SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 270 - Jan/29/24

Jan/29/24 6:52:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am always happy to debate my colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, and I wish he had given me an opportunity to actually respond to some of the accusations he has made. However, I understand that decency is—

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Context: House Hansard - 270 - Jan/29/24

Mr. Blake Desjarlais (Edmonton Griesbach, NDP)

Jan/29/24 7:25:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to a really important report that was actually tabled some time ago. I am very pleased now that the Conservatives have found time in their very busy schedules to concur in this report. It relates directly to Canada's food system. It is no secret that Canadians from coast to coast to coast right now are dealing with the reality of price-sticker shock. They are seeing that for something they would always buy, whether that is dairy products or the extra thing they get for their kid, every time they go the prices are increasing. This is a direct consequence of our country's inability, for the many decades leading to this report, to properly plan and prepare for when an emergency strikes and how it impacts our supply chains and how Canadians can get ahead of these factors. The report is good in the sense that it directly looks at the crisis that pertained to the supply chain issues that we were experiencing due to COVID-19, but is important that this report be understood as one to better prepare Canada, not just for a pandemic but for any instance where we would see a devastation to our supply chain that directly impacts the cost of goods for Canadians. Today, we spoke about the importance of looking at the root causes of some of this terrible price gouging that we are seeing in grocery stores. It is no secret that under the cover of inflation we have seen grocery stores directly profit from the crisis across the country. We are seeing this kind of profiteering manifest in record-breaking profits. When we see the record-breaking profits of some of these huge megacorporations like Loblaws or Empire or Metro, we often see it is those who are most vulnerable who suffer the greatest. As a matter of fact, Statistics Canada was clear that one in seven Canadians, which is almost 15%, are experiencing food insecurity as of May 2020. It is an increase of 10.5% from two years earlier. I hope we have some kind of common goal here among ourselves as parliamentarians and we would see this issue as a non-partisan one because all of our neighbours right now are experiencing this. Whether one is a constituent of Edmonton Griesbach, a constituent of Carleton or a constituent of Kingston and the Islands, it is true that Canadians are feeling the pinch. Canadians really expect us as parliamentarians to use the time that they so desperately do not have to do the work of ensuring they have what they need to get by. We did remark this day on the passing of Ed Broadbent, and I want to make clear my condolences to the family and to all those who served with him. However, I do also want to speak to a powerful message. So often in his time as not only a politician but also as an academic he advocated for social democracy, to increase the material benefit for Canadians to ensure that Canadians, no matter the poverty they were to experience, had a place at our democratic table. That is only possible through the important work of ensuring that our social institutions can make possible their political will. When we start to see poverty in our communities to the extent we are seeing it and when we see our food system at a place where during the time of COVID-19 it was impacted so greatly, it is up to us now to deliver on the recommendations within this report. It is up to us to ensure that we have a stronger system of preparing, so that when an emergency strikes our food system, Canadians are ready. We do not have to wait for the next emergency to happen in order to do that. We can do this work today. As a matter of fact, I would ask that we consider doing that today, given the extreme issues we are seeing of price gouging right now. It is an emergency, certainly in my mind. Canadian households with children are also more likely to experience food insecurity, which is a terrible reality I spoke to last year pertaining to the good people of Saskatchewan. While people in Saskatchewan right now are experiencing the highest costs for food, we are seeing a provincial government that is unwilling to support those people, especially when it comes to a national food program that was tabled here in this House. It is something that families and children need. Let me speak to the importance of a food program. I grew up in a very poor family in a very poor community known as the Fishing Lake Métis Settlement. There, we were provided with meals at school. I remember, for example, my mom being nervous and she would sometimes sweat, wondering, as a single parent, how she was going to help her child get food today. I would see the difficult decision in her mind as to whether she should make a car payment or she should make rent, versus feeding us. It is truly one of the most heartbreaking truths happening right now. It is one of the most heartbreaking realities families are going through as we speak. They are wondering what tomorrow is going to look like for their child and wondering if they will be in the cafeteria with their friends and be able to open a lunch or if they will spend that time in a bathroom at school because they do not have enough. Today, in light of Mr. Ed Broadbent, I want to be able to speak to my colleagues in a way that hopefully unites us. We speak oftentimes of the things that divide us in this place, but it is true that much unites us. For example, a member just spoke about monopolies and our need to break down those monopolies, and I fully agree it is now time. Subsequent to decades of Conservative and Liberal policies that have allowed megacorporations to flourish, it is time. We have the courage and the moral will to break up those companies, to increase competition and to make possible the material enhancements for those living without. Over the last decade, food insecurity rose twofold in my home province of Alberta. A new vital statistics report found that in 2011 just over 12% of Albertans were food insecure, and in 2022, that number rose more than 20%. It is heartbreaking to know that our friends and our families, the ones we all care about, are silently suffering in line at a food bank, knowing that these prices are going to continue to climb. These prices will be unchecked forever unless we have the ability to take control of both the vulnerabilities facing our food system and the challenges facing those small and medium-sized businesses, while also ensuring that those profiting off Canadians are held accountable. When we hold those companies accountable, and I speak of Loblaws, we take the immense wealth they have been able to obtain from Canadians, with record-breaking profits, and use it to ensure that those who do not have the means to survive truly get the opportunity to have a full belly. Why is that important? Why is it that in the seat of our democracy here in Canada, one of the wealthiest countries in the globe, we happen to be debating food insecurity? It is because of poor decisions. I am not here to point fingers about why we are presented with this challenge today. I hope I can find a way to unite my colleagues toward a better goal, a goal that sees the truth we all hold toward a solution we may debate. That solution will enable tens of thousands, if not millions, of Canadians to truly control their own destiny. It will allow them to participate in our democratic institutions unlike ever before. We know that Canadians living under poor socio-economic conditions are less likely to vote and are less likely to participate. What does that say for our democracy? In a time when we cannot feed those who need it most and they cannot participate, what does that end up with? It ends up with those who would seek to protect the profits of those who win elections. It is up to each and every one of us to steer clear and to know deep in our hearts the reasons we were sent here. It is up to us to hold accountable those who are the most powerful so that the vulnerable in our society truly have a voice. This is something that has been ingrained in me since I was born, something passed down from generations of indigenous people whose principles lie in the fact that we are only as strong as our weakest link. Canadians across the country are really suffering and are holding on as best they can. I know the government has the best will and intentions. However, it may not have all the best ideas, and we have been very critical of those ideas, as have our other opposition colleagues. What is needed in our country today is truly a path forward, one that would see the immense food insecurity of northerners. There are particularly dramatic, terrible and sad stories we hear from our Inuit relatives in Nunavut. We have seen some of the largest price gouging in human history taking place there for things as basic as milk. We know, for example, that there is the nutrition north food program. It is good in its intentions, and I commend the government for ensuring people have food when they can. It is a good program. The fault with the program is the fact that we do not then check up on the companies that would absorb that subsidy. We see, in fact, companies that would take a goodwill program and abuse it by increasing the prices of those goods in order to increase their profits. These are the fine details that companies that are ruining competition in our country thrive on. They thrive on the fine print that allows them to get away with it. That leads me to an important piece in regard to tax fairness. We know that some of these megacorporations are not paying their fair share. I know for certain that small and medium-sized businesses in our ridings are paying their fair share. They are doing hard work. They are trying as best they can to put food on the table while making sure they can give back to their communities. They do so by ensuring that the local parade, whether it is for Canada Day, Christmas or any other community event, is sponsored by the few thousand dollars they can take in as profit. We never get to see Loblaws in a parade. As a matter of fact, I have never seen that in my community, and I do not think it has been in anyone's community. This is to say that those who are supporting our communities need our support now more than ever. I was disappointed to see that the CEBA loans were not extended, as were my Conservative colleagues and my Bloc colleagues, and, I am sure, many of my Liberal colleagues. That is something we will have to reckon with as companies continue to default and fall behind. I want to make mention of these companies, because they are the very same companies that would end the crisis we are seeing in our food supply chain insecurities. We know that if we strengthen small and medium-sized businesses, increase competition and ensure that those who are providing for our communities truly get the benefit and the support of a government that is willing to support them and support communities, it is good policy. I really do think we can find some kind of consensus here as long as we have the political will, but we are still in a position where megacorporations continue to hide and avoid taxes. I spoke to the CRA in the public accounts committee, where this report came from, about the reality of tax evasion in the billions of dollars. We can, in fact, if we have the courage, use the funding that is being taken out of the hands and mouths of families and that is driven into the coffers of multinational corporations and put it back in the hands of communities. That could truly end the crisis we are seeing with our food supply. I will even go further. When we support those small and medium-sized businesses, local grocers, our farmers and the local production of goods, we support Canada's future. Members may recall that when this report was commissioned, there were protesters from Prince Edward Island outside this place. They were good, hard-working potato farmers who showed up every day, no matter the conditions, to make sure we had food on our tables. We saw piles and truckloads of potatoes wait there because we were unable to get and to secure export to the United States. That should not be the case. Those potatoes should be going right across this country where there are hungry families. Rather than looking for the better dollar elsewhere, we should have the courage and the moral will to ensure that Canadians, even if a dollar is not to be made, get the food they so desperately need rather than have so much of it gather in sites where it goes to waste. We need laws in this country that protect Canadians from the time a food product is produced to the time that food product is eaten. We shall not and we should not allow companies to use their purchasing power to overcome the consumer, but we are seeing that. If we do not buy the goods that they put out front, they throw them away. What a travesty and a terrible reality it is to know that in a food crisis, in a wealthy country like Canada, we throw away tonnes of food, and we allow those corporations to get away with it. New Democrats have been consistent in our approach that we need an understanding of both the wants and the needs of Canadians. We have to be clear about the wants and needs. The free market that my Conservative colleagues so often speak about should be the market of wants. If we want an Xbox, a PlayStation, a new skateboard or whatever goods we find our kids for Christmas, it should be on the free market. We should certainly ensure that there is fair competition, that those goods are on the market and that Canadian products are innovative and have a fair chance at hitting the shelves for Canadians to choose from. When it comes to the needs of Canadians, we need to be certain that in order for Canadians to actually practise their democratic rights in a political democracy, we need to guarantee their social access to the things they need: housing, food, water and dignity, things that no human should ever be deprived of. When we deprive humans of these things they need, we deprive them of the very real outcome of being able to participate in our political democracy. Political democracy is so well connected to the social outcomes of Canadians, to something as simple as food. I will warn Canadians that if we do not get a hold of the dramatically increasing prices of the things Canadians need, of water, food, housing, etc., we will begin to see a dramatic erosion of our democratic institutions. We will begin to see a great mistrust, a great apathy, a great nihilism in our future. For me, coming from very humble beginnings in rural northeast Alberta, it is a dream to be able to stand in this place. It is a dream to be able to speak to such hon. colleagues about the solutions I think could help us. It is a dream that is still alive, a dream of a better Canada, a dream that still lives on in so many hungry hands and hungry mouths today. They pray that our democracy and the institution of which we are members will come together, not just on the problems facing the country but on the solutions. I have tried my best to ensure that I speak to the very real realities of the people of Edmonton Griesbach, the realities they are facing in terms of the lack of housing, unaffordable groceries or the immense violence they face due to poverty. I also want to ensure that we can deliver, even in a position from which we may not politically benefit, and the Conservatives remind us every single day that we may not be politically salient as a party or politically salient enough to win government. I accept that. That is fine. What I trust deeply is the goodwill of Canadians. I trust deeply that they will know the kind of hope that lives in my heart, that they will know that I truly desire the kind of Canada that unites us, the kind of Canada that says no one should go without, and the kind of Canada that feeds us. This is a dream that I think all parties share. I hope they will guarantee our party the same goodwill, to know that our solutions, when we speak of dental care and ensuring there is a tax on the most wealthy banks, or when we speak of anti-scab legislation, that it comes from a place of deep respect for Canadians, a deep understanding that they, too, are hurting, and an understanding that says we will not sit idly by while conditions get worse. We can, in fact, ensure a kind of future that is morally correct, socially correct and economically correct. We can, and I believe it, so long as we speak not only of the problems but also of the solutions. Our report makes clear, and I sat with hon. colleagues from all parties to form a consensus on the report, that we must change and we must prepare Canadians for an economy and a system that protects them from what can be a devastating outcome. We must protect, first and foremost, the quality of food, the supply of food and its transport. This would ensure that we have a base to our economy that could make possible the truths I have spoken about today. I believe that when we enact the policies that we have generously put forward here, Canada will come out with a plan, a plan that would secure us for the next emergency, because it is a matter of when, not if an emergency strikes, but when. I am very honoured to stand here on behalf of the good constituents of Edmonton Griesbach in this year, 2024, and I look forward to hearing my colleagues.

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Context: House Hansard - 270 - Jan/29/24

Mr. Blake Desjarlais

Jan/29/24 7:46:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am really happy that my hon. colleague mentioned this, because it is an important question that seems simple as to its facts but is actually quite complex in terms of how the supply chain truly works. I will say this: The costs that are being borne by our farmers, the costs that are being borne by cattle producers like my family, and the costs that are being borne by the truckers who are moving the food are all increasing. That is true, and I want to thank my hon. colleague for making that clear. However, the part I hope she can hear clearly is that it is not Canadians who are benefiting from this. It is not even the government that is benefiting from this. It is the megacorporations that, at the time of input increase, increased not only the base cost of goods but also the profit margin of those goods. That is the definition of “profiteering”. We used to be a country that, in the face of profiteering, would clamp down on it. We only need to look at World War II to see how Canadians used competition to ensure a fair price. We used government apparatus to ensure consumer fairness. My answer to my hon. colleague is that although I agree with the premise that, of course, these things are going up, the solution to remove the carbon tax, which is about four cents on one hundred dollars' worth of groceries, will not do the dramatic reduction of the cost of goods that we need. What we need is true competition in the megacorporations. We need to break them up and limit the profit motive at some reasonable degree. It cannot be infinite. I do appreciate the question, and the solution, of course. If four cents is something that is valuable to the member, then sure, but I am more interested in ensuring that our system of economy produces a system that is fair, to guarantee consumer power, rather than ram it over.

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Context: House Hansard - 270 - Jan/29/24

Mr. Blake Desjarlais

Jan/29/24 7:49:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is true that both municipalities and provincial governments do bear responsibility. Actually, part of the report's critical recommendations was to look at ways the federal government could look at provincial partners in particular, but there were some municipal examples, for big cities in particular. Members may recall that there was a national emergency facing us during the same time as we were hearing this. That was the dramatic infrastructure devastation we saw in British Columbia brought on by floods as a result of climate change. Floods, of course, produce extreme changes, not only in the existing water table that is present in British Columbia but also in the output costs of very good products we make there, like wine products and other agricultural goods in British Columbia. That is an example in which we see a solution in asking for a framework to work with provinces so that at a time of an emergency like that, we open up corridors of transport. That is one of the recommendations I agree with, to ensure that we actually get goods from one province to the other. If members can bear with me, I will add this. It is a true fact that at the time of the huge floods in British Columbia, which I know many families are still bearing grief for, it was actually companies that came forward to redirect the supply of goods from the northern corridor that supplied access to Alberta. My home province would have been cut off without such goodwill from CN and the people who allowed us to do that. We need to go further than that. We cannot just wait and bet on the goodwill of our neighbours and those actors in our country. We need to be more proactive. The solution found in this report is to look at our framework, to recommend to the provinces and the federal government that we come together on such a strategy, because it is true: We do not bear all of the jurisdictional powers at the federal level that would make possible the emergency levers to relieve a situation like a supply chain crunch.

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