44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 23, 2023 10:00AM
- Nov/23/23 10:54:23 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is true, the Conservative Party is the “block everything” party.
However, the Conservatives are not even consistent. They delayed with respect to the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement, and suddenly, in the 11th hour, with about a week left, they came up with this red herring that it had something to do with a price on pollution.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: I hear the heckling from my Conservative colleagues.
Mr. Speaker, Ukraine has had a price on pollution since 2011. As a matter of fact, the only way it could get into the European market was to commit to that. This is nothing more than a red herring.
Is the minister concerned that the delay of this bill is, once again, just another red herring being put out there by Conservatives?
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Nov/23/23 2:22:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it has become clear that far right American politics have fully taken over the Conservative Party of Canada.
Last June, five Conservative MPs travelled on a lavish trip to London, England, and dined on thousands of dollars' worth of oysters and champagne. We also know that at least one of those Conservative MPs had his expenses paid for by the Danube Institute, a right-wing Hungarian think tank that has said, “the stakes of the Russia-Ukraine war are not Ukraine's sovereignty, but the victory of NATO, the expansion of the US 'deep state', [and] 'wokeism'”.
Coincidentally, right around the same time, Conservative MPs started shifting their support away from Ukraine in favour of Russian propaganda aimed at turning the world against Ukraine.
I want Ukrainian-Canadians to know that, while Conservative MPs flirt with Vladimir Putin and his attempts to persuade their support, Liberals are unwavering in our commitment and will be there every step of the way until Ukraine wins this war.
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- Nov/23/23 4:10:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the one thing I did not hear the member talk about was a carbon tax. I know he is a really big fan of the carbon tax, because when he was in the provincial legislature in B.C., he not only voted in favour of it, but he also spoke very highly of it. He said:
It means that every dollar collected from B.C. carbon tax is given back to the taxpayers in the form of tax credits or tax cuts. Our carbon tax appears to be working.
He said:
We view this tax as a tool to change behaviour and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
If a Liberal had said that, he would have been heckling.
An hon. member: Maybe he was a Liberal back then.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Madam Speaker, maybe he was a Liberal back then. I do not know. Maybe he could inform me why he is against the carbon tax. Why is he hypocritical?
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- Nov/23/23 4:15:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, before I get started, I really want to thank the member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge for answering my question. He could have tried to skate around it, but he hit it right on. I question the sincerity in his answer, but at least he answered my question. He did not skate around it. I appreciate that, and I just wanted to put that on the record.
Here we are talking about this very important piece of legislation that has to do with affordable housing and the groceries act and how we can amend other acts in order to improve those two challenges that Canadians are facing right now. However, I have heard at least two Conservatives in this debate. Just moments ago, the member for Red Deer—Mountain View was talking about time allocation and concerned about limiting debate on this, but then he never even talked about the bill. The member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge never even talked about the bill. My original question for him, had I not been waiting to ask him this question on the carbon tax in B.C., was going to be whether he had actually read the bill because what he was talking about had nothing to do with the bill. He did not even reference all the measures that are in the bill. An NDP member asked him a question, and he still did not answer it.
I find it very fascinating that here we have the Conservatives with their full outrage jumping up and saying, “You're not letting us debate” and “You're allocating time.” Meanwhile, with the time that is allocated to discuss this bill, they are not even talking about it. I can only imagine it is not all that important to them if they are not even using the allocated time to actually discuss it.
I am noticing a trend. When we introduced the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement a few weeks ago, the Conservatives were taking a very similar approach. They talked nothing about the bill and did not seem to have a position on it. However, after it had been tabled for quite a while and there had been a prestudy in committee and it had been going on for quite a while, all of a sudden they decided, “Oh, I think we found something that we could use to justify why we are going to vote against this. It mentions a carbon tax in the preamble. Yes, this is exactly how we will vote against this.” Suddenly, the next week, they focused on this narrative and then they voted against it, but they did not mention it once before that.
I wonder who the award goes to in the Conservative Party for finding that red herring for them. It is absolutely shameful. I say this in the context that this is what is happening with the bill before us. I would love to know if they are going to vote in favour of it or if they are still in the process in the backrooms over there trying to figure out what words they can find in it to justify voting against it.
In this debate, I will try to focus a little bit on what I have heard. I have heard the member for Red Deer—Mountain View and a couple of members earlier talk about the price on pollution, or the carbon tax, and I will take the opportunity to set the record straight on some of that stuff.
Eight out of 10 Canadians are better off with the rebate they get back after the price on pollution. Now, I should clarify, in all honesty, that the two out of 10 Canadians who do not are probably the most well off and probably the base that the Conservatives are banking on and so they spread this misinformation to try to suggest that this is not the case. However, I will give members the facts. This has just recently been published.
The average family of four in Alberta gets $1,544 back per year. The average family of four in Manitoba gets $1,056 back. In Saskatchewan, it is $1,360. In Nova Scotia, it is $992. In P.E.I., it is $960. In Newfoundland, it is $1,312. In New Brunswick, it is $368. In Ontario, my home province, it is $976. As a matter of fact, when we look at the four provinces that are fully under the federal backstop because they have not implemented their own program, the average family spends about $500 on the price on pollution and gets back $804. Eight out of 10 Canadians are better off as a result of what they are getting back.
The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader raised this in a question earlier. Why do they never talk about the rebate? The rebate is such a fundamental core part of this.
Conservatives are more interested in spreading misinformation by suggesting that this is a tax, by suggesting that it contributes to inflation, which we know it does not, and then, most recently, by suggesting that it somehow impacts the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement.
That was probably the biggest mistake they made. What they did was make a concerted effort to obviously find this little bit in the agreement and say, “Aha, we found it. In the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement, we found it. It says 'carbon tax' in the preamble. Let us use it.”
The genius who discovered that probably did not take the time to look. Had they done that, they would have discovered that Ukraine has had a price on pollution, a carbon tax, since 2011. Ukraine needed to do that because as part of its efforts—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Nov/23/23 4:22:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the reason Ukraine has had that price on pollution since 2011 is that in order to get into the European market, which it had been trying to do for so long, the European market required that it have a price on pollution in order to stay competitive. That is why Ukraine had it. This incredible red herring that we are hearing recently from the Conservatives is nothing more than just that, a red herring.
The reality is that there is a faction within the Conservative Party of Canada. Some of the MPs over there have gone down the rabbit hole of alt-right-wing American politics. Now we are seeing that come out. I kind of always suspected it, because we have been seeing it happen over the last number of years, but I did not realize that this faction actually had a stranglehold on the party.
It is very likely that the Leader of the Opposition is part of that, given everything that he has done. Let us go back to the YouTube meta tags.
If members want to understand the Leader of the Opposition's support for Ukraine, they should just look at his social media posts from when President Zelenskyy visited us in September. He did not tweet about it. He did not put anything on Facebook about it. He did not put anything on Instagram about it. He was completely silent. He never said a word about Zelenskyy's visit.
The irony is that he did say a word about Zelenskyy appearing before this Parliament when he came a year earlier, when he came by video conference. He actually tweeted, at that time, in 2022, how proud he was to see President Zelenskyy appear before Parliament.
Do members know what the member for Calgary Nose Hill did? I do not know if a lot of people caught this, but it was almost a little subtle act of defiance. Do members know what she did? When he came this year in 2023, she quote tweeted his tweet from a year ago, congratulating him on coming. That was clearly a dig at the Leader of the Opposition because she recognized how silent he was on it.
The member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman and all Conservatives can stand up and preach to me all they want about how much they support Ukraine, but their actions speak louder than words. They are silent when the president comes here. They are silent when it came to determining what they were going to say on the Ukraine free trade deal, and then they voted against it.
This is a deal that President Zelenskyy asked us to vote in favour of—
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- Nov/23/23 4:26:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not know if the member was sitting in the chamber when his two colleagues just spoke, but neither of them spoke about the bill at all.
The reality is that the Conservative Party of Canada does not support Ukraine. The Conservatives can say all they want about what they do, but their actions speak louder than words. We have seen that, and Canadians have seen that. It is coming to light now, and everybody is becoming aware of it.
It is not supporting Ukraine for the same reason that Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene are not supporting Ukraine, which is that far right influence, and it is in the Conservative Party of Canada. They know it. For those who are still wondering, the real reason the Leader of the Opposition is so petrified to show support for Ukraine is that he would lose votes to Maxime Bernier. It is that simple. He is trying to hold on to a base.
When it comes to this particular piece of legislation, we are talking about increasing competition and, by default, increasing trade. We know that, to ensure we put the right measures in place when we are looking internally within our own country, we have to recognize that there are anti-competitive practices going on. When Loblaw has nearly 40% of the market share of groceries between Loblaw's and Shoppers Drug Mart and every other entity it owns, we quickly start to see that it would be extremely difficult for competition to exist.
In comparison, Walmart in the United States, which is the retailer with the largest grocery share, has about 18% of the marketplace. We know that, in Canada, there is a problem with this. That is why this bill seeks to strengthen the rules around competition. It seeks to empower the Competition Bureau further, providing it with more resources and the money it would need to effectively operate and giving it the tools to make advances and make moves, when it needs to, to ensure that competition exists.
Competition is great, and we need to encourage competition, but sometimes government, or government-charged agencies, have to get involved because we do run into situations where that competition starts to get limited, and then we see price-fixing, as we saw with the Canada Bread Company and its bread price-fixing. That is why this is so incredibly important.
Conservatives are going to tell people that inflation is driven by a price on pollution, when it has virtually no effect on it. They are going to tell people that a price on pollution is why the price of gas and oil has skyrocketed over the last year, and it is simply not true. The reality is that, in the oil and gas sector specifically, the carbon tax added two cents per litre. It is two cents and people get more than that back.
Meanwhile, wholesale profit margins for the large oil distributors rose by 18¢ per litre. I do not hear the outrage about the profits. The profits of Loblaw were announced just yesterday for its third quarter, and it was, again, a double-digit increase in profits over the previous quarter. It is extremely important that we put the right measures in place to assist with this.
I can understand why Conservatives are reluctant to do this. They never seem to fall on the side of those who are struggling, of those who need these supports and tools in place, or of those who need the benefit of healthy competition. This government will do that. I have said this many times in the House before, and I will say it again: I am very glad there is another party in the room who are acting like adults, which is the NDP. It sees this need as well, and it sees the need to push this legislation through for the betterment of all Canadians.
We all know that, if we had not put closure on this today, the bill would be here forever. That is what Conservatives have done with so many other pieces of legislation.
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- Nov/23/23 4:32:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is the government's job to incentivize various parts of the marketplace from time to time when it sees the need for the betterment for society. Sometimes we do that with respect to encouraging the growth of a particular manufacturing sector, such as we have seen with electric batteries and the car revolution that is coming along with EVs, and sometimes it is about incentivizing through removing the GST on building new rental units.
On the topic of affordable housing specifically, this is just one tool of many. I have made various announcements that are based on different levels of government support. We may see the rents in a particular building being required at 80% of CMHC market rents and sometimes as low as 50% or 60% based on the supports that have been received. We also have supports for rent that is geared to one's income. The member would know that the ministry responsible deals with that as well.
This is one program he mentioned, but there is a whole host of programs. We have to approach housing from a holistic perspective. If we were just doing the one measure he mentioned, it certainly would not be enough, but we are doing a lot more than that.
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- Nov/23/23 4:34:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, does the member really think that Canadians care whose idea it was? It is an amazing idea. I thank him very much for it. Let us celebrate it together. Now I hope the member will vote for it. That was such a ridiculous comment.
I know this better than most people. I brought forward a private member's bill in 2016, and before it got voted on, the government put it in a piece of legislation it had brought forward. I rejoiced in that, knowing that Canadians would be better off as a result. Only a petty politician would spend time talking about it being a certain person's idea, not someone else's, and why the other person is getting the credit for it. Who cares? This is for the betterment of our country.
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- Nov/23/23 4:36:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question, but it has a false pretext, which is to assume that nothing else has ever been done, which is not the case.
We have had, for a number of years now, the national housing strategy. I am aware of several projects in my own riding that have been built, as well as those on the west coast and on the east coast.
This is what I find most frustrating about the last two questions. They assume that this is the only measure that has ever been taken by the government on housing. We have been dealing with housing challenges since we came into office. We had the first national housing strategy introduced, I believe around 2018, and we have been trying to tackle this ever since. Yes, the problem has been getting worse. That is why we are throwing even larger measures at it right now, such as the one the member indicated.
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- Nov/23/23 4:38:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I cannot guarantee anything. I do not think anybody can guarantee anything realistically.
What I can say is that we look at where the problem is. We know the problem is in food inflation. We know that food prices have inflated much faster than the average. We know there is a small oligopoly in Canada in the major retailers of food. That is why the minister responsible brought those CEOs to Ottawa to talk about what can be done.
That is why this bill would empower the Competition Bureau to do more by putting more teeth into its ability to deal with the problems of anti-competitiveness. Again, this is one measure that I think goes to the heart of competition and to ensuring competition because we recognize that, when there is healthy competition, people get the best value for their dollar, which they are not getting right now specifically as it relates to the retail grocery industry.
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- Nov/23/23 4:41:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's comment about talking about whatever we want. Maybe he should talk to the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands about that, as he is the one who called me out on it.
This does not matter because nowhere in this deal does it commit Ukraine to Canada's system. It is a red herring to suggest otherwise.
The member will have to explain to me why Conservatives never raised the issue. First, they started talking about how it was a woke free trade deal. They started out talking about everything but a carbon tax. They only started talking about a carbon tax being in this about a week ago. They just discovered it then. They should not act like they have been on this all along because they have not. They know it is a red herring.
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- Nov/23/23 9:01:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded division.
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- Nov/23/23 11:11:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I know this issue has come up, if not from this member, then from one of her colleagues. It is the issue of extreme anti-competition that we are seeing, in particular with regard to the grocery retail giants. I know that in Canada, Loblaws, which owns Shoppers, occupies about 40% of the retail grocery market. Compare that to in the United States, where Walmart, the largest, owns only 18%.
I am wondering whether the member could expand on how she thinks the legislation would help with anti-competition practice.
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