SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 304 - Apr/29/24

Apr/29/24 4:31:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to start by thanking the hon. member for her very important advocacy on this and many other issues of importance to indigenous peoples in this country. She asked what we can do when it comes to indigenous housing, and my answer would be that we have to do more. I firmly believe that indigenous peoples have the right to housing as much as people in my community of Oakville North—Burlington. The Auditor General's report was quite clear, on both housing and first nations policing, that we have not done as much as we should. I will continue to advocate for more investments in housing in indigenous communities across this country.

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Hon. Mona Fortier (Ottawa—Vanier, Lib.)

Apr/29/24 4:32:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is important for me to rise today on behalf of the residents of Ottawa—Vanier to talk about our government's budget, which is entitled “Fairness for Every Generation”. Our government recognizes that Canadians are facing many challenges today. Whether it is housing or affordability, many of these challenges are leading to growing generational inequality in Canada. That is why this budget focuses on the investments needed to build a fairer future for Canada. Today, I would like to focus my remarks on some of the budget measures that will have a significant and direct impact on my community of Ottawa—Vanier and the national capital region. Like many of my colleagues, I have been hearing from my constituents about how concerned they are with the current housing crisis. Students, young professionals and newcomers are worried that they will not be able to find a place they can afford to rent near their school or job. Families increasingly believe that they will never be able to afford a home. Senior homeowners are concerned that their children and grandchildren will miss out on the dream of home ownership that they enjoyed, while seniors who rent are watching their housing costs eat up more and more of their retirement savings. This is why our government is taking decisive action to solve Canada's housing crisis with budget 2024. The housing measures in budget 2024 build on previously announced policies, such as eliminating the GST on new purpose-built rental construction and allocating tens of billions of dollars to the apartment construction loan program, the affordable housing fund and the housing accelerator fund. These policies will help increase the supply of housing in communities across the country, making it easier for Canadians to find a place to call home. In February, for example, Mayor Sutcliffe, city councillors and the Ottawa Liberal caucus joined me in my riding of Ottawa—Vanier to announce an investment of more than $176 million from the housing accelerator fund for the City of Ottawa. This is part of an agreement that will see the construction of more than 4,400 housing units over the next three years and more than 32,000 new housing units over the next decade. Budget 2024 also includes a number of new measures that will continue the government's commitment to solving the housing crisis in Ottawa—Vanier and across the country. One of the measures that will have a direct impact in my community is the public lands for homes plan. This project will see lands owned by the federal government being unlocked for the construction of new housing, leading to over 250,000 new homes by 2031. Ottawa—Vanier, in particular, has already benefited from such a program, such as in Wateridge Village, where a former military base has become a thriving residential community with a variety of affordable and market-rate housing developments. These include real examples of affordable housing, such as Veterans' House and housing built by Habitat for Humanity and Ottawa Community Housing with the Mikinàk project. Just last week, again, I was in Wateridge Village announcing how the public lands for homes plan will lead to the construction of 500 new homes in that community. This is real action on housing for Ottawa—Vanier. Budget 2024 also takes steps to make more rental housing units available for Canadians. We are investing billions of additional dollars for the construction of new rental apartments, and we are making changes to the apartment construction loan program to make it easier for builders to build. Our government knows that by making it cheaper and easier to build new homes, we will be able to create the housing supply that Canada needs to address the housing crisis. Another important priority shared by many people in my riding, including community groups, local businesses and everyday residents, is the revitalization of Ottawa's downtown core, including the ByWard Market. Even before the pandemic, we knew that the way downtown Ottawa was designed would have to change. The current model of office towers full of workers commuting in from the suburbs, and businesses that close at 5 p.m. when the workers return home, is becoming increasingly unsustainable. In the wake of COVID, we know that the new reality of hybrid work has only exacerbated the situation. Alongside my friend, the hon. member for Ottawa Centre, and his downtown Ottawa revitalization task force, as well as all my colleagues in the Liberal national capital region caucus, I have been working diligently to reimagine the core of our nation's capital as a vibrant, mixed-use downtown where people not only work, but live, raise families and go to school, as well as partake in world-class cultural amenities and visit an outstanding array of local businesses. Budget 2024 takes a big step toward revitalizing the downtown core, including the ByWard Market, by committing to reduce the federal government's office portfolio by 50% over the next decade. In Ottawa, the sale of these office buildings will free up space for all kinds of new uses. These buildings will make room for a new dynamic, mixed-use community, with some offices being converted to residential buildings, creating the new housing that Ottawa needs. Other buildings will be redeveloped for various other sectors, from small business to arts and culture, in order to inject new energy into the downtown core. Ottawa's core, from downtown to the ByWard Market, is an important part of our city, with lots of untapped potential. Revitalizing this area and unlocking this potential have been a key priority for the 12 members of the Liberal national capital region caucus. I am so pleased to see budget 2024's measures convert federal office space, which I believe will be the spark necessary to revive communities like Ottawa's core, which have been impacted by a changing workforce, and will lead to the creation of a vibrant new community that people can be proud to call home. Budget 2024 also addresses another issue that is very important to many people in my riding and in the national capital region: the public service. Our government knows that it is important to manage the federal budget responsibly. That is why we plan to refocus government spending where it will have the most positive impact for Canadians. Based on historical rates of attrition in the public service, budget 2024 provides for a reduction of about 5,000 positions. This will help the government generate savings that it can redirect to other key programs, while maintaining a strong and healthy public service that will continue to deliver results for Canadians. Budget 2024 also recognizes that government procurement can be an important tool to drive innovation and growth. A diverse array of small and medium-sized businesses in Ottawa—Vanier, including Black, indigenous and women-owned businesses, already benefit from federal procurement contracts. Our government will propose procurement targets for small and medium-sized businesses and innovative firms so that procurement can be leveraged to grow the economy, drive innovation and create good jobs for Canadians. In November, I spoke in the House about the importance of school food programs. I am pleased to say that budget 2024 provides $1 billion to create a national school food program. Many dedicated individuals in my riding of Ottawa—Vanier, along with activists and advocacy groups across the country, have been working on this program for several years. I was delighted to be in Ottawa earlier this month to announce this national program with them. The national school food program builds on our government's efforts to radically decrease child poverty in Canada, which we have cut from 16.3% in 2015 to only 6.4% in 2021 with impactful programs such as the Canada child benefit. I have so much more to say, but I know my time is running out. I will conclude by saying that the national school food program will be a game-changer in my community. I recommend that everyone here, as parliamentarians, support the budget.

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Mr. Scot Davidson (York—Simcoe, CPC)

Apr/29/24 4:42:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, all MPs make Ottawa home when we are here. It is frightening to walk down Bank Street now, to see the homelessness and to see the people lying in the street at night. I had company come, and they were actually afraid to walk down the street. This would be a state of emergency in York—Simcoe. That brings me to rural Canada. I am from a rural riding. Of all things, now the government is actually taking our money in York—Simcoe because it has classified us as Toronto under the goofy carbon tax regime. The Chippewas of Georgina Island in my riding, a first nation in the middle of Lake Simcoe, are not entitled to the rural top-up, and yet the government classifies them as rural and remote. I would like the hon. member to comment on that.

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Hon. Mona Fortier

Apr/29/24 4:43:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is exactly why the government is currently investing to address the housing crisis and to support the most vulnerable members of our society. My hon. colleague understands full well that we need to pass last fall's economic statement so that we can continue to support our communities, including the community of Ottawa—Vanier. I would therefore invite my colleague opposite to ensure that he supports the economic statement and, obviously, the budget that we just introduced.

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Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay (Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, BQ)

Apr/29/24 4:44:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, since my colleague and I both serve on the Standing Committee on International Trade, I will ask a question related to those issues. Budget 2024 says that it reaffirms the federal government's commitment to introduce legislation to eradicate forced labour from supply chains. However, it is not reaffirming this commitment. This is a new commitment. Budget 2023 said the same thing. It said that legislation would be introduced by 2024. My colleague and I both voted in favour of a motion that I moved in committee to remind the government of its commitment to introduce such a bill by the end of the year. We moved that motion with a month to go, saying that time was running out, but nothing was done. Now, we are seeing a new commitment and a new target date. However, time is of the essence for many reasons. We can, of course, look at this issue from a social justice perspective. Obviously, forced labour is a terrible thing. However, we can also look at it from a geopolitical perspective. The United States has a law with real teeth and it sees Canada as a leaky sieve. The United States has seized millions of dollars in goods. I recently got an answer to a question on the Order Paper. Canada has not seized anything. When will legislation be introduced?

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Hon. Mona Fortier

Apr/29/24 4:45:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for raising this subject. I think the government has made its position quite clear. We will keep working together to make sure we can do better. We will keep doing that work not only in committee, but also here in the House, to advance the agenda the government set forth in budget 2024.

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Mr. Taylor Bachrach (Skeena—Bulkley Valley, NDP)

Apr/29/24 4:45:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am sure the member has heard from constituents in her riding about the Canada disability benefit and the insultingly low value that has been placed on that benefit by the government. It is $200 a month, $6 a day, and this is supposed to somehow lift people out of poverty. It is insulting to a lot of folks who live with disabilities. Earlier today we heard the Deputy Prime Minister characterize it as a “first step”. Does the hon. member know when the next step will be available for people living with disabilities? How long are people with disabilities going to have to wait?

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Hon. Mona Fortier

Apr/29/24 4:46:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have to say that I am actually very happy that we are starting the first step with a meaningful investment. We have to do more, and we should continue to do more. However, this is a game-changer for community members in Ottawa—Vanier. It needs to pass, and then we could continue to build on this first step.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Apr/29/24 4:47:17 p.m.
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It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, Housing; the hon. member for Spadina—Fort York, National Defence; the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville, Finance.

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Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen (London—Fanshawe, NDP)

Apr/29/24 4:47:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay. It is always an honour to rise in the House to represent the people of London—Fanshawe. I am incredibly proud to do so and am happy to speak to this year's budget. I, like so many I know in the House, am worried when I talk to constituents who are falling further and further behind. My constituents are working hard, paying their fair share and contributing to our country and our economy in so many ways, but the programs and systems upon which they rely are not supporting them in the ways that they should. I am a proud New Democrat and member of a party that worked continuously to create programs that support Canadians, but we know that not every party believes we should all pay our fair share, and other parties, time after time, work to ensure that only those people at the top, those with the most power and wealth, do not contribute to the benefits we should all enjoy. That is not the NDP approach. As Jack Layton often said, it is the opposition's job not only to oppose but also to propose. The role of opposition is not to spend four years campaigning or using slogans to divide people, and I am proud to say that I can return to my constituents and speak about the real wins that New Democrats have secured. We have used our power to lay the foundations for public single-payer pharmacare for Canadians, beginning with free birth control for nine million Canadians and diabetes medication and device coverage for 3.7 million Canadians. We used our power to deliver dental care, with 1.7 million seniors already registered for the single biggest expansion of our health care system since Tommy Douglas. We have also used our power for solutions to the housing crisis, and we do see some of that in the budget. For years, the NDP has raised concerns about the financialization of housing. I believe that housing is a human right, but the financialization of housing has eroded that right by turning homes into commodities for the wealthy. Across Canada, 30% of purpose-built rental housing is owned by institutional investors. That means that young people are not only being shut out of owning a home but also, even when they are renting, being put at the mercy of greedy corporate landlords. Successive Liberal and Conservative governments decided to hand over our right of housing to the free market alone, and since the 1990s, the federal government has completely stepped away from investing in non-market housing. The government used to partner in the development of non-profit, co-operative and social housing to ensure that those who needed it had a place to live. It should be the role of government to create a balance on housing that benefits everyone. When housing is not ruled by a handful of corporations, it does so much better, and we need renters to be empowered so they are not accepting incredibly high rental hikes. However, since the government got out of housing, we have lost affordable housing units. When the Conservatives were last in power, we lost 800,000 affordable housing units that were bought up by corporate landlords. Londoners know what happens when the housing market is left, unchecked, to the free market. According to a report by Acorn Canada, London is one of the top five Ontario cities for renovictions. I have spoken to the House repeatedly and asked the government repeatedly about renovictions in London. Last year, the leader of my party and I joined a rally for tenants of Webster Street apartments. The tenants' homes had been sold to a Toronto-based corporate landlord, and the tenants were immediately issued eviction notices. They included an 83-year-old woman on a fixed income. She had been living there for years, and rent increase caps meant she could afford her home, but when she got the eviction notice, she had no affordable options. The greedy corporate landlords have forced her and other tenants on Webster out of their homes so they can gouge the next tenants on rent. According to a January CMHC report, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in London was $1,479. That is already unaffordable, but it gets worse when tenants turn over because of renovictions. The report found that rent for a two-bedroom unit with a new tenant averaged 27.6% higher than for other apartments in the same building. We need to protect renters on Webster Street and across Canada. That is why New Democrats pushed for meaningful action in the budget and why I am very happy to see that we were able to secure the $1.5 billion for the rental protection fund. That money will be used to protect renters from losing their affordable homes to corporate landlords and will purchase and transition buildings for sale into non-market housing. That is not all we fought for in the budget. A UNICEF report ranked Canada 37th out of 41 countries in nutritious food for children. At a time when corporations like Loblaw are making $1 million in profits every day, millions of Canadians are turning to food banks. Parents are doing everything they can to take care of their kids, but Galen Weston and his friends just keep driving up the cost of food. Let me be very clear that decades of consecutive governments have peeled away Canada's social safety net. Successive governments have prioritized the bottom line of folks like Galen and his friends over working families, and have ignored warnings about food insecurity for our children. The leader of the NDP and I joined the Lunchbox London group, a not-for-profit organization that provides over 600 food bundles to families in need and addresses some of the food insecurity of kids in school from kindergarten to age 12. Its work is essential for our community, and after decades of neo-liberal cuts, one in six London-Middlesex households faces food insecurity. The NDP could have solely opposed progress in this way, and we could have spent years pointing to the horrible insecurity statistics for kids, but instead we chose to use our power to fight for those kids, so there is now the $1-billion national school food program. Until now, Canada was the only G7 country that did not have such a program, but now more than 400,000 more children will be able to access nutritious food each year, and I am very proud of the NDP's work to secure that food for children. However, this is only a first step, as has been mentioned many times in the House, and the NDP envisions a truly universal national school food program where every kid, no matter their postal code, knows they will have a nutritious meal. I am also very proud of a lot of the things we have accomplished over the last couple of years. The New Democrats, with our small but mighty caucus, have made real gains for Canadians, but we are not the government, as much as the Conservatives will debate otherwise, and this is not an NDP budget. At the end of the day, the New Democrats have pushed as far as we can, but so much of the budget does not go far enough, and if it were not for the NDP, the budget would not address the concerns of Canadians. However, I do want to address one of the concerns I have with the budget, something I and many of my colleagues are not happy with. Of course, this is the disability benefit. Of Canadians living with a disability, 1.4 million live in poverty, and those with the most severe disabilities often live in the deepest poverty. Liberal and Conservative governments, provincially and federally, have balanced the books on the back of legislating persons with disabilities into poverty. My office has heard from so many community members facing legislated poverty. We have worked with community members who have even gone on hunger strikes to raise awareness of the horrific conditions imposed upon them. We know that it is not enough to raise people out of poverty, and we know that attaching the benefit to the disability tax credit will create serious systemic barriers to access. I hope that when the government said that this is a first step, it truly means that it is only a first step and that we will soon see additional measures to ensure that people living with disabilities do not continue to suffer. To wrap up, I wanted to reflect on the state overall of what we are seeing in Canada and in politics. On one hand, there is a Liberal government whose arm has to be twisted to come close to meeting its own promises. Time after time, it resists every step toward dental care, pharmacare, renters' protection and the school food program. On the other hand, there is an ideologically driven Conservative leader who tries to divide Canadians and exploit our real pains for electoral gain while his advisers take out big cheques from big corporate interests. Canadians are facing an incredible cost of living increase, and the NDP, instead of spending the four years just in opposition, decided to use its power to deliver for Canadians, and we want to continue to fight for those solutions. This is not an NDP government and this is not an NDP budget, but this is what happens when enough Canadians reject the legacy parties and dare to elect a party that has the courage to fight for what is right. New Democrats will keep fighting against the corporate coalition and will put people first.

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Mr. Lloyd Longfield (Guelph, Lib.)

Apr/29/24 4:57:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member across the way for highlighting the disability benefit and the opportunity that it is going to provide going forward. Could the hon. member comment on how important it is that the benefit, as we are structuring it now, does not get clawed back by provincial and territorial governments, that it is a tax-free benefit that, once we have established the pattern of payment, will not revert to a clawback program?

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Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen

Apr/29/24 4:58:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is one of the key things the government has to work for: to ensure that those funds, as meagre as they are at six dollars a day, are not clawed back. It will do people living with disabilities in this country absolutely no good if that money is given with one hand and taken back with the other. It is fully incumbent upon the government to do that work. I would love to see that happen, sooner rather than later, to ensure that people do not continue to suffer.

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Ms. Lianne Rood (Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, CPC)

Apr/29/24 4:58:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member opposite has told us that she does not belong to part of the government, but in my hand I have a copy of the supply and confidence agreement that was signed by the NDP. It is the agreement between the NDP and the Liberal government. I would like to table this document. I have it in both official languages. Perhaps—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Apr/29/24 4:59:17 p.m.
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The hon. member already tried to table that earlier today. I do want to remind her that when she is speaking, she cannot point to a document as it is considered to be a prop. Does the hon. member have a question?

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Ms. Lianne Rood

Apr/29/24 4:59:30 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-234

Madam Speaker, I have heard from constituents across Middlesex and across London who are facing hard times right now. They cannot afford food. They are going to food banks in record numbers. Of course, we have a rural area around London where people are paying a high carbon tax. Would the member for London—Fanshawe like to comment on why she continues to support the Liberal government with the carbon tax and why she will not vote in favour of Bill C-234 to axe the tax for our farmers?

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Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen

Apr/29/24 5:00:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I always find it very interesting when Conservatives stand up to talk about who they are trying to help. Ultimately, “axing the tax”, as they call it, would help the wealthiest in this country. I would like to ensure that Canadians do not fall for that misnomer. Conservatives try to sell it as if they are fighting for people when they are actually fighting for corporate profits. Maybe, later on in debate, the member could tell us why her party refused to vote for a national school food program, which we know will help students and families with the nutrition they need. Why would they vote against pharmacare, which would go directly back into the pockets of women who deserve and need contraception, as well as the pockets of people who live with diabetes? Why would the member vote against that sort of measure and why would she vote against the dental benefit? Those measures would help people across Middlesex, across London, and across this country with the everyday costs that seniors, especially, are facing. I would like to know why she would vote against those things that would actually help people's pocketbooks.

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Mrs. Julie Vignola (Beauport—Limoilou, BQ)

Apr/29/24 5:01:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, people have been saying for years that we should be investing more in the environment and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. They will always be there; we just need to stop using them so lavishly all over the place. That said, this government's budgets keep giving money to the oil and gas industry indirectly or in the form of tax credits. Is my colleague comfortable with that part of the budget, which undermines our environment year after year? Amounts allocated to the environment are laughable compared to investments in the fossil fuel industry.

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Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen

Apr/29/24 5:02:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, New Democrats have been at the forefront of pushing back against those corporate giveaways to the oil and gas sector. It is incumbent on those corporate owners to pay their fair share. As I said in my speech, we will continue to push against that. This is not an NDP budget. I will fight for the day when we see a fair share being paid by everyone in order to ensure that we have a safe, healthy future, both with all those social programs and in terms of our environment.

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Mr. Richard Cannings (South Okanagan—West Kootenay, NDP)

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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Mr. Lloyd Longfield (Guelph, Lib.)

Apr/29/24 5:12:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member across the way for his tireless advocacy on behalf of science in Canada and the work that he did on the science committee to bring forward the recommendations to have additional investments in science. Could the hon. member comment on how this is a beginning of a new era for science in Canada and how we can continue to support citizen science as well as indigenous science in the future?

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