44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 31, 2023 10:00AM
- Oct/31/23 10:29:37 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to make one thing very clear. I never said in my speech that immigration was responsible for the housing shortage. However, there actually is a housing shortage, and because of that housing shortage, we cannot properly integrate newcomers. That was my point.
We could spend all day debating the housing issue. It could even be the subject of an opposition day motion someday, who knows? First of all, if the government had made sure to provide the funding that was promised with no strings attached, we would not have been unable to spend $1.4 billion for three years. During that time, interest rates and the costs of building materials increased. We wasted precious time because of the government's stubborn insistence on sticking a Canadian flag on the cheque.
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- Oct/31/23 11:06:58 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what I will not do is commit to the NDP funding formulas on the floor of the House of Commons.
I would note that in the member's home province some very good work has been done to clean up some of the designated learning institutions that have been responsible for creating false hope abroad with respect to international students. They have attracted people here on a false promise of hope, on a false premise. They do not need to spend $40,000 in fees to end up driving an Uber.
We need to work together with provinces to ensure they are doing their jobs in their jurisdictions and to rein in a lot of designated learning institutions, which they sanction, they back and they get the funds for directly, not the federal government, then ask us at times to rubber stamp applications from folks whose hopes have been entertained, sometimes falsely, about coming to this country.
International students are a huge credit to our country and the vast majority of them will contribute in their own countries when they return by being soft ambassadors for Canada or increase the productivity in Canada when they become permanent residents or, eventually, Canadian citizens. It is not a guaranteed pathway, but clearly there has been some fraud. An ecosystem has been created that has been very lucrative and people are taking advantage of that.
Last Friday, we instituted a model for the federal government to start doing its job a little better, and we expect provinces to do that as well. It depends on the province, but we have open arms with regard to working with them and get it done.
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- Oct/31/23 12:13:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think that is an excellent idea. We need to stop defunding all kinds of important things, like post-secondary education, housing and health care, in the name of lowering the corporate tax rate, which has really been the story of the 21st century in Canada. We have a corporate tax rate that went from 28% to 15%, in the last 20 years alone, and a lot of those cuts in funding have been paying for those corporate tax rates. Corporate Canada should be paying its fair share—
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- Oct/31/23 1:54:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague mentioned organizations that advocate for French outside Quebec. In Quebec, however, there are no organizations or groups dedicated to protecting or promoting French that receive funding under the action plan for official languages. Could he tell me what he thinks about that?
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- Oct/31/23 1:54:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when it comes to Quebec, it has exclusive powers to select the majority of its immigrants. Under the Canada–Québec accord, financial compensation is given to Quebec annually to ensure that the right correlation of newcomers is there. The total funding included in the 2023-24 estimates for grants to Quebec is $726.7 million. Quebec's immigration jurisdictions are always respected—
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- Oct/31/23 2:17:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years, rampant corruption and gross mismanagement of taxpayer dollars are being exposed in the Prime Minister’s billion-dollar green slush fund at Sustainable Development Technologies Canada. A friend of the Prime Minister who is chair of the board has funnelled millions of dollars to her company, and she even had executives pressure and mislead staff into approving millions more.
Recent reports reveal that of a small sample of companies that received funding, three of them were ineligible, but they still received a staggering $53 million. The companies did not need the funding, and the external reviewers recommended against funding them, but they got tens of millions of taxpayer dollars anyway because under the NDP-Liberal government, insiders get paid and Canadians pay the price.
Conservatives have alerted Canada’s Auditor General to the corruption in the Liberal green slush fund and have called for a full forensic audit. Canadians deserve answers, because the Prime Minister is just not worth the cost.
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