44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 23, 2023 10:00AM
- Nov/23/23 1:57:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for doing the important work in the House of sharing opinions.
I read a report from Oxfam the other day, which said that the top 1% earners across the planet are sending out as much emissions as the lowest 66%. Obviously, if we do not have things in place to support people, we see that they are really not getting the benefit.
I really appreciate this bill, because it talks about getting resources to people who desperately need them right now. It does not go as far as I would go. I have a lot of other ideas that I would love to see. We have mentioned them in the House.
I wonder if the member could talk about why a windfall tax is so important. We know there are businesses that are making a huge amount of profit while so many are suffering.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam.
I am here today to talk about the affordability act. We know that right now Canadians across the country are facing a huge financial challenge. It has been a hard period of time. We lived through the pandemic and then we moved on to a high inflation reality. Things are just starting to cost more and more.
One of the things this bill does is remove GST for builds of rental housing. In my riding, these are the average rents in just a few of my communities: in Campbell River, it is over $1,500; in Powell River it is close to $1,500; and then in Comox, it is a whopping $1,849. Those are just the average rents. If someone lives on a fixed income or has a low income, it is just a huge challenge to pay for the things they desperately need.
I am the spokesperson for seniors in my party. Just last week, a 77-year-old gentleman walk into my office, almost an octogenarian. He shared with me that he has been living in the same location for 40 years. It recently was purchased and he is going to be renovicted. That is appalling. He needs to have a stable home to age in. I think we all know that we cannot just build houses by yelling out abracadabra and there will be a house. They do not just build themselves. Although I support this movement, we know from what we are seeing done by the government that the Liberals are just continuing to delay the process. That means that housing will be delayed up to seven years or more.
This is a crisis point. The urgency in the communities that I serve is profound. They need to see money on the ground, supports for municipalities and regional districts, to get that money out the door in the most efficient way possible.
I read an article yesterday from Oxfam. It talked about how the richest people in the world are emitting as much as the bottom 66% of income earners on the planet. Now, I love a French rosé, but when I look at what I see happening with the ultrarich, I swear they are bathing in it. They are bathing in it at the expense of everyday Canadians, who desperately need this support. What we have not seen from the government, or from Conservative governments in the past, is a willingness to actually say to the ultrawealthy that they have to pay their fair share. In my riding, people are paying their fair share. They pay their taxes. They work hard every day and they are being punished for doing that when the ultrawealthy are getting away with bigger and bigger profits.
We know the reality is that Canada has the lowest tax rate for corporations, at 15%. Ultrawealthy corporations in this country like oil and gas have seen an increase to their profits in the last year or so that is higher than the 30 years previous. We cannot say that it is just inflation, when we can see how much they are taking home of profit after inflation is accounted for.
We know that grocery stores are making more profit now than they were prior to the pandemic. That again is adjusting for inflation. Even with those extra costs, they are still making a huge amount of money and their profits are popping like popcorn everywhere. They cannot justify that when the very basics are not affordable for most Canadians. I think that it is time that we start to address these issues and take them seriously because, really, we need to build a more fair society.
I talk a lot in this place about having a bar of dignity that no one falls below. What we are seeing in this country is more and more people falling below that. I think of people with fixed incomes, people who are single parents; people who are working; and two people with decent jobs who are living out of an RV because they cannot afford even a simple apartment to live in because of how high the cost of living has become.
The other thing I am hearing from my constituents again and again is that they can hardly afford the cost of food. In my riding, there are a lot of small farms that are doing everything they can to grow food in our area and provide as reasonable a cost as they can, because they really believe in food security. I want to thank them. They do that because of what they believe in. It makes a huge difference. We also know that grocery stores are making a huge amount of profit, and they are getting away with it.
I am really relieved that the Liberals have finally listened to our leader, the member for Burnaby South, about making sure that the Competition Bureau has more teeth to crack down on price gouging. It is as though they were looking through the windshield and, suddenly, the windshield wiper moved all the dirt out of the way, and they can now see clearly that they need to do the right thing. I am grateful that they are finally listening to us, and I cannot wait to see this done.
Many Canadians are trying to buy the basic necessities of food to feed their families. We are seeing so many children whose parents care about them desperately, but they do not have enough to send them to school with a good lunch or make sure they have a good breakfast. That is shameful in this country. If we have a Competition Bureau that can do its job, it is going to make the biggest difference; it is about time.
Without having a strong Competition Bureau, having processes where grocery stores can be held to account, we are censuring consumers. We are telling consumers that we will not put anything in place. We had the Liberal government call grocery CEOs and ask them to stabilize prices because they are upsetting people. That is not putting teeth in and telling them this is serious, because our people in this country matter. They matter more than grocery stores bringing home a huge amount of profit.
I am glad the changes that the NDP has made for Bill C-56 will actually help everyday Canadians. It is not as far as we would go. There are a lot of things we would definitely have in the bill, but we got something in there that is going to make a difference.
I have been watching this place for many years, before I even got here in 2015. Sometimes I feel like I am experiencing déjà vu, because what I see happen again and again is the continued betrayal of small businesses by both Conservative and Liberal governments. I know that, in my riding, small businesses make the difference. They are the ones that stand up every day and look after our community. They care about the people they employ, and they work hard to better our communities.
During the pandemic, it was terrifying. I have to say that my community did an amazing job of supporting local businesses the best it could. Community members talked to one another. We talked to communities. We made sure that people were taken care of the best they could be. When that struggle was still there, we fought like heck to have a good loan that was helping people get through that time. The CEBA loan was created.
Now we are in a situation where the government is refusing to listen to these small business owners and make something work for them so that they do not lose their businesses. It was really sad for me to see nothing to deal with this in the financial update. I would have loved to see this in the bill, because small businesses work hard.
I was talking to a business owner in my riding, who said that rural communities have particular challenges, both with the pandemic and then later on with inflation, as well as waiting for more people to come to our small communities for tourism. They are struggling the most. To see the government not take that important connection seriously and to see it really betray those small businesses has been very concerning to me.
I will wrap up, but I just want to say that, in this House, we all have to work collectively to make sure that life is more affordable for Canadians. They deserve it, and it is really our job to maintain a bar of dignity that no one falls below. In this country right now, too many are falling; we need to do better by them.
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- Nov/23/23 11:07:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member brought up an important reality.
We know that people across this country who are living with disabilities have particular challenges, are all too often marginalized and fall below the bar of dignity that I talk about, and really have a hard time making ends meet. This is important. When we see people from various communities supported in a good way, the amazing thing that happens is that opportunity grows. However, if we leave people in a situation where they cannot make ends meet and they are struggling every day just to get by, it is really hard for them to maintain the creativity they may have in their spirit.
When we talk about a bar of dignity, we are talking about the disability benefit. If people were lifted out of poverty and had the space to expand what they might be able to do to look at a life that is not fraught with concern and terror every day, what a better community we would have. It makes me think of my friend Karen, who teaches me a lot about living in the disabled community. She always says that when we make something accessible for everyone, we make it accessible for everyone. Let us make it accessible for everyone and see what a beautiful culture we could create in this country.
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- Nov/23/23 11:10:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is a really important question.
We know that, right now, what we are seeing across the country and, sadly, what we have seen the government participate in is giving money to corporations that are building housing and basing it on market or above-market value. That means we are just continuing to see housing built that is not going to make a difference for everyday Canadians. The financialization of housing is taking away everyday, common people's rights in this country. We need to do better. Part of that is having non-market housing. I want to thank the member for Vancouver East, who has been very clear on this. If we do not have an investment in housing that makes a difference for people, we are letting them down.
This country does not need that. The government is abandoning people who are living on the streets every day. All of the members of this place have a safe place to go home to at the end of the day, and it is shameful that we allow other people to not have a safe place. What it does to their spirits destabilizes our country, and we need to do better by them.
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- Nov/23/23 11:12:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is a big, broad and complex question I am being asked.
First of all, I would say that part of it is this place's fault. Under both Liberal and Conservative governments, we have not seen an active stance around competition. In fact, recently, we have seen mergers in this country that mean there will be less competition. The people who pay when there is less competition are always the hard-working Canadians.
What we need to see is more legislation like the leader of the NDP brought forward, to make sure we have teeth in these processes to make a difference for everyday Canadians.
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- Nov/23/23 11:21:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I apologize for taking a moment. I was having a conversation. I am sorry to the member for that.
The member talked a bit about the financialization of housing, and I shared in my speech not too long ago how expensive rents are in my communities, which are significantly smaller than some of the communities the member represents. I wonder if she could share with this place why the need for non-market housing is so important when we are seeing the cost of rents go up higher and higher every day.
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