising residential home prices would make a big difference. What do we do in the short term? We need to turn to excess profits taxes on the oil and gas sector and grocery chains. We did this with the Canada Revenue dividend during the COVID crisis. We should return to it and extend it so it applies to excess profits in the oil and gas sector and grocery chains. The Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates that if we extend the Canada dividend to just oil and gas excess profits, we would have $4.4 billion more. We need to make sure Canadians have the money in their pockets to be able to keep a roof over their head and have nutritious food for families. That really means bringing in a guaranteed livable income. How do we afford a guaranteed livable income? We essentially did it with COVID benefits, which rolled out quite quickly and did not require needs testing. A guaranteed livable income would protect the most vulnerable in our society from increased energy prices, housing prices and grocery prices. How can we afford it? We bring in an excess profits tax on the oil and gas sector and grocery chains, as well as continuing it on banks and insurance companies. The key to this is in Motion No. 92, introduced recently by the hon. member for Kitchener Centre. We need other MPs to support an excess profits tax, so I would ask members to sign on as seconders to the motion. We have to stand back and say that we cannot guarantee people that the climate crisis is not going to affect food prices, because it is. Until we have an end to Putin's attack on Ukraine, what we are really seeing in the oil and gas sector is war profiteering. We must not allow these multi-billion dollar multinational corporations to rake in billions in profits, which is really impacting people who can barely afford to make it to the end of the month. With my remaining 40 seconds I will say this. Let us step back and use a different lens. Let us tax where we need to tax excess profits and get that money into the hands of Canadians who need it.

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