44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 29, 2024 11:00AM
- Apr/29/24 1:50:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is said in the financial world that the best predictor of future performance is past behaviour.
I was first elected in 2008, when there was a Stephen Harper government. I was in the House when the Conservatives ran seven consecutive deficits. When I entered the House, the debt of Canada was $467 billion. It was $628 billion in 2015, when Mr. Harper left office. We will not be taking any lessons or lectures from the Conservative Party on deficits or debt, since the record speaks for itself.
The capital gains provision in this budget would apply to 0.13% of people, with an average income of $1.4 million per year. Could my hon. colleague tell us what the Conservative position is on capital gains? She has talked about transparency. Will the Conservatives keep that or endorse that policy, or do they oppose it, yes or no?
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- Apr/29/24 1:52:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I know that the member opposite is gutted because he used to be an opposition member and now he has joined the government. He is going to have to go back and tell the people who voted for him that he supported the government on every single thing, including raising the carbon tax by 23% on everybody, on April 1. He will have to tell them why he continues to vote with the government and gets nothing for it.
The Prime Minister told us, nine years ago, that the rich would pay for his addiction to spending. I might remind the member opposite that it was the Harper government that balanced the budget after the economic crisis in 2015, eight years after they ran those deficits.
I will say this: Canadians are the ones who pay for all the spending of the Prime Minister, including everyday Canadians, single mothers, workers and everybody in between. They pay at the pumps, at the grocery store, with double the housing costs and with double the rent and mortgage. They pay for the Prime Minister's addiction to spending.
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- Apr/29/24 5:02:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, today, as we have heard, we are debating the budget introduced by the Liberal government a couple of weeks ago. We have also heard, time and time again, how Canadians are struggling to make ends meet. They are having a hard time finding housing they can afford, facing soaring rents and rising mortgage costs, or even finding anywhere to live at all. They are seeing rising food costs at grocery stores and paying more for gas at the pumps.
On the other side of the coin, Canadians are seeing big corporations, oil and gas companies, grocery giants, corporate landlords and big banks making absolutely record profits. The more we pay for gas, for food, for housing, the more those corporations and their CEOs are making billions of dollars in profits. People are looking for ways the government could be helping them get by, because it does not have to be this way.
In this budget, the NDP has used its power to force the government to help Canadians. It is a glimpse of what an NDP government would be doing, which is what is best for ordinary Canadians and not for big corporations and the wealthy. However, I will say that this is not an NDP budget, and I will certainly spend some time talking about how it could have been improved greatly.
What did the NDP accomplish for Canadians? First is dental care, which will change the lives of nine million Canadians when it is fully rolled out to all qualifying people next year. Free birth control will benefit another nine million Canadians who now have to pay for those products. Free diabetes medication will benefit 3.7 million Canadians with this disease. Insulin was discovered in Canada, but every year thousands of Canadians, many of them younger Canadians, die prematurely because they simply cannot afford the medication needed to control diabetes. These are completely preventable deaths, and it is shameful that Canada has been allowing this to happen for many years. Thanks to the NDP, this will get fixed.
These provisions are the leading edge of the NDP's program of a universal, publicly funded, single-payer pharmacare plan that will be developed over the next year through legislation outside of this budget. It is a program that will save Canadians billions of dollars every year. Estimates from the Parliamentary Budget Officer and expert studies done for the government estimate savings of between $4 billion and maybe more than $10 billion per year through a single-payer plan.
Thanks to the NDP, this budget also contains funding for school meals, which will help all children, no matter their situation, with the nutrition and energy they need to succeed in their studies. Education is the great equalizer, but we have to provide all students with the conditions for success, and this school meal program will be an important part of those conditions.
The housing crisis is affecting millions of Canadians and there are some real steps in this budget to address that, such as a rental protection fund, a program to use federal lands to build new affordable housing and a $400-million top-up to the housing accelerator fund. There is $1 billion set aside for non-market housing to build truly affordable homes, again, something the NDP has been asking for, in contrast to the Conservatives who seem to think that if we just build more units prices will magically become affordable.
In my riding, we are building more housing units than we have ever built before, but according to municipal planners, every day we have fewer affordable housing units. These additional units that are being built are simply bought up by people who already own homes and people who are using them as investments. We need more affordable units, and to accomplish that the federal government has to get back into the affordable housing business like it was 30 years ago.
I would like to highlight a couple of smaller line items that may not have gotten as much publicity but will still make a huge difference to all Canadians.
I entered politics to provide a voice from a scientific background to Parliament. Science and research are the real basis of a successful economy in this day and age, and I have been calling on the government for two years now to provide more support for researchers, especially young researchers.
Postgraduate students do most of the research in Canada and are expected to work full time at that job. The best and brightest of these are funded through federal scholarships and fellowships that have remained at the same level since 2003, over 20 years ago. Master's students have been expected to live on $17,500 a year. Out of that, they have to pay their tuition fees, which are $7,000.
Finally, in this budget, the government has recognized that shameful situation and has significantly increased the amount and number of these supports, as well as provided an overall increase in research grants to investigators, which will help even more young researchers do the work they want to do and that we need them to do.
On another front, I want to give a shout-out to my colleague, the MP for Courtenay—Alberni, who has been leading the charge for an increase to the tax credit for volunteer firefighters. Previously, those brave and generous members of communities across the country have received only a $3,000 tax credit for the work they do to keep us safe. This budget would increase that to $6,000, short of the $10,000 we were hoping for but still a significant increase for very deserving community members.
What is missing from this budget? How does it differ from one that an NDP government would bring in?
First of all, there is the Canada disability benefit, something the NDP has been fighting for. We were hoping that it would finally be there in this budget, to really lift people with disabilities out of poverty. It is there but it is a paltry $200 a month, a complete insult. The NDP will continue fighting for people with disabilities, to make sure this benefit will be enough and to make sure they will have at least $2,000 per month to live in dignity.
I was also disappointed that there is no provision for a national wildfire fighting force, which could really benefit every community facing the rising threat of wildfires every summer.
Once again, the government has been timid in its willingness to try to address one of the biggest threats to this country and its economy, and that is the growing gap between the rich and the rest of Canada. Harper Conservatives cut the corporate income tax in half, immediately putting a $16-billion burden on middle-class Canadians. That cut was made in the name of trickle-down economics, the outdated and debunked belief that, if we give tax breaks to the wealthy, it would trickle down to the rest of us in the form of more jobs and benefits. It has not happened. The profits of corporations have climbed steadily over the past 30 years, while wages have remained stagnant.
Most Canadians are paying more in tax and getting nothing in return. The Liberal government, and the Conservatives would certainly be no different, refuses to put a windfall tax on big oil and gas companies that are making a killing on the backs of Canadians. Other countries such as Spain and the U.K. have brought in such a tax, a measure that would bring in about a billion dollars a year. We could also bring in a wealth tax that would affect only those very few Canadians with personal wealth of over $10 million. Such a tax would bring in another $12 billion per year.
It is often said in this place that budgets are about choices. We have to make choices on both sides of the ledger, spending wisely to make sure that Canadians have the programs that make this the best country it can be and leave no one behind, and finding revenue options that ensure that the costs of those programs are borne by those who can afford it.
We know that this budget could have been better. We know that, under a Conservative government, it would have been far worse. An NDP government would truly put the interests of ordinary Canadians first, not the interests of big corporations or CEOs. We would listen to workers and other Canadians who are really struggling, not to lobbyists for grocery giants, fossil fuel companies and big pharma.
We are proud of what the NDP has accomplished by using the power we have to take a big step in making this a fairer and more prosperous country.
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- Apr/29/24 6:18:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the first thing I would do is remind the member that the Gordie Howe bridge was actually a project brought forward by the previous Conservative government, under Stephen Harper. Second, I will remind him that what Conservatives voted against was a tired and corrupt Liberal government. We voted non-confidence in the government. The NDP should finally grow a backbone and do the same.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate both the member who is presenting this legislation and also his speech, which was well-informed and provided good information for Canadians.
The member is right to point out that this provision was included in Bill C-47, omnibus legislation, which is something that the NDP has always opposed, both under the former Harper Conservative government and under the current government. The idea that the government would put, in the budget implementation bill, a whole range of other measures simply does not allow for the legislative scrutiny that is so important. The member is right to point out that Bill C-47 did that. It made those changes, just as Bill C-51, under the former Harper Conservative government, purported to do the same thing.
I thought he was very eloquent about the fact that we need to move forward with this legislation. The NDP will be supporting this legislation at second reading. We want to send this to committee. We want to have the committee do the fulsome work of finally consulting the industry and natural health practitioners, so that we finally get something that has not happened under either Bill C-51 or Bill C-47, which is the scrutiny that is so important.
I consume a lot of natural health products—
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- Apr/29/24 8:40:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Canadians know there would be hope with a Conservative majority government that would listen to them, care about them and provide the national framework to replace their fears with confidence in Canada's economy, sovereignty and individual freedoms.
The Prime Minister, in his nine years, has amassed more debt than all other prime ministers combined. That includes Mackenzie King, who brought us through a world war. He brought Canada back to the conditions necessary to build much of the social safety net Canada takes pride in the world over. That also includes Stephen Harper, who led our country out of the great recession by offering a path to balanced budgets.
As long as the government keeps spending like there is no tomorrow, it will be remembered for depriving our children and grandchildren of that bright future they deserve. When Conservatives serve Canadians after the next election, we will be remembered as the government that restored hope in that future.
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