44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 11, 2023 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, my question to the member concerns both legislative and budgetary measures. On the issue of the affordability of groceries, the government, in the last budget, came forward with a grocery rebate, which literally put cash in the pockets of somewhere in the neighbourhood of 11 million Canadians. I wonder if my colleague can provide his thoughts as to why that was an important thing to do for Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, that question highlights two things. First of all, the strategy generally used by the government has been to ensure that the people who need the help get it. That is the reason, for instance, that we took the Canada child benefit away from millionaires and made it income tested so the people who actually needed the help got it.
In the case of the grocery rebate, that could not have come at a better time because things such as the Competition Act and this act are all meant to relieve the pressure on people and fix things that are wrong in the market system, and the grocery rebate was something that helped to bridge people earing very low incomes over the hump while all of these elements came together for Bill C-56. I would not discount, perhaps, the need to do that again at some point in the future. I would advocate for it as an individual MP. Of course, it is up to the government to assess the situation and move forward.
Bill C-56 is meant to solve the problem for which the grocery rebate was a band-aid on a wound that needs healing.
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Madam Speaker, part of the legislation deals with the purpose-built rentals in an attempt to see more rentals being constructed emphasize a good strong public policy. Now we are witnessing other provinces adopting the same approach where PST is also being exempted.
I wonder if my colleague could provide his thoughts on the federal government working along with the provincial government, with the federal government playing a leadership role, and on how it really makes a difference because we are going to see thousands of new units come on stream in the coming years. Could the member provide his thoughts on that aspect of the legislation and the impact it would have?
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Madam Speaker, my experience with metro Vancouver's transportation authority revealed a number of issues connected to the hon. member's question.
Municipalities are stressed because, if, for instance, we build new high rises, as we will through our riding of Fleetwood—Port Kells along the new SkyTrain line, which the government is supporting with funding, the municipalities have to keep up with the water, sewer, all of the other infrastructure, schools, parks, recreation centres etc.
The pattern until now in metro Vancouver has been for new growth to pay for new growth. The could easily erase the benefits of the removal of the GST and the PST on purpose-built rental units. Therefore, with respect to the support that we are offering and want to offer, and in addition to the partnerships that we have with the provinces, we need to factor in our municipalities as partners as well because they are left holding a pretty large bill that also needs to be satisfied if this is going to be a success.
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Madam Speaker, before I begin, I would like to ask for unanimous consent to share my time with the hon. member for Lévis—Lotbinière.
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- Dec/11/23 12:21:11 p.m.
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Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to split his time?
Hon. members Agreed.
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Madam Speaker, I can speak for 20, 30 or 40 minutes about this important topic. I am happy to stand in the House today on the report stage of Bill C-56.
We have been talking about competition quite a bit in the House, including the need for competition and the lack of competition. We know that Canada has a competition problem. We see it in every sector that Canadians are a part of, including cell phones, banking, groceries, wireless and Internet. There is not really any sector in the Canadian economy that is not dominated by oligopolies and monopolies.
When this bill came along, we looked at it favourably because certain aspects were going to be improved. Mostly we looked at it favourably because there were Conservative aspects that were part of it, including my private member's bill, which was read into the act. Of course, I have a new private member's bill. We are all happy for that, and we are moving on.
The crux of the bill, the affordable housing and groceries act, is really anticlimactic in that, when this bill receives royal assent and becomes law, it will not really change the fact that Canadians are still paying the highest grocery fees and are in the worst housing crisis in this country's history. That is because the bill does promise to make some changes to the Competition Act. This bill would do some minor tinkering around the edges for what we need to have changed in the Competition Act. However, it does not do the real hard work. It does not have the courage to change the real things that need to happen to change competition in Canada.
The bill would enact Competition Act changes. It would certainly make some provisions and changes to the abuse of dominance. It looks at illuminating the efficiencies defence, which was in my private member's bill that came forward. It looks at how market studies should be handled by the Competition Bureau itself.
However, when it comes to the real aspects that are hurting consumers at the grocery store right now, where they are paying 20% more for groceries after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, it does not tackle the biggest aspect, which is the carbon tax. The carbon tax is added to the farmer, to the trucker, to the manufacturer, to the cold storage facility, so it is added one, two, three, four times to the consumer bill and passed on to the consumer.
It certainly does not tackle the fact that, when it comes to housing in Canada, we are building fewer homes now than we did in 1972, when we have over 40 million Canadians in this country right now. It certainly does not tackle the fact that, because of high inflation after eight years, the costs of everything have gone up, including building materials and labour for homes. The fact is that over the years, we have built up a big barrier of what we call Nimbyism, protecting our backyards from others so that we cannot build homes.
Consumers are stretched. Mortgage renewals are coming due. Over 70% of Canadians with a fixed mortgage will have to renew their mortgage over the next two years, this during the fastest run-up of interest rates in the whole history of this country.
The carbon tax had unintended consequences, and consumers are screaming. They were promised that they would get more back in rebates than they put in. However, the unintended consequences have been that those carbon taxes have added costs to grocery bills. Those added costs are on the price of almost everything that Canadians are paying. They see the rebate in their hands, compared to the bills they are paying each and every day, and Canadians are smart. They now know that they are paying way more in those carbon taxes than they are getting in rebates. After eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, Canadians cannot afford any more.
We have looked at competition, and we have looked at the two parts of the act that we need to solidify. One is to put a stranglehold on how big the big, bossy, dominant conglomerates, oligopolies and monopolies can get in Canada. Canadians have had enough, whether it is cell phone bills, where we have three companies that control 90% of all cell phones in Canada, which are the most expensive three carriers out of 128 carries in 64 countries, or whether it is groceries, where we used to have competition in Canada. Eight grocery stores used to run and compete with one another, driving prices lower. It is now down to only three Canadian companies competing with two American conglomerates. They used to all be Canadian competitors. We used to be able to go to different stores. Now Canadians find that they oftentimes going to the same competitors.
Obviously, prices have not gone down, and this is only after the last eight years with a Competition Act that was outdated. It has certainly outlived its prime, since the Competition Act was created based on the 1960s industrial policy, which said, “We want Canadian companies to get as big as possible to compete internationally.” It is actually in the purpose clause of the Competition Act right now to make Canadian companies as big as possible so that they can compete internationally. This is what we deem as competition. When it comes to competition, we want more companies to compete, not internationally but to compete for Canadians' dollars. Canadian companies should not be able to make all of their money on the backs of hard-working Canadians; Canadian companies need to compete with one another for Canadians' hard-earn tax dollar.
The breadth of this Competition Act, which needs to be changed, is the premise and the purpose of the Competition Act. Number one, we need to ensure that big-box conglomerates and corporations cannot get bigger on the backs of hard-working Canadians. However, the second and most important aspect of the Competition Act is to ensure that we have competition or that we have start-ups in Canada.
Canada now, according to the BDC, has 100,000 fewer entrepreneurs compared to 20 years ago, despite our population increasing by over 10 million people. Canada has failed to create competition. We can look at one aspect to say that we would really love to make sure that we stifle the top monopolies and oligopolies and make sure that they cannot merge with one another, but the other big problem we have missed along the way is to have start-ups created to compete with one another. It used to be that Canada was the bastion for that, and we were able to find start-ups and have great Canadian companies start up and grow in scale, but for the first time in our history, we have fewer start-ups per capita than ever before, after eight years of this government.
When we talk about new jobs and creating wealth in this country, which is something I am afraid we are going to have to speak about a lot over the next year, we look to small business and start-ups to fulfill that role. Ninety-seven per cent of all new jobs in Canada are created by small business. When we look at the complexity and the value of these small businesses, the men and women who can take a risk and start something new in Canada, right now what we are missing most of all is to ensure that we create those jobs and businesses in this nation.
At the end of the day, we have to really look at what this bill would do and what it would not do. We are certainly going to vote for this legislation. At the end of the day, the Competition Bureau itself has been ignored for the last eight years. Coincidentally, the first time that this government starts talking about it is when the opposition leader names a competition shadow minister for the first time in government, which looks at the importance of what competition can do for the nation and what it means for Canadians. Of course, the first thing it means is prices, and the second thing is our jobs and paycheques. We can create new start-ups and new businesses.
For instance, when we look at the banking sector, the biggest thing we are trying to put forward is consumer-led or open banking. There is an opportunity, where this government has been dragging its feet, to create hundreds upon hundreds of financial tech institutions that can not only create jobs and paycheques for Canadians, but provide options for Canadians of where to put their hard-earned money when it comes to financial services in Canada. I would hope that through this, and we will be talking about it when we get back in January, the government introduces the legislation that it promised in 2018.
More importantly, as Bill C-56, the affordable housing and groceries act, comes forth, Canadians are going to be angry about how anti-climactic it will be. Grocery prices are not going to go down after the bill passes, nor will our housing crisis be solved. It would do something important for the Competition Act, but not nearly enough to undo what has already been done. Most importantly, it would not create the start-ups that have stopped, the start-ups that can drive housing starts and create more options and more food in the value chain.
We need boldness, and we need courage. We need a new government to present policy that would actually create homes and grow food without punishing our farmers in this country. It is time to bring it home for farmers, for our country and for Canadians looking for a home of their own.
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Madam Speaker, there is a certain amount of hypocrisy here. The member talked about, at the beginning of his speech, the idea of competition and said that the Conservatives want competition. Then he talked about the big five. The last time there was actually an amalgamation of grocery stores, when a grocery store was bought up, was with Shoppers under Stephen Harper. Stephen Harper and the member's current leader allowed Shoppers, through billions of dollars, to be consumed by Loblaws.
Then the member stands up and says that they want more competition. Where was the member when Stephen Harper was the prime minister, let alone today's leader of the Conservative Party? They were nowhere when it came to competition. Why should Canadians believe that anything has changed with the Conservative Party, when its members consistently vote against good, solid policy initiatives?
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Madam Speaker, let us talk about hypocrisy, then, for a minute. Here are the mergers that have been approved by the Competition Bureau since the Trudeau government has been in power: Air Canada was approved to buy—
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- Dec/11/23 12:32:37 p.m.
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I remind the hon. member that he is not to use the name of parliamentarians who sit in the House.
The hon. member for Bay of Quinte can continue.
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I am sorry, Madam Speaker. I did not even realize I did that.
Here are the mergers that have gone through: Air Canada and Air Transat in 2019, approved by the Competition Bureau; Rogers and Shaw in 2022; RBC approved to buy HSBC in 2023; WestJet buying Sunwing in 2022; Superior Propane buying Canexus in 2018; and Sobeys approved to buy Farm Boy in 2018. The hypocrisy knows no bounds.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague spoke at length about one of the two aspects of the current debate on Bill C-56, which amends the Competition Act, among other things. We agree; it is not going to solve every problem.
The other aspect this bill addresses is housing, in particular the GST on rental housing. It touches on this other problem that we have heard a lot about and that is a real scourge this year: housing.
What my colleague did not mention is that the only solution his party has proposed so far on the housing issue is a bill introduced by his leader, a bill that is essentially designed to show cities some tough love and tell them that funding will be cut if they do not meet their targets.
That is not what cities, particularly those in my riding, need to successfully address the housing issue. I would like to know what my colleague thinks about this.
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Madam Speaker, housing is very important. Speaking as a former municipal councillor, I know the buck really falls with the municipalities. There is a provincial act that oversees the municipal act itself, but it does come down to the municipalities to be able to push things forward, and that is the Nimbyism I have point out.
I am going to talk about some stats that came out today, and this is after eight years of the government. The Rentals.ca December rent report confirmed that while American rents are beginning to stabilize, Canadian rents remain at record highs. The average rent increased 8.4% this year. “One-bedroom apartment annual rent growth remained strongest”, with an average of $1,943. There are people in Toronto who are renting the other side of the bed; that is how bad it has become.
We believe we need to incentivize but also reward municipalities for pushing through rental and construction as a whole. We believe that as party, and I believe that as a former municipal politician.
There are so many times when it is easy for a municipal politician to vote down a rental agreement or a plan that comes forward. We need to find ways to incentivize municipalities that are getting things done, especially around high-density transit, especially where we need housing and especially where we need rental.
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Madam Speaker, another point the member did not talk about when he talked about how much they would love to get rid of the price on pollution is the rebate. The rebate ensures that over 80% of people get more money back than they pay in with regard to the price on pollution. Could the member be very clear on whether he supports Canadians getting the environmental rebate?
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Madam Speaker, yes, members I have talked to are all looking forward to the rebate when we axe the tax and get rid of all the tax they are paying. Canadians know when they go to the grocery store now that they are seeing the increase because the farmers and the manufacturers and the truckers have all incurred increases and are passing them on. Why are food prices the highest they have ever been in the history of Canada? It is because of the carbon tax. Canadians want that tax off. Let us axe the tax.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for sharing his time with me.
After eight years of this Liberal Prime Minister, inflation has reached its highest level in 40 years. I can say that I would not want to be in the shoes of the Liberal government right now.
Salaries of middle-class Canadians no longer cover even housing, which has doubled, and groceries, which are predicted to rise even more this year. Increasing numbers of people rely on food banks, and children have almost nothing in their school lunch boxes, which is a crying shame.
The effects of drug legislation are being felt. The increase in addiction rates is harming families and our sense of security. This is where we have landed, thanks to the wildly reckless spending of this Prime Minister and his spendthrift government, which attempts to buy votes with wishful thinking. He wants people to forget the disaster he has caused to those who can no longer make ends meet.
Let us not mince words. We will all pay for this Liberal government's disastrous policies over the next 25 or 30 years. Let us be frank in the House. We now find ourselves with a failed Prime Minister, a failed government, public spending in the red, and a society that is being unwittingly bankrupted, and no longer knows how it is going to pay its grocery bills.
I would like to be reassuring, but how can we continue to have faith given the scale of the challenges before us each day and the financial threat that looms over so many households? As the Prime Minister says, we will continue doing this, that or the other. Well, empty words no longer work.
This is truly scandalous, without a doubt. In eight years of governing, only the Liberals could think of this and pull off such a thing. Since 2006, I have proudly represented the people of Lévis—Lotbinière. The previous Conservative government was responsible and had a vision for our young people, our future and our economy.
The sad reality is that this bill resolves absolutely nothing while increasing public spending and taxes. Years ago the Liberal government should have put in place new housing measures and certain measures to reduce the cost of groceries. Homelessness is now a reality for hard-working people who, not so long ago, could afford housing. Faced with $20 billion in new costly spending, we were quickly walked through this mini-budget in the fall. Prices are going up, rents are going up, the debt is going up, and taxes are going up. What about the price of groceries? That is going up too. More than $20 billion in new inflationary spending will keep inflation and interest rates at a higher level than Canadians can afford to pay.
The end of the year is approaching, and the honeymoon with this Liberal government is definitely over. I wonder what the Prime Minister will be thinking on his next trip while he is lying on the beach in the sun. We hope that this time the trip will be at his own expense. What will he think of the sad reality of people who have trouble affording a turkey for Christmas, putting presents under the tree, if there is one, heating their homes, or putting gas in their vehicles? Many Canadians and Quebeckers will find that 2024 is going to be as harsh as this winter, especially since the government is proposing to raise taxes on the backs of the middle class. Ironically, there is a lot to be stressed about: Next year this Prime Minister will spend more money on servicing the debt than on paying for Canadians' health care.
As for balancing the budget, maybe that will happen in 30 years, because it has become a mirage. Members may recall that the Liberal government told Canadians they would balance the budget by 2028. Since the Minister of Finance announced that pious wish, she has announced $100 billion in new expenses. Even though we need millions of new housing units by 2030, the government, which has been scrimping on important issues since it came to power, announced this fall it would spend $15 billion on a fund that will support the construction of barely 1,500 housing units a year. I would like to remind the government that 2030 is only six years away. That is not very long, except for the people who have to sleep outside or those who have been paying double for housing since the Liberal ice age.
Now more than ever, it is clear that this bill does nothing to help ordinary Canadians. Even worse, Canadians are becoming even poorer.
We have seen what this Liberal government has gotten wrong. Here are a few facts to help convince my colleagues. There were a record two million visits to the food bank in a single month. The cost of housing has doubled. Mortgage payments are 150% higher now than when this government came to power. Violent crime has increased by 39%. There are tent cities in almost every major city in Canada, and a lot of the people who live there are people we know. More than half of Canadians are $200 away from not being able to pay their bills. Canadians who renew their mortgage at the current rate will see an increase of 2% to 6% or more. The IMF says that Canada is the G7 country most likely to experience a mortgage default crisis. Worse yet, the business bankruptcy rate increased by 37% this year.
While Canadians are up to their necks in debt and there is no foreseeable miracle forthcoming from the Liberal-Bloc-NDP coalition, we are trying to find a way back to a common-sense solution, a way of really being heard to mitigate the daily suffering of people across the country. I said I have been a legislator since 2006. I can say that I am not the only one to long for a government that knows how to count and invest every one of Canadian taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars. A lot of people were deceived by the siren song of the Liberals’ promises, and we are all paying the price now. This also proves that voting for the Bloc is costly.
They can say anything they want across the aisle and talk about the horrors of going backwards, but this country needs a Conservative government to put it back on track. We need to understand that our country was doing well, very well, actually, before this Liberal government came to power. Let us remember the interest and inflation rates before this Prime Minister. They were low. Taxes dropped faster than at any other time in our country’s history. We had a balanced budget. Crime was down 25%. Our borders were secure. Housing cost half of what it does today. Net wages increased by 10% after inflation and income tax. What are we seeing now? It is a disaster. Many Canadians will have to wait up to 25 years to save enough money to buy their first house and, for many of them, home ownership is an impossible dream.
The legacy the Liberals are leaving us is a world upside down. Come the next election, voters will have two options. The first is a costly Liberal-Bloc-NDP coalition that will take taxpayers' money, raise taxes, and enable more crime. The second option is a common-sense Conservative government that will enable people to earn a bigger paycheque to buy groceries, gas and a home in a safe community. The choice is obvious. Let us just hope that our country can hold on until then.
With last fall's mini-budget, we are going to pay more taxes, because the government raised the carbon tax across the country. It is going to quadruple. That does not make any sense, and it is truly outrageous. Bill C-234 would give Canadian taxpayers a little breathing room by eliminating the carbon tax for Canadian farmers. That would bring down food prices in Canada. When the government taxes the farmers who grow food and the truckers who transport it, Canadians have to pay more to put food on the table. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change promised to resign if this bill were passed. He is not thinking about those who are struggling to make ends meet at the end of every week.
Will the Prime Minister choose to save his environment minister or to feed Canadians by lowering the cost of food through Bill C-234, which must be passed but is stuck in the Senate because of the Prime Minister's machinations? The choice is easy and obvious. Let us help our farmers and all Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, as an FYI to the member, this bill is not about what he talked about. What he needs to recognize is that one of the big initiatives in this legislation would exempt purpose-built rentals from GST, a good, sound policy. I suspect that the Conservatives might vote in favour of that. After all, we have now seen provinces get on board. A number of provinces are doing likewise for the PST.
The federal government is leading on the housing issue, and I am wondering if my Conservative friend can explain why we as a national government today lead on housing-related issues, whereas the Conservatives in the past, under their current leader, did absolutely nothing when it came to housing in Canada.
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Madam Speaker, let me remind the government that what little it has fixed when it comes to housing in Canada is only a drop in the ocean.
The government promised $15 billion in loans and to possibly build 1,500 more housing units per year when millions more are needed. With the Liberals, it will take 2,500 years to get to where we want to be. We will need between 4 and 5 million more housing units by 2030. With the Liberal government, that is an unattainable target.
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Madam Speaker, when it comes to housing, the Conservatives made cuts too and did not invest enough in social and community housing, which is what is needed.
That said, how does my colleague from Quebec deal with the fact that his Conservative colleague was shown on Infoman to have taken some liberties with the truth—to keep things parliamentary—on the carbon tax, according to independent journalists?
This morning, we learned that independent economists raised red flags regarding the Conservative leader's so-called documentary. They said that his viral video—again, I am trying to keep things parliamentary—lacked in correctness and used arguments that are much too simplistic for such a serious crisis.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to talk about actual facts.
I have five children. Around 10 years ago, my oldest daughter bought a house for about $150,000. Seven years ago, my second daughter bought a house. It cost an additional $100,000. Three years ago, my son bought a house that cost an extra $100,000 on top of that. It cost him $350,000. My two youngest are barely able to rent a place because house prices have shot up past $450,000, $550,000 and $650,000 in the space of half a generation.
When the Conservatives were in government, young people could buy and build a home. Today, in the Liberal era, it is impossible to even rent a home. Imagine that. These are the facts and this is reality. My family has lived it. This is what every Canadian family is experiencing today.
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