44th Parl. 1st Sess.
January 31, 2024 02:00PM
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-59, the fall economic statement implementation act, 2023.
This legislation, which would deliver on key measures from our fall economic statement, would advance our plan to make life more affordable, build more homes faster and develop a cleaner economy that works for everyone.
This is the next step in our economic plan that, since 2015, has supported people in Halifax West and across the country through the Canada child benefit, enhanced benefits and pensions for seniors, stronger public health care and a Canada-wide system of affordable early learning and child care. These investments have helped bring us to today, when we have seen a strong recovery with a million more jobs in Canada than before the pandemic, a record number of working-age women in our labour force and, just last month, wages growing at the fastest pace in three years. In fact, wage growth has outpaced inflation for 11 consecutive months now, but we are not out of the economic woods yet.
Inflation is still high, higher than where we would like it to be. Elevated prices continue to put pressure on Canadian families. I hear about that every day from my constituents.
Over the past year, the federal government has taken more steps to make life more affordable for people in this country who need it.
It is no secret that we need to do much more.
This bill is part of that work.
There are a number of things I can talk about that Bill C-59 would do for Canadians. It would remove the GST and HST on counselling and psychotherapy services to make mental health care more affordable. It would extend employment insurance benefits to parents who adopt, better supporting those families.
Right now, adoptive parents are entitled to EI parental benefits, but not to the 15 weeks of maternity benefits.
It would create new, paid leave for federally regulated workers to support families who experience pregnancy loss.
A truly strong economy and labour force are built upon compassion and an understanding of the difficult situations some families encounter.
Bill C-59 would also introduce new measures to further our economic plan and continue supporting a strong middle class. It would achieve that by enshrining our suite of clean investment tax credits in law, all while providing businesses with an incentive to pay a prevailing union wage. That is huge.
This is the first time in Canada's history that investment tax credits are contingent upon such labour requirements.
Let us bring this back to my own community in Halifax West. The two things I hear about most these days, especially since we signed our transformative health care deal with Nova Scotia, are affordability at the grocery store and the need for more housing. This bill would introduce both.
On housing, Bill C-59 would remove the GST on new rental home construction for co-op housing, complementing the action we took in the fall and spurring new construction. Let us recall just how much we have done to increase housing supply over the last several months, because it is major. We are investing $1 billion more in affordable units like non-profit, co-op and public housing. We are helping build 30,000 more rental units by extending $15 billion in additional low-cost financing to builders. We are reforming the apartment construction loan program to offer low-cost loans to build more student housing on and off campus, a move that I know Dalhousie, Mount Saint Vincent and St. Mary's universities are all looking at closely.
We are launching a home design catalogue so pre-approved designs, including modulars, that can benefit Atlantic Canada specifically can be used to build more homes faster. We are funding 222 new units of public housing in Nova Scotia, the first expansion to our public housing stock in decades. We are unlocking 9,000 more units in HRM over the next decade by funding Halifax's housing action plan through our housing accelerator.
While Conservatives pick fights with elected mayors and councils, we work with them, providing the right incentives and getting major changes made so we can build homes faster in Canada. That is the way forward: collaboration.
We are going to get more homes built for Canadians, and we are also tackling the problem of high grocery prices head-on through a generational change to competition law in Canada. Bill C-59 is part of that. How is it? By amending the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act, building on changes we have proposed in Bill C-56, we would help stabilize prices and improve consumer choice. This includes supporting Canadians' right to repair; further modernizing merger reviews; enhancing protections for consumers, workers and the environment, including improving the focus on worker impacts and competition analysis; empowering the commissioner of competition to review and crack down on a wide selection of anti-competitive collaborations; and broadening the reach of the law by enabling more private parties to bring cases before the Competition Tribunal and receive payment if they are successful.
I know I welcomed this week's news that the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry is calling on the Competition Bureau to use its new powers to take another look at the cost of groceries in Canada. This is how we crack down on tactics that big corporations use to raise costs for Canadians.
Is there more we need to do to act on these two top voter priorities? The answer is yes, absolutely.
On this side of the aisle, we are going to stay focused on them both, fully in solution mode.
All members will have the opportunity to take part in this work, and that starts by supporting Bill C‑59.
Let us support the swift passage of Bill C-59, and let us keep working together on solutions to the challenges Canadians are facing at this time.
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- Jan/31/24 6:31:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member across talked about the government's investments in housing, and I am proud of the NDP's work to fight for significant investments in housing and, in particular, a focus on urban and northern housing for indigenous peoples. However, we know that the current Liberal government is failing first nations when it comes to housing, and I am talking about on-reserve housing. Some of the most acute housing crises in our country are on first nations with what many in the communities I represent refer to as third world living conditions.
If we go beyond housing, we know there is an estimated$350-billion infrastructure gap in first nations, including the needs first nations have because of the disproportionate impacts they are facing with respect to climate change. Unfortunately, yet again, this fall economic statement is a missed opportunity for the Liberals to act on the priorities and the desperate needs of first nations on housing, on infrastructure and on climate change mitigation. I am wondering when the Liberals will finally act to make the investments on first nations that are desperately needed.
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- Jan/31/24 6:32:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is an important question. The cost of housing is top of mind for the residents in Halifax West, for renters, mortgage holders, prospective first-time buyers and of course the first nations community. In fact, I was proud to be part of an announcement in Hammonds Plains to announce the building of the Acadia First Nation indigenous shelter for women, specifically in the Hammonds Plains area. That is something this government has brought about, and that is in construction mode right now. It is something we are focused on, and we are very much engaged in that.
Again, there are many solutions we need to work on. This is not a one-solution-fits-all, and it is not one solution that is only for government. It is for all parliamentarians from all political parties. It is for different levels of provincial, municipal and federal governments and also for other stakeholders.
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- Jan/31/24 6:33:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals like to blow the horn about their announcements regarding housing. However, the fact is that we have the lowest number of housing starts since the 1970s. People are struggling. I live in the Vancouver area, and inaffordability is just skyrocketing with respect to being able to get a home or rent a place. I wonder if the member would just agree with Conservatives that the Liberals' policy and what they are accomplishing is an unmitigated disaster.
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- Jan/31/24 6:34:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak again on housing.
Listen, since I have become a member of Parliament, not even two and a half years ago in September 2021, I can say that the work I have seen that this government has done on the ground in Halifax West and in the Halifax Regional Municipality has been unprecedented. People need to go to that area and see all the cranes, all the good construction and the work going on. A number of people have come to me in the last number of months since we introduced a number of changes with the accelerator fund. What we have done with the municipality and with the removal of the HST on new housing stock that is going to be built will be a game changer, I would say, across the country. It certainly is in my region and in my part of the country. I very much look forward to what the next year or year and a half will look like. I see a lot of positivism and a lot of good things coming.
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- Jan/31/24 6:35:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened to my colleague carefully, and I commend her for her work.
There is something that she did not mention. We are going through one of the worst housing crises in 35 years. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, CMHC, told us today that Canada's vacancy rate is 1.5%. The rate has not been that low since 1988.
The budget mentions housing, but not homelessness. I would like to draw my colleague's attention to the fact that homelessness has increased in Quebec by 44% in the past five years. The housing crisis is wreaking havoc everywhere.
The Liberals' national housing strategy is not working. Today, CMHC gave us more proof of that.
I would like my colleague to tell us what her government is going to do in the next budget. Despite what we had hoped, the last economic update did not say that any funds were set aside for housing.
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- Jan/31/24 6:36:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague with whom I serve on the Standing Committee on Science and Research. We work together in a very collegial way.
I agree that Canada needs more housing. That is the truth. In that regard, the government is doing excellent work across the country to build more housing more quickly. I am seeing that every day where I live these days.
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- Jan/31/24 6:37:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, once again, I am rising in the House not only on behalf of the residents of Calgary Centre but also on behalf of Canada's finance industry and others who are lamenting the disastrous course our country is on as we dither away our national advantages.
Finding better economic solutions for Canadians is what I seek to do as a representative in the House. It is a focus. It builds on career expertise. It is part of my party's fundamental path forward to fix these budgets. However, in order to fix the budgets, the budgets have to want to be fixed, to put it lightly. Here I am again looking at a brick of legislative changes, along with a self-congratulating narrative about all the great outcomes Canada is experiencing, but not so much.
The bromides that came with the minister's speech on this latest tumble into economic irrelevance might play well for ostriches, but for anyone paying attention, there is actually very bad economic news. I do not want to spend a whole speech on the nonsense pats on the back the Minister of Finance delivers in her own performance review, but I would be remiss in not publicly rebuking at least some of the financial fiction that she uses to build a case that Canada is somehow doing well economically, all while real GDP is down and GDP per capita is down.
The minister seems to like the debt-to-GDP measure, and her target not to be exceeded over two years ago now was 40%. Although this number alone was much higher than it has been in years, that number becomes less relevant with each budget cycle that runs that ratio higher. Again in this fall economic statement, it will be up to 42.7% in the near future. That ratio, by the way, is irrelevant for anything but comparison purposes with other countries that are going broke.
The minister and her government colleagues seem to like to even change that metric so that it suits their ends and looks good comparatively. How do they do this? I am sure with ample support from a litany of bureaucrats, they add back the holdings in Canada's pension plans to their net debt numbers: the CPP, the Canada pension plan; and the QPP, the Québec pension plan. That is a total of about $700 billion. None of that belongs to the government. It is managed at arm's length for the benefit of Canadians.
Taking a $1.3-trillion debt, federal only, and taking away more than half that debt from the pockets of Canadian retirees is a nice trick calculation. There is always an offsetting rule in finance. If the government uses Canadians' retirement savings to offset its own debt, that leaves a liability owed to Canadians that would be unfulfilled. That $700 billion is not a free pool of funds to address growing government debt. It belongs to Canadians who have contributed and who are counting on those funds for their retirement.
What we find out from Canadians very quickly is that, if they find out their governments are trying to mess with their retirement savings, they are offside. This year, the government is again increasing the amount that Canadians need to give from their paycheques to the CPP, an effective increase in a payroll tax.
This is not the only way the government is changing the availability of pensions. In this fall economic statement, the government is changing the way pensions are allowed to operate. There are a couple of very important changes to pension oversight. Pensions will now be overseen by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, or OSFI, as we call it. That is a federal regulatory body designed to ensure that Canada's banks are operating with the interests of the Canadian financial system and financial consumers in mind. Why? OSFI is overseeing a move to be the government's agency in charge of moving our country's financial system to a new norm of green finance, otherwise known as “sustainable finance”.
I have seen a lot of finance in my career on both sides of transactions, investor and agent. All of these moves toward green finance and sustainable finance are just ways of altering who gets paid from whom, as in who the taxpayer is subsidizing to make money. The Minister of Finance openly states in this fall economic statement that Canada is a leader in green finance, a leader in subverting financial math, like the outcome changes if the math is just tweaked a bit.
There is no secret math that makes this work. There are only payers and payees; those who get the funds and those who give the funds. The government has been relentless in doling out funds for industrial strategy, but the equation does not change, and the irreversible law in finance is always “follow the money”. The money flows right into the pockets of the government's friends. This needs to end. We need to fix these budgets. Our job here is to fix these budgets.
Let me give an example, because my colleagues across the way will want it, of what actual sustainable finance is. I will refer to a company in Calgary called Enbridge. It is a very good company on sustainable finance. It sets metrics for how it is actually going to perform for its investors' aims, and that allowed it to reduce its cost of capital by about 25 basis points. That means if it hit a number of metrics along the way, including DEI, which is diversity, equity and inclusion, in its board, in its makeup and in everything else the investors are looking for, the investors in that bond were willing to accept 25 basis points less than the market rate in order to be there. That is what we call sustainable finance.
Enbridge is a Canadian leader in that sustainable finance mechanism. It has nothing to do with equity. It has to do with market debt and getting a bit of a premium there, a bit of a discount to the investors, about how they can actually participate and move the needle, but those funds are few and far between. Enbridge has been very good at making sure it meets those requirements and serves that market well.
I want to talk about in this budget, as opposed to just criticisms, the Canada growth fund. It is an element, as we know, in the fall economic statement: $15 billion new dollars. There is no organization, no way of actually saying what its mandate is, and nothing that compels it to do anything outside of pooling $15 billion of funds and spending it on behalf of the government.
What will it do exactly? It will not do what the Canada Infrastructure Bank does. I heard my colleague across the way complaining about our position, that we are going to do away with the Canada Infrastructure Bank. It is not a secret; he called it a secret agenda.
It will not do what the strategic investment fund does, with billions of dollars going out to chosen industrial strategies that are accomplishing who knows what in the long run.
It will not do what the layers and layers of government support to fudge economic numbers do to push into new economic opportunities in which we have, as Canadians, no economic advantage and are following other countries that have much more expertise in this sector. Let us pretend Canada's economic advantage currently is not real and move to a fiction that we have a different economic advantage. Let us spend, so far, $135 billion in the effort.
Let us go back to the Canada growth fund; $7 billion of that $15 billion is being allocated toward carbon contracts for difference, the new subsidy du jour. I do not know if any of the bodies on that side of the House even understand how that works, but let me try and explain.
Contracts for difference hail from the financial world. They help to hedge against volatile prices, e.g. for shares or commodities. The seller and the buyer agree on a strike price for a certain product at a certain time. If the agreed price is below the market price at that time, the buyer has to pay the seller the difference between the agreed price and the market price. If the market price is higher than the strike price, the opposite happens: the seller has to pay the difference to the buyer. So this instrument is a good way of alleviating [some of] the risks of investing.
Unfortunately, it has many risks associated with it as well, and those risks have been detailed in many jurisdictions. Such socialized subsidies could lead to short- and long-term distortions, reducing the effectiveness of the price signal as an operational and investment decision driver. In energy and emissions markets, market participants can already use the available short- and long-term trading patterns, but additional support for low-carbon technologies is already granted through several instruments aiming to mobilize funding.
I will reiterate that the government has numerous instruments along the way, all of which are failing Canadians and making it much more expensive to do things in Canada. What is the accomplishment? The accomplishment is moving our industries offshore and making Canada less competitive on the world stage.
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- Jan/31/24 6:47:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened attentively to the hon. member's speech and to his background in the financial sector.
On inflation and interest rates, many people in Canada seem to think they are the responsibility or shortcomings of the federal government. Does he not appreciate that the inflation rate is a global inflation rate? All the G7 countries are experiencing that. Interest rates are high in every single G7 country. Compared to many other G7 countries, our economic growth, including the latest numbers that came out yesterday or today, in the GDP growth rate shows that we will not go into a recession but are going to manage a soft landing.
Does he not agree that Canada is doing pretty well compared to our G7 partners in all metrics of the inflation rate, the interest rates and the economic growth that we are witnessing?
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- Jan/31/24 6:48:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not know what economic data he is looking at. When I look at shrinking GDP in Canada, shrinking GDP per capita, shrinking GDP across the board, real GDP, I am saying that it is the worst in the world. It is the worst among our competitor countries. We actually are doing worse economically. We are trying to cover that up by bringing more people into Canada, which of course will increase our GDP, but our GDP per capita is sinking like a rock as a result.
We are not doing well economically, and it is part of the financial fiction the government keeps putting forward. It is not working well. Interest rates are high in Canada. Interest rates are high in many places. This is partly because of financially failed experiments the government continues to push toward. If it does not think the carbon tax, the carbon contracts for difference, and everything else it is throwing at the wall in order to make everything more expensive in Canada are not having their own unique effect on inflation, then it is not watching the ball. It needs to do away with all this excess tax it is putting on the backs of Canadians.
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- Jan/31/24 6:49:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciate my colleague. I was listening to his speech and, by way of introduction, he told us how good the Conservatives are at fixing and balancing the budget. He also spoke at length about the carbon tax.
I see a real carbon tax. It is the one that all Canadians are paying to the oil industry: $30 billion for a pipeline and $12.5 billion to the oil industry for carbon capture and storage.
My colleague's leader often says that we have to find a dollar's worth of savings for every dollar spent. I am wondering how they will balance the budget by being so lenient with big oil.
Can my colleague enlighten us on that?
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- Jan/31/24 6:50:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is interesting because the oil industry gets next to nothing in subsidies. There are many other Canadian industries that receive far more in subsidies. The electrical industry gets $135 billion.
Who is going to pay for this? The natural resources industry is paying for it for now. It is primarily the oil industry that is paying a lot in taxes and a lot in royalties to the government. The natural resources industry is paying for the government's targets in other sectors.
We are going to be paying for this for many years, but I am not sure how much. The government is now giving $4 million per worker to the electric vehicle industry. It is too much. We need to stop this from happening.
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- Jan/31/24 6:51:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have two questions for my colleague and friend. First off, Stephen Harper, in the dismal decade when he was in power, put in place a series of sweetheart tax haven treaties that the Parliamentary Budget Officer says cost us over $30 billion a year. That is $300 billion over the last decade. Are Conservatives prepared now to finally apologize for having gutted the federal budget in that way?
My second question is regarding all the votes we saw in December, where Conservatives voted to cut food safety, air safety, health care, affordable housing, national defence and the RCMP. There were 120 votes to slash and gut all the services Canadians depend on. Have Conservatives finally realized it was a mistake to make those proposals and to have those votes to gut all of those important Canadian programs?
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- Jan/31/24 6:52:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, governments, like everything, like everybody, like every household, like every entity, need to balance their budgets. When governments get out of control and spend too much and rack up too much debt, it leads to too much interest. It leads to too much being paid for the cost of that interest, which comes out of the pockets of Canadians. This is excess funding.
Governments have to get back to a cycle whereby they are actually balancing their budgets by a five-year cycle or even year by year, but the ability to foist today's taxes onto tomorrow's taxpayers is wrong. It is going to continue to be wrong, and it is going to continue to mount under the current government. It needs to stop. We intend to stop it.
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Madam Speaker, happy new year. I appreciate the opportunity to rise today and to speak in the House on behalf of the good people of Waterloo to Bill C-56, the affordable housing and groceries act.
Since 2015, the federal government's economic plan has invested in the middle class, strengthened Canada's social safety net and worked to build an economy in which everyone has a real and fair chance at success. A key pillar of the government's plan has been a focus on making life more affordable for Canadians, because when people have the support they need to thrive, they can contribute to the economy, build a better life for themselves and their families, and play an active role in their communities.
Regardless of what the Conservative Party of Canada members say, our plan is having a positive impact on Canadians. I recognize that when Conservatives speak of Canadians, they speak of the people who are doing well financially and therefore would benefit from their typical non-refundable tax credits.
People ask, what does that mean? Conservatives are classic for their gimmicks. The people who benefit from their non-refundable tax credits are often the wealthiest. The most vulnerable do not benefit, and I have dozens of examples in the riding and region of Waterloo. They know that if they are not in the economic situation to be paying additional taxes, they do not benefit from Conservative gimmicks of non-refundable tax credits.
I have heard lots of stories and had lots of conversations. People speak about the sports credit and the textbook credit, and the list goes on. They did entertain what Conservatives had to say, and then tax time came and their financial situation did not allow them to benefit. They asked me, what is the difference? I said that the difference is really understanding the way the rules in our tax system work. When the Conservatives speak of non-refundable tax credits, they are speaking about their wealthy friends. They are speaking about the people who would benefit from their financial situation and often not the most vulnerable in our community.
Then people refer to the most recent issue that Conservatives are having. We all know Conservatives are riled up about the price on pollution, or the carbon tax, as they call it. The majority of Canadians agree that pollution should not be free, and the reality is that eight out of 10 families benefit from the climate action incentive that the Conservative Party of Canada wants to remove from Canadian purses.
The Conservatives continue on about this price on pollution, but they do not talk about the fact that 80% of Canadians, eight out of 10 families, are actually receiving more than they pay. They are concerned about the very people they will continue fighting for day in and day out. When they speak, they relate to the average person. The average person hears them, and they say, “Oh, they are talking to me.” However, we all know that at the end of the day, they are not fighting for that average person. Therefore, let me repeat that 80% of Canadians receive more than they pay, and the wealthiest, who do not benefit, are the ones who would benefit from the Conservative plan on the backs of the most vulnerable.
Canadians want to undo the efforts that we have brought forward to make sure that we prioritize the environment, and I believe that the price on pollution is the reason we should continue recognizing the importance of fighting for the environment. The price on pollution is another excuse the Conservatives use as to why they have turned their backs on Ukrainians. Ukraine has had a price on pollution. Ukrainians recognize the importance of fighting for the environment. They know that the environment does not see borders, yet the Conservatives will take any opportunity for partisan gain.
When we have a world and a country where there are many people with a diversity of opinions, we need to recognize the importance of why we are here.
I think about why I ran in 2015. I ran in 2015 because of the government of the day under the leadership of Stephen Harper. Because I did not vote for his government, I was told that my voice did not matter, and I did not have a say. I remind Conservatives and I remind all Canadians that when people sacrificed their lives and fought for our rights and freedoms, they fought for our rights and freedoms regardless of whether they agreed with us or not.
Tough conversations are tough. Governing is tough. Every member of Parliament in this House has a really important role to play, and I recognize the value of it. Listening to people who are like-minded and who agree with us is really simple. Reaching out and listening to opinions and perspectives that do not match our own is tough, and that is something that I will continue to do in the riding of Waterloo.
When I ran in 2015, I committed to my constituents that I would represent their voices in Ottawa. I promised them and I reassured them that, regardless of my personal opinion, as their member of Parliament, their voices would be heard in this chamber, and I will continue to ensure that this is the case.
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moved that Bill C-347, An Act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 (oath of office), be now read a second time and referred to a committee.
He said: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to introduce my bill, Bill C-347. This bill proposes to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 regarding the oath to the monarch.
For Canadians who are listening, this bill is simply and more specifically intended to add an option for members elected to the House of Commons and all senators appointed to the Senate when they take their oath.
Let me reassure my colleagues here that Bill C-347 is not about whether or not someone is a monarchist or a republican; it is not about eliminating the monarchy in Canada. Even before I introduced this bill at first reading this past June, I made sure that we did not have to create a constitutional storm in this country in order to make this small but meaningful change.
It is simply about adding a second option to the oath of office that parliamentarians and senators are obliged to take before they take their seat and exercise their functions. That is all.
To those who think this is too complicated, I intend to demonstrate that the oath has never been static in Canada and has evolved over time.
Allow me to delve into the origins of the oath, which comes to us directly from the English Parliament. For transparency's sake, the historical overview I am about to share comes straight out of our very own manual, our bible, as it were, the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, 2017, by Bosc and Gagnon.
For starters, such an oath did not exist in England until the 16th century. The oath arose as a result of the political and religious conflicts in England, in particular the separation of the Church of England and the struggle between Protestants and Catholics for power. That is the actual origin of the oath to the monarch. In response to these religious conflicts, England adopted the Act of Supremacy in 1563.
That was during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Her Act of Supremacy required elected members to swear an oath to the sovereign attesting that she held supreme power in the realm in both ecclesiastical and temporal matters. The oath was primarily directed at preventing Roman Catholics from holding public office.
In 1678, England added to this oath a declaration against transubstantiation to prevent Roman Catholics from sitting in Parliament. In 1701, the Jacobites tried to restore Catholicism in England. By all accounts, this did not please the Protestants at the time since they immediately brought in three oaths. I am talking about the Jacobites here because I am referring to James II, who I will talk about later.
I was saying that following this religious war, three new oaths were devised. There was the oath of allegiance to the monarch of England; the oath of supremacy, denouncing Catholicism and papal authority; and the oath of abjuration, which repudiated all rights of James II, a Catholic, and his descendants to the English throne.
Without going too deeply into historical weeds, Catholics were basically required to swear an oath to the monarch and denounce their own religion and papal authority. Since the oath of abjuration also had to be taken in the name of the Christian faith, it also prevented Jews from taking the oath.
I will spare members the genesis of what would eventually become the Canada of today. Suffice it to say that Nova Scotia was the province that had its first popular assembly elected in 1758. It agreed to adopt the same oath as that of England, thus preventing Catholics and Jews from voting or running for office.
Incidentally, it is through the oath of allegiance to the sovereign that England still bears, and always will bear, the shame of the heinous deportation of the Acadians, ancestors of mine and of many colleagues who sit here in this Parliament. It was a sad chapter in our history. England tried to deport an entire people and exterminate those who wanted to stay in Acadia.
Over the course of our pre-Confederation history, the oath of allegiance to the sovereign evolved in much the same way in each province. The objective was always to prevent Catholics and Jews from voting or entering prestigious occupations as lawyers, judges, mayors, government officials and so on.
However, the way that the oath was administered in each province before Confederation varied. One by one, between 1820 and 1850, the provinces relaxed the terms of the oath to finally allow Catholics to vote and run for election. These changes came later for Jews, between 1832 and 1846.
Then came the Canadian Confederation, on July 1, 1867, the same day that our Constitution Act took effect. Section 128 of the Constitution Act, 1867 reads as follows:
Every Member of the Senate or House of Commons of Canada shall before taking his Seat therein take and subscribe before the Governor General...the Oath of Allegiance contained in the Fifth Schedule to this Act;
Section 128 refers us to the fifth schedule, which reads as follows:
I A.B. do swear, That I will be faithful and bear true Allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.
Obviously, there is a note that tells us that the name of the monarch can change over time.
That is where the requirement for members of Parliament and senators to take the oath originates. I will not get into talking about the legislative amendments that were made to ensure that the name of the monarch changes to reflect the events of the time, but in this year of Canadian Confederation, members and senators still have to swear allegiance to the head of the Protestant Church, which still continues to offend the conscience of Canadians of other faiths, including French-speaking Catholics and Irish Catholics, among others.
If I am telling members about this history of the oath over time, it is to show it has never been static and that, on the contrary, it has adapted to the realities of the time and to the sensitivity of our society to make our country a place where everyone feels at home, notwithstanding his allegiances or profession of faith.
Following the Constitution Act, 1867, Canadian society continued to evolve, and the oath that members of Parliament and senators have been required to take since 1905 is no longer exactly mandatory as set out in our Constitution. I am sure most members are unaware of the fact that we can now make a solemn affirmation instead, without any constitutional amendment required. Instead of taking an oath to the Queen, we can make a solemn affirmation, which is what I did each of the three times I was elected. However, the 1867 Constitution has not yet been amended. How did that happen?
It is thanks to a 1905 law, which did not amend the Constitution and seems to have been unanimously approved, without any objections.
It occurred by royal instruction in the form provided by An Act to amend the law in relation to Promissory Notes, which was passed in England in the 31st and 32nd years of the reign of Queen Victoria.
The takeaway here is that, since 1905, our Parliament has never questioned the fact that, without a constitutional amendment, MPs and senators had the option to take an oath of allegiance to the monarch, as set out in the Constitution, or to make a solemn affirmation. This is the case even though section 128 of the Constitution Act, 1867, and its fifth schedule have never changed and still refer to an oath of allegiance to the monarch.
More recently, in 2022, members of the 43rd legislature of the National Assembly of Quebec unilaterally amended section 128 of the Constitution Act, 1867, to exempt Quebec MNAs from the requirement to swear an oath of allegiance to the monarch once elected. This is another sign that our society continues to evolve and become more inclusive for elected members in this country.
It is in this spirit of continuum, inclusiveness and, above all, as a proud Canadian that I propose to officially modify, with the flavour of the 21st century, section 128 of the Constitution Acts, 1867 and its fifth schedule.
My Bill C‑347 would, for the first time in our history, allow MPs and senators to swear an oath of office that would be added to the fifth schedule. The oath would be as follows: “I, A.B., do swear that I will carry out my duties in the best interest of Canada while upholding its Constitution.”
I will repeat it in English. This addition to the fifth schedule of the Constitution Act would read as follows: “I, A.B., do swear that I will carry out my duties in the best interest of Canada while upholding its Constitution.”
Section 128 as we know it would remain unchanged but would become subsection 128(1), and subsection 128(2) would be added. It seems like section 128 has been lonely since 1867, so we are giving it a brother or sister that would say, “Notwithstanding subsection (1), every Member of the Senate or House of Commons of Canada may take and subscribe the Oath of Office contained in the Fifth Schedule to this Act instead of the Oath of Allegiance or may take and subscribe both.”
What could be more inclusive for our future MPs or senators than to let them decide, before they fulfill their noble duty, whether or not to swear an oath of allegiance to the monarch, based on their choice, their conscience, their religion or their ethnic origin? At the same time, they could subscribe to an oath of office. For the first time in our history, when members arrive here, they would be able to take an oath of office, committing to work in the best interest of our country and in accordance with the Constitution.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, before introducing this bill at first reading, I made sure that we would not cause a constitutional storm in this country or have to seek the approval of every legislature in Canada, of Parliament and the Senate to make this change. We are able to do this through section 44 of our Constitution Act, 1982.
Section 44 states:
Subject to sections 41 and 42, Parliament may exclusively make laws amending the Constitution of Canada in relation to the executive government of Canada or the Senate and House of Commons.
On that note, I will end my speech and answer any questions.
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- Jan/31/24 7:15:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I must admit that I really enjoyed my colleague's speech. I liked the fact that he drew from history to support his argument.
It will come as no surprise to anyone that the Bloc Québécois is by no means opposed to eliminating the obligation to swear an oath to the British monarch. I have immense respect for my colleague's reasons for introducing this bill. Given his Acadian ancestry, it is entirely understandable that he is no less averse to swearing an oath to the monarch than we Quebec separatists are.
I was not entirely comfortable, however, with his proposed amendment concerning the best interest of Canada. I think it could be open to different interpretations. As far as the Bloc Québécois is concerned, for example, the best interest of Canada would be to become an excellent neighbour of Quebec, as two separate countries.
I wonder if my colleague would agree that, instead of swearing an oath in the best interest of Canada, we should be swearing an oath to the people in our ridings.
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- Jan/31/24 7:17:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent question.
The purpose of the oath is to give any future newly elected members of the House of Commons and newly appointed senators an option that respects all faiths, all historical baggage and all origins.
I also think that there is something very true and unequivocal about saying “in the best interest of Canada while upholding its Constitution” when people come to serve here in Parliament, our country's centre of democracy.
I understand where the Bloc Québécois member is coming from and why he has reservations, but the fact that the Bloc Québécois is able to serve in this Parliament today is because of our Constitution, and that is why he should be happy to support this bill.
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- Jan/31/24 7:18:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for the very detailed history lesson that he gave about the oath of allegiance. I would have liked to hear even more about that.
I would say that section 128 of our Constitution needs a twin, rather than a son, a godfather or a sister. It needs a twin section. I like the way he approached this subject.
Could my colleague give us some examples of what is being done in other provinces in terms of oaths? Has he looked carefully at what the other provinces and territories are doing with regard to oaths or solemn affirmations?
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- Jan/31/24 7:18:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague has asked an excellent question.
My thoughts turn to section 44 of the Constitution Act, 1982. Instead of opening up the Constitution and stirring up a storm, section 44 allows for constitutional amendments that affect only Parliament, the Senate or the executive branch.
I did not explore what the member asked about, but I can say that, as a lawyer at the New Brunswick Bar, I think I was the first in the country to be admitted to the bar without taking an oath to the Queen. It has been done. The world did not stop spinning in 1993. The preference was to leave the option open to everyone, and I know that law societies in Canada have made adjustments accordingly since 1993.
I am sorry I cannot answer the question, but this bill concerns the Parliament of Canada.
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