SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 302 - Apr/18/24

Apr/18/24 4:01:43 p.m.
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I am not going to be telling you. Maybe the hon. member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley will.

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Apr/18/24 4:01:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, everyday Canadians are paying for the exorbitant interest costs generated by the irresponsible deficit spending of the government, $54.1 billion. That is over a billion dollars a week on the backs of Canadian taxpayers going to wealthy bankers and bondholders and not to health care or child care. It is shameful, absolutely shameful. It was not like this before the current Prime Minister and it is not going to be like this after he is gone.

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The Deputy Speaker

Apr/18/24 4:02:23 p.m.
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The hon. member for Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne is rising on a point of order.

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Mrs. Sherry Romanado

Apr/18/24 4:02:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I just want to remind the member opposite not to bang on the desk, because it hurts the ears of the interpreters.

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The Deputy Speaker

Apr/18/24 4:02:39 p.m.
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That is a very good reminder to all of us to be careful with our microphones on our desks. The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Apr/18/24 4:02:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think my friend from Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley inadvertently referred to former member of Parliament Paul Manley, Green Party, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, when I think he may have meant John Manley. My question is this: Would he agree with Greens that buying the Trans Mountain pipeline was a particularly bad idea? That is a statement with which Paul Manley would agree. I am afraid the Conservative leader misspoke in this place and said that the private sector was ready to build that pipeline. The reality is that the private sector had already made the key business decision that it wanted nothing to do with the project called Trans Mountain.

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Mr. Marty Morantz

Apr/18/24 4:03:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yes, I meant John Manley.

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Mr. Philip Lawrence (Northumberland—Peterborough South, CPC)

Apr/18/24 4:03:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a privilege to rise in the House. We are talking about the budget today, and I think it is important to start with some context as to where the country is. The member who preceded me did an excellent job. Hopefully, I will build on his strong work. Canadians are experiencing difficult times from coast to coast. Millions of Canadians are finding that, after nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, there is simply more month than money. They are unable to feed themselves, and food bank usage is off the charts. Over two million families will go to the food bank each and every month in Canada. The food banks in Otonabee-South Monaghan in my riding have seen the number of families with children using food banks double just in the last six months. The suffering is a result of Liberal policy failures. There is no two ways about this. The Liberals' policies are responsible for driving people deeper and deeper into financial crisis. Financial crises and financial issues generally have two different sides to them, as does the affordability crisis. We have income on one side and expenses on the other. There has been a lot of talk in the House about the expense side, the ever-increasing inflation, interest rates and taxes, and for good reason. It is causing considerable pain for Canadians. My focus will be on the other side, which is the income side or the growth side of the economy. I believe this is as serious, if not more serious, than the expense side, the reason being that history shows us that, when incomes rise, increasing costs can be managed by economies. There are a number of examples, but there has never been a time, not once in human history, where there has been prosperity in the absence of economic growth. For thousands of years, when the economy has grown, we have had prosperity. When it does not grow, we do not. Let us be clear that the income side of the ledger in Canada is bleak. We have experienced what Conservatives call, and what economists are starting to call, a lost decade in Canada. GDP per capita in Canada has barely grown. By this metric, we are in the worst economic time since the Great Depression, and quite frankly, there is no sign of relief. This is not getting better. We have had seven straight quarters of a decline in GDP per capita. If we measured recessions on a per capita basis, we would now be in one of the longest recessions in our lifetime. Liberals, of course, will attempt to obfuscate by blaming the lack of growth on other factors beyond their control, like the weather or other things, and their having no control over a weather front coming in, but the failure is distinctly Canadian. In this last decade, the American growth of GDP per capita, or the measure of each individual economic contribution of every American, has increased by 47%. In Canada, over that same period, it is 4.73%. An hon. member: It's not the weather. Mr. Philip Lawrence: No, it is not the weather. It is because of the failures of the Liberal government. Mr. Speaker, underpinning the failure of our economy to grow are our productivity issues. We have heard numerous commentators talk about this, Liberal and Conservative alike, from Bill Morneau to Lisa Raitt and commentators on all sides of the political spectrum. The productivity issue is crushing our Canadian economy. “Productivity” is a fancy word, but all it means is our ability to produce goods and deliver services efficiently. We can think of productivity as a three-legged stool. There are three key elements to productivity. The first is capital, and I will talk about that right now. Capital investment is incredibly important. A simple analogy is two workers competing with different levels of capitalization. One worker is trying to dig a foundation for a new building using a backhoe, and the other worker is using a shovel or even bare hands. We can see that the individual who is well capitalized, even if he or she is the inferior worker, will always win that victory. The individual who is not capitalized will never be able to compete. That is where Canada is right now. We are decapitalizing our economy right now. This will have tragic impacts, not just for the near term, but for the long term as well. We have, over the last 15 years, the lowest rate of investment growth into our economy in the G7. We are predicted, by many international organizations, to have the lowest investment rate in the OECD over the next 40 years. When we do this, unfortunately, we undermine the Canadian economy and the Canadian worker. A second key and equally important leg of that productivity stool is innovation. Innovation is incredibly important, and the good news is that we have great minds and great ideas here in Canada. We also have great post-secondary education here in this country. The challenge is that, after nine years, we do not have a framework in place to successfully and efficiently capitalize and exploit those ideas, turning them from an idea formed in a university dorm room to building products and solutions on the factory floor. Unfortunately, what happens far too often in our economy is that these great ideas come up and then dissipate, or more truthfully and more accurately, they go across the border as individuals who have great ideas simply do not have the framework to market, exploit and grow their ideas here in Canada. Instead, they end up improving the wealth of the United States of America, Europe or other places in the world. Meanwhile, Canadians fall further and further behind. Third, it comes down to workers, and I am proud to say that we have the best workers in the entire world right here in Canada. Unfortunately, they are being undercapitalized, and there is an absence of innovation due to the poor regulatory framework here in Canada. The challenge is that we have untapped resources. We have thousands, in fact hundreds of thousands, or probably millions of newcomers who are not able to access the Canadian dream because there are various organizations that are unwilling to recognize their education and hard work across the world. They have the ability to be doctors, engineers and scientists to help our economy in this time when we need to enhance our productivity. That is why our leader would bring in a fantastic blue seal program that would allow newcomers to gain access to the Canadian dream. With this is mind, if we look at the expense side of the ledger, this budget did not deliver. We need it to have, as is the growing consensus out there, fiscal restraint and a path to a balanced budget, but that is not there. This will continue to push along inflation and higher interest rates. Of course, we have seen higher taxation as a result of this budget as well. However, as we look at the income side of the ledger, I was hoping to see a focus on economic growth, and I am not the only one. Bill Morneau said that he was very disappointed in the government's lack of attention on economic growth. David Dodge was also discouraged by the lack of focus on economic growth. The CFIB and numerous organizations from coast to coast to coast were disappointed to see the lack of focus on economic growth. We can see that economic growth is the magic bullet to economics. If we have an economy that is growing, we will have jobs, standard of living increases and a stronger social safety net. Instead, the government has chosen to ignore growth, and unfortunately, we will all bear the cost for that. Conservatives will proudly be voting no on this budget.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Apr/18/24 4:13:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the member listened to what the minister was talking about, but she made reference to an accelerated capital cost allowance. Through that, we would be seeing many of the things the member just talked about, yet he is going to be voting against it, and that is the thing. The Conservative Party has already been told. We knew that the Conservatives would be voting against this years ago. They have made that declaration, so there is no surprise there, but what is a bit of a surprise is how the Conservative Party continues to try to give a false impression. Using what the member just indicated, and maybe he wrote it himself, I do not know, he is trying to give the impression that the government is not taking action on something that is so every important to the economy. However, the accelerated capital cost allowance does exactly what the member has been advocating for. I am wondering if the member had the choice to vote in favour of that aspect of the budget if he would actually vote in favour of that aspect.

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Mr. Philip Lawrence

Apr/18/24 4:14:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, just because I like the drapes in a house, it does not mean I would buy the whole house. The reality is that, if the member's comments were not put in context, they might have more merit. We have had nine years of the Liberal government. We see the record food bank usage. I wrote this speech because I field the calls from my constituents about not being able to make it to the end of the month and not being able to feed their kids. This has real consequences. This is the real world. We need real change.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Apr/18/24 4:14:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend from Northumberland—Peterborough South is chair of the rail caucus, an initiative that self-started, and which I am very pleased and proud to participate in. It is all-party and non-partisan. I look at this budget, and I have to say I was very disappointed not to see a real focus on ground transportation that would include integrating rail and bus service to reach more Canadians. I was pleased to see, or at least it looks like, maybe, in a future budget, the high-frequency rail project may be restructured so that it does not kill Via Rail in the Windsor to Quebec corridor. I am very interested to know my friend's thoughts on the Via Rail sections of the budget.

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Mr. Philip Lawrence

Apr/18/24 4:15:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to work on rail alongside my respected colleague. I am an outspoken supporter of rail. I, too, read that section of the budget. Ultimately, we will have to see what is in the implementation section. We do need strong rail infrastructure in this country. We can contrast that with the United States of America, which has the most rail per mile in the entire world, and in Canada, we are falling behind. Given our legacy of being one of the largest rail systems in the world 100 years ago, it is sad to see what we have come to.

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Mr. Alex Ruff (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, CPC)

Apr/18/24 4:16:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for really focusing on the need for economic growth in this country. I am wondering, considering that the Liberal government has put us in a position where we are paying more money to service the national debt than the government collects from taxpayers in GST, what impact that is having on increasing or supporting economic growth in this country. Even further, I am wondering what impact the carbon tax is having. I am not talking about the rebates, but we know from the Parliamentary Budget Officer's costing note that the government is collecting over $500 million, which will go to over $1 billion a year over the next eight years to the tune of $6.23 billion GST on the carbon tax alone. What impact that is having on our economic growth in Canada?

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Mr. Philip Lawrence

Apr/18/24 4:17:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a negative spiral. They work together, unfortunately. As there is more debt, it reduces the amount of economic growth. It is taking money out of the economy. The reality is, as that debt reduces the growth, it then reduces the amount of revenue. It gets to a negative spiral. This is exactly what Brian Mulroney had to deal with in the mid-eighties when he took over from Pierre Elliott Trudeau. It is a two-sided solution. We need to get the economy growing, and we need to reduce the debt so that Canadians could have a reasonable shot at prosperity.

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Mr. Majid Jowhari (Richmond Hill, Lib.)

Apr/18/24 4:18:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, at the outset, I would like to inform the House that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Ottawa Centre. I am proud to rise as the member of Parliament for Richmond Hill to speak to the urgent action in budget 2024 that would help Canada build the homes needed to restore fairness for every generation. Last week, our government released Canada's ambitious plan to build homes by the millions, to support renters and to lower the costs of home ownership so that no hard-working Canadians have to spend more than 30% of their incomes on housing costs. With budget 2024 and with Canada's housing plan, we are going to do whatever is necessary to put money on the table to build more affordable housing, to create the market conditions necessary to get more homes built and to change the way that cities build homes. We will restore the promise of a Canada for everyone once again. Over the next part of my speech, I am going to focus on four major areas: building more homes faster, supporting home ownership and renters, building homes on public lands and building the infrastructure communities need to build more homes. I will first speak about building more homes faster. We know higher interest rate environments have made it difficult to build homes. That is why we are proposing significant action in budget 2024 to boost the housing supply and to remove the areas that often slow down the construction of new homes. For example, we are reviving and modernizing Canada's post-war housing design catalogue, which will provide blueprints that can be used across the country to speed up the construction of new houses. Budget 2024 proposes to allocate more than $11 million in 2024-25 to support the development of this catalogue for up to 50 housing designs, including row housing and fourplexes that provinces, territories and municipalities could use to simplify and to accelerate housing approvals and builds. This first phase of the catalogue will be published in the fall of 2024. Speaking of supporting municipalities, our $4 billion housing accelerator fund is already cutting red tape across the country with 179 agreements with provinces, territories and municipalities, with Richmond Hill being one, enabling the construction of over 750,000 new homes over the next decade. To continue the momentum, budget 2024 would top-up this program with an additional $400 million to build more homes faster from coast to coast to coast. As well, to help developers get the capital they need to build more rental homes, we are also topping up the apartment construction loan program, or ACLP, with $15 billion, starting next year. This proposed investment alone would help build more than 30,000 additional new homes across Canada, bringing the program's total contribution to over 131,000 new homes by 2031. We know there is no single player who can fill Canada's housing shortage on his or her own. That is why we need to take a team Canada approach to getting this work done for Canadians. That means all of us working together and using every tool in our tool kit to get more homes built much faster. To that effect, budget 2024 announces Canada builds, which would help to leverage the ACLP so that we can better partner with provinces and territories to build more rental housing across the country. Truthfully, we could not do any of this without Canada's builders, carpenters, construction workers and similar tradesmen. They are incredible people who love their jobs, who are good at them and to whom we should all be grateful because we cannot build homes without them. To help train and recruit the next generation of skilled workers, budget 2024 proposes to provide $90 million over two years for the apprenticeship service program to help create placements with small and medium-sized enterprises for apprentices. Ten million dollars over two years is also being proposed for the skilled trades awareness and readiness program to encourage Canadians to explore and prepare for careers in the skilled trades. In addition, budget 2024 proposes to provide $50 million over two years for a foreign credential recognition program, at least half of which would be used to streamline foreign credential recognition in the construction sector to help skilled trades workers build more homes. We need to do everything we can to make it easier to build homes more quickly and more cost-effectively, and the measures I have just outlined are exactly those. Now, I will go on to the second area of my speech, which is supporting homeowners and renters. Young Canadians in my own community of Richmond Hill, including my son, and across Canada are struggling to find housing that fits their budgets. That is why the government launched the tax-free first home savings account and why, in budget 2024, we are taking action to unlock additional pathways for young renters to become homeowners and to protect middle-class homeowners from rising mortgage payments. To help first-time homebuyers keep pace with the rising housing costs, budget 2024 announces our intention to amend the Income Tax Act to increase the homebuyers' plan's withdrawal limit from $35,000 to $60,000. This budget also proposes to temporarily extend the grace period, during which homeowners are not required to pay their homebuyers' plan's withdrawals to their RRSP, by an additional three years. This first measure will enable first-time homebuyers to save up to $25,000 more for their own down payment faster. For a couple who withdrew the maximum in 2023, extending the grace period could allow them to defer annual repayments as large as $4,667 by an additional three years. Thanks to the new Canadian mortgage charter, more Canadians know about the fair, reasonable and timely mortgage relief they can seek and receive from their financial institutions. Budget 2024, aims to enhance the charter by enabling first-time homebuyers purchasing newbuilds to get a 30-year mortgage amortization, among other enhancements. The government will bring forward regulatory amendments to implement this proposal. Additionally, budget 2024 proposes to call on banks, fintechs and credit bureaus to prioritize tools that allow renters to opt in to reporting their rent payment history to credit bureaus so that they can strengthen their credit scores when applying for a mortgage. We are all committed to protecting the rights of tenants and to ensuring that renting a home is fair, open and transparent. For that reason, budget 2024 proposes actions to protect the millions of Canadians who rent and who have been exceptionally impacted by recent drastic rent increases. I now move on to the third area, which is building homes on public lands. Our government is redoubling our efforts to build homes wherever and whenever possible in the face of Canada's housing crisis. We are accelerating and streamlining the process of converting surplus federal properties into housing, and we are continuing to work with Canada Lands Company to enable the construction of additional housing units. In conclusion, our focus as a government is on building more homes at a pace and a scale not seen in generations to restore fairness and affordability for every generation. I hope my hon. colleagues will support us in this incredibly crucial work.

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Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC)

Apr/18/24 4:27:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague is talking about housing, and he is focused on housing. The government says that it is focused on housing, but the government has been saying it has been focused on housing for how many budgets now. How successful has it been thus far? These are regurgitated words the member is saying that come from many speeches by the government. All the government has done so far is to drive up the cost of housing by running excessive deficits, repeatedly, which drives up inflation, which drives up the price of housing. How does the member think that by doing the same thing again and again, he is going to get a different result?

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Mr. Majid Jowhari

Apr/18/24 4:28:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are not doing the same thing over and over again. If the member looks at it, starting back in 2016, we made a historical investment, and we continue to do that. We also introduced partnerships with the provinces and territories. When it became clear that we needed other partnerships, such as the municipalities, we started working with them. When it became clear that we needed to remove the red tape, we started working on that. We have been working consistently on that, looking at what we need to focus on and introducing new programs.

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Mr. Luc Thériault (Montcalm, BQ)

Apr/18/24 4:28:49 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-319

Mr. Speaker, how can the member justify the fact that he voted in the House in favour of Bill C‑319, which gives seniors over the age of 65 an increase in their old age security pension, yet there is nothing to that effect in the budget? The budget talks about housing, and seniors also have difficulty finding affordable housing. How can he justify the fact that his government, after voting in favour of the bill in the House, did not bother to eliminate this discrimination, this double standard for seniors, even though that was part of the budget expectations we presented to the minister? What was he waiting for?

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Mr. Majid Jowhari

Apr/18/24 4:29:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure of serving with my colleague on the HESA committee. When we talk about affordable housing and affordable rental units, we are talking about affordable housing and rental units for everyone, whether for a senior, a young couple or for an individual. We are not making any distinction among those demographics. By making sure that affordable rental units and affordable housing are available to everyone, by default, we are including seniors as well.

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Mr. Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, NDP)

Apr/18/24 4:30:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when it comes to housing, which has been in crisis for years now, the NDP made proposals and we are happy to say that the government has accepted some of them, such as using federal land and public land for affordable housing and creating an acquisition fund to buy new land and build truly affordable housing, an important concept. In 2017, the new national housing strategy promised that all this would be fixed. However, seven years later, the situation is even more catastrophic. While it is true that historic sums of money flowed through this strategy, it ended up in the pockets of private developers and helped people make a profit. That money has not helped deliver housing that people can afford. How can we trust the government not to repeat the same mistakes this time around?

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