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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 283

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 15, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 283 - Feb/15/24
Mr. Pat Kelly (Calgary Rocky Ridge, CPC)
  • Feb/15/24 6:42:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, back in November, I put a question to the Minister of Innovation regarding the government's decision around its massive subsidy program for battery plants. I asked him about the inconsistencies that the government had offered at that time for the number of taxpayer-funded foreign replacement workers who were going to be employed amid the massive incentives that were being given to a profitable company in Windsor. It was quite alarming. People were really surprised that, despite the massive financial support from the government, this was not even going toward local jobs in Windsor. Rather, it would require a massive number of temporary workers, who would have to come and add to the strain on local housing and health and all the other services that people need municipally. Moreover, the salaries of people who were coming in to take these jobs would be paid from the taxes of local workers in Windsor. The response was wholly unacceptable. The minister just talked about how wonderful it was that they have all these new factories that are being built only with massive support from the government. The question, at the time, was this: Would they release the contracts and actually be clear with Canadians as to the details and what the costs would be? The estimates are that every family in Canada would be paying $1,000 for this subsidy program for construction to be carried out by temporary foreign workers, not local workers, who would be adding to the strains on the local housing market and all the other things that go along with that. This is part of a broader pattern where the current government's industrial policy is to chase out actual real investment, whether foreign or domestic, and the only way they can get anything built in this country is to subsidize. We need look no further than what the Liberals have done in the oil and gas industry. The government's own report from Statistics Canada states that rising living standards will depend on productivity growth. It says, “Labour productivity has declined in 11 of the past 12 quarters and is below prepandemic levels.” Furthermore, “business investment in non-residential structures and machinery and equipment has...pulled back since...the mid-2010s.” The living standard of Canadians is declining. The per capita GDP in Canada is shrinking. People are doing less well, and the response of the current government is simply to try to incentivize countries through subsidy while it is chasing out private capital, as it has done in my province. To top it all off, this week, the environment minister said that there will be no more road construction, when road construction leads to productivity. One wonders whether the batteries from the Stellantis plant subsidized by the government will power flying cars. It is a growing country that needs roads. The Liberals do not want roads or private investment. They simply want to subsidize as their industrial policy.
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Context: House Hansard - 283 - Feb/15/24
Mr. Pat Kelly
  • Feb/15/24 6:49:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if the Liberal government would simply get out of the way, private capital would return to this country, and we would have actual investment that would employ Canadians and create jobs without massive subsidies. The estimate has been that the subsidy on this plant alone will be $1,000 per family in Canada. A perfect example of the Liberal government's absolutely disastrous track record on investment in this country is the oil and gas business, where it chased out private capital that would have built the Trans Mountain pipeline. Now, the government has to massively subsidize that project, when it could have been built with private capital and could have employed Canadians in both the construction and the fulfillment of that job. The project is still not done. The government wants extraordinary credit for its subsidy program when it should be welcoming private capital.
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