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Decentralized Democracy

House Bill

Bill C-56

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 15, 2023
Affordable Housing and Groceries Act

  • Her Excellency the Governor General recommends to the House of Commons the appropriation of public revenue under the circumstances, in the manner and for the purposes set out in a measure entitled “An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Competition Act”.

    Part 1 amends the Excise Tax Act in order to implement a temporary enhancement to the GST New Residential Rental Property Rebate in respect of new purpose-built rental housing.

    Part 2 amends the Competition Act to, among other things,

    (a) establish a framework for an inquiry to be conducted into the state of competition in a market or industry;

    (b) permit the Competition Tribunal to make certain orders even if none of the parties to an agreement or arrangement — a significant purpose of which is to prevent or lessen competition in any market — are competitors; and

    (c) repeal the exceptions in sections 90.‍1 and 96 of the Act involving efficiency gains.

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Context: House Hansard - 312 - May/9/24
Mr. Randeep Sarai (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, Lib.)
Mr. Speaker, last November, the government introduced Bill C-59, the fall economic statement implementation act of 2023. Among other measures, Bill C-59 proposed significant amendments to our Competition Act. I am proud to share that the Standing Committee on Finance has recently completed its review of the bill and has made several amendments to further strengthen existing proposals. For many years, Canada's markets have been described as overly concentrated and not competitive enough. In fact, the landmark Competition Bureau study last year, based on Statistics Canada data and analysis from a University of Toronto professor, made critical findings in this respect, showing that competitive intensity has been on the decline over the past two decades, which is reflected in a number of important indicators. These trends have been exacerbated by the inflationary pressures our country is facing following a global pandemic and increasing geopolitical uncertainty. Bill C-59 was introduced to help build a stronger domestic economy through more competition and contestable markets to bring lower prices, more choice and better product quality for consumers across all sectors. The proposed amendments to the Competition Act in Bill C-59 arose out of a comprehensive public consultation conducted from November 2022 to March 2023. Having heard from stakeholders, the government introduced Bill C-56, the Affordable Housing and Groceries Act, which was ultimately passed by this Parliament in December 2023. Completing its response to the consultation, the government then presented a more extensive set of reforms by way of Bill C-59. The measures in this bill include strengthening provisions with respect to merger review, enhancing protections for consumers, workers and the environment, and broadening opportunities for private enforcement. We should not underestimate just how critical these reforms are for modernizing our laws and promoting competitive markets. The commissioner of competition has stated on multiple occasions that the amendments in Bill C-56 and Bill C-59 are “generational.” I would therefore like to highlight some important reforms that have been proposed. To begin with, anti-competitive collaborations between competitors would be under increased scrutiny as the bureau would be able to examine and, if necessary, seek penalties against coordinated conduct that lessens competition. Up until now, at worst the participants would be told to stop what they are doing. The expansion of private enforcement and the ability of the Competition Tribunal to issue monetary payment orders in cases initiated by private parties are also significant changes to our existing enforcement approach. By relaxing the requirements to bring a case and providing an incentive to bring matters directly to the Competition Tribunal, there would be greater accountability throughout the marketplace and more action on cases that the Competition Bureau may not be able to take. More competition is always beneficial to consumers, but the bill also takes some direct approaches to protect consumers. These include strengthening provisions on deceptive marketing, such as applying requirements more broadly so vendors must present the full cost of a product or service up front without holding back mandatory fees, known as “drip pricing.” The law is further being refined to make it easier to ensure that advertised rebates are authentic when compared to a vendor's past prices. Businesses making environmental claims about their products would be required to have undertaken adequate and proper testing before advertising their benefits. Together, these changes would ensure that consumers have accurate and complete information about products and services in order to make informed purchasing decisions. I would also like to highlight barriers to repair, which have been an issue of great importance in recent years. Where manufacturers refuse to provide the means of diagnosis or repair in a way that harms competition, remedial orders would be available to require them to furnish what is necessary. This could help a wider variety of service providers offer more options to consumers when choosing where to repair their products. On top of everything I have mentioned so far, anti-reprisal provisions would also ensure that the system can function. These are included to ensure that workers and small businesses are protected from potential retaliation when they work with the authorities to address anti-competitive behaviour and violations of the act by other parties. These reforms, along with various administrative changes, aimed at facilitating efficient enforcement of the act, are crucial to ensuring that Canadian markets remain competitive and in line with international practices. It has been acknowledged by all members of the House that our competition framework requires reform. My colleagues have engaged in thoughtful discussion on ways to modernize the existing marketplace framework. Nothing exemplifies this better than the enthusiasm shown by members of all parties to strengthen these provisions of Bill C-59 once it reaches the Standing Committee on Finance, especially in light of recommendations made by the commissioner of competition. The amendments adopted in committee notably relate to merger review, deceptive marketing, and refusal to repair. The committee members were quite interested in enhancing protections for consumers and the environment, and these are the ones that I would like to draw attention to now. First, clarifications were made to ensure that in the Competition Act's various provisions on drip pricing, the only amounts that could be excluded from the upfront price are those imposed by law directly on the purchaser of the product, such as sales tax. Next, with the committee's amendment, sellers advertising reduced prices would now be required to be able to prove that regular price is authentic in order to publicize their discounts. On the topic of doubtful environmental claims, or so-called greenwashing, the law would also require that those who make environmental claims about their businesses or business activities, not only specific products, must have adequate and proper substantiation in hand to support such claims. On refusal to repair, the committee added some helpful clarifications to ensure that the scope of provision was broad enough. In sum, amidst the period of inflation and growing affordability concerns, it is crucial that our markets remain resilient and open to competition. Bill C-59 would reform Canada's competitive landscape, encourage greater innovation, and improve affordability for Canadians. Therefore, I would like to urge my colleagues from all sides of the House to work together to expeditiously pass this crucial piece of legislation.
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Context: House Hansard - 312 - May/9/24
Mr. George Chahal (Calgary Skyview, Lib.)
Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise today to speak to Bill C-59, which delivers on key measures from our 2023 fall economic statement. It is designed to make life more affordable, to build more homes faster and to forge a stronger economy. This is a key part of our government's economic plan; since 2015, our plan has been squarely focused on improving life for the middle class and those who want to join it. From enhancing the Canada workers benefit to creating the Canadian dental care plan; delivering regulated child care for $10 a day, on average, in eight provinces and territories so far; and providing 11 million individuals and families with targeted inflation relief through a one-time grocery rebate in July 2023, our actions have strengthened the social safety net that millions of Canadians depend on. In fact, since 2015, our government has lowered the poverty rate by 4.6%, thanks to direct income supports and a strong economy that benefits all Canadians, all the while ensuring that we maintain the lowest deficit and net debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7. Compared with before the pandemic, we can proudly say that, today, over one million more Canadians are employed. However, we cannot refute that still-elevated consumer prices and looming mortgage renewals continue to put pressure on many Canadian families or say that there is not more important work ahead of us to address affordability. When it comes to housing affordability, supply is at the heart of the major challenges facing Canadians. That is why we are taking real, concrete action to build more homes faster, including new rental housing. Bill C-56 proposed to eliminate the GST on new rental projects, such as apartment buildings, student housing and senior residences, built specifically for long-term rental accommodations. Bill C-59 goes even further by proposing to eliminate the GST on eligible new housing co-operatives built for long-term rental, as outlined in the fall economic statement. Swift passage of the bill would enable more people in every province and territory to find the types of rental housing they need at a price they can afford. The legislation would also help protect tenants from renovictions, which statistics show are displacing individuals and families, as well as increasing the rate of homelessness. Our federal government also recognizes the clear link between housing and infrastructure, which is why the fall economic statement proposes to establish the department of housing, infrastructure and communities, currently, Infrastructure Canada. Bill C-59 would formally establish this new department and clarify its powers and duties as the federal lead on improving public infrastructure and housing, so our communities would have the infrastructure they need to grow and remain resilient. Another important housing measure in the fall economic statement includes cutting the red tape that prevents construction workers from moving across the country to build homes, as well as cracking down on non-compliant short-term rentals, which are keeping far too many homes in our communities off the market. Our government is also providing $15 billion in new loans through the apartment construction loan program, which accelerates the construction of rental housing by providing low-cost financing to builders and developers. As recently announced by my colleague, the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, we will be broadening this program by including student residences to help more students find housing across the country. This crucial change would relieve pressure on the housing market by freeing up housing supply that already exists in communities. Budget 2024 delivered a top-up to support the construction of even more units. In addition, we have launched the Canadian mortgage charter, which “details the tailored mortgage relief that the government expects lenders to provide to Canadians facing a challenging financial situation with the mortgage on their principal residence. It also reaffirms that insured mortgage holders are not required under the regulations to requalify under the minimum qualifying rate when switching lenders at mortgage renewal.” Our goal is to protect Canadians by ensuring they have the support they need to afford their homes. On a similar topic, I would be remiss if I did not also mention the new first-time homebuyer tax-free savings account, which allows Canadians to save up to $40,000 tax-free towards the purchase of their first home. We launched this account in April 2023, and to date, it has helped more than 750,000 Canadians, and counting, reach their first home savings goals. A more competitive economy benefits all Canadians by offering more choice and greater affordability for consumers and businesses alike. Building on changes proposed in Bill C-56, Bill C-59 would amend both the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act to modernize competition in Canada, thereby helping to stabilize prices across the entire economy. This includes supporting Canadians' right to repair by preventing manufacturers from refusing to provide the means of repair of devices and products in an anti-competitive manner. It also includes modernizing merger reviews, enhancing protections for consumers, workers and the environment, including improving the focus on worker impacts in competition analysis and empowering the commissioner of competition to review and crack down on a wide selection of anti-competitive collaborations. Finally, it includes 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. These truly generational changes would drive lower prices and innovation, while fuelling economic growth, helping to further counteract inflationary pressures. Today, I outlined just a few examples of how Bill C-59 makes targeted, responsible investments to improve affordability, build more homes and build an economy that works for everyone, all while taking care not to feed inflation. These are real solutions that, when combined with new measures announced in our recent budget and Canada's housing plan, will help us tackle Canada's housing challenge while improving affordability across the board. That is why I urge my fellow parliamentarians to continue to support this important piece of legislation.
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Context: House Hansard - 312 - May/9/24
Mr. Ryan Turnbull (Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, Lib.)
Madam Speaker, last November, the government introduced Bill C-59, the fall economic statement implementation act. Among other measures, Bill C-59 proposed significant amendments to our Competition Act. I am proud to share that the Standing Committee on Finance has recently completed its review of the bill and has made several amendments to further strengthen existing proposals. Before I get into some of the key details of this critical piece of legislation, I feel it is important to highlight the economic context in which this legislation is being introduced. Countries around the world are dealing with higher inflation due to a global pandemic, further exacerbated by geopolitical uncertainty. Despite the fearmongering of the Conservative members opposite, Canada's economy is remarkably strong and resilient. That is truly due to the hard work of Canadians themselves. A few proof points demonstrate this: Canada's net debt-to-GDP ratio is well below that of our G7 peers; our deficit is declining; and we are one of the only two G7 countries with an AAA credit rating from independent experts. Something that we can all be quite proud of is that Canada received the highest per capita foreign direct investment in the G7 in the first three quarters of 2023. Some may ask why those facts matter. These proof points show that Canada is in an enviable position when it comes to fiscal management. That position is exactly the reason our government can afford to make transformative investments in improving housing affordability and making life cost less. Unlike Conservatives, who cut support for Canadians, we believe in supporting the middle class through growth and investment. I hear from my constituents often that their top concerns are being able to find an affordable place to live and wanting to find ways to make their day-to-day expenses cost less. This legislation addresses these two core issues head on. For many years, Canada's markets have been described as overly concentrated and not competitive enough. In fact, a landmark Competition Bureau study last year, based on Statistics Canada data and analysis from a University of Toronto professor, made critical findings in this respect, showing that competitive intensity has been on the decline over the past two decades, reflected in a number of important indicators. Bill C-59 was introduced to help build a stronger domestic economy through more competition and contestable markets, to bring lower prices, more choice and better product quality for consumers across all sectors. The measures in this bill include strengthening provisions with respect to merger review, enhancing protections for consumers, workers and the environment, and broadening opportunities for private enforcement. We should not underestimate just how critical these reforms are for modernizing our law and promoting competitive markets. The Commissioner of Competition has stated on multiple occasions that the amendments in Bill C‑56, the affordable housing and groceries act, which was ultimately passed by this Parliament in December 2023, and Bill C-59, are generational. I would therefore like to highlight some important reforms that have been proposed. To begin with, anti-competitive collaborations between competitors will be under increased scrutiny, as the bureau will be able to examine and, if necessary, seek penalties against coordinated conduct that lessens competition. The expansion of private enforcement and the ability for the Competition Tribunal to issue monetary payment orders in cases initiated by private parties is also a significant change to our existing enforcement approach. More competition is always beneficial to consumers, but the bill also takes some more direct approaches to protect consumers. These include strengthening provisions on deceptive marketing so that vendors must present the full cost of a product or service upfront, without holding back mandatory fees, which is known as drip pricing. Businesses making environmental claims about their products will be required to have undertaken adequate and proper testing before advertising those benefits. Together, these changes would ensure that consumers have accurate and complete information about products and services to make informed purchasing decisions. We have also made strides on the right to repair. Thanks to the bill, a wider variety of service providers would be able to offer more options to consumers when they are choosing where to repair their products. These reforms, along with various administrative changes aimed at facilitating efficient enforcement of the act, are crucial to ensuring that Canadian markets remain competitive and in line with international best practices. It has been acknowledged by all members of the House that our competition framework requires reform, and my colleagues have engaged in thoughtful discussion on ways to modernize the existing marketplace framework. The committee members were notably quite interested in enhancing protections for consumers and the environment, and I would like to draw attention to some now. First, clarifications were made to ensure that in the Competition Act's various provisions on drip pricing, the only amounts that can be excluded from the upfront price, are those imposed by law directly on the purchaser of the products, such as sales taxes. Next, with the committee's amendment, sellers advertising reduced prices would be required to be able to prove that the regular price is authentic to publicize discounts. On the topic of doubtful environmental claims, or so-called greenwashing, the law would also require that those who make environmental claims about their business or business activities, not only specific products, have adequate and proper substantiation in hand to support such claims. This bill goes beyond making generational changes to competition in Canada. It also takes concrete action to build more homes faster, including new rental housing. Bill C-59 proposes to eliminate GST on eligible new housing co-operatives built for long-term rental, as outlined in the fall economic statement. This is just one of many measures our government is proposing to ensure that more people across all provinces and territories find the housing they need, at a price that they can afford. Amidst a period of inflation and growing affordability concerns, it is crucial that our markets remain resilient and open to competition. Bill C-59 would reform Canada's competitive landscape, encourage greater innovation and improve affordability for Canadians. It would also get more rental housing built faster so that we can ensure housing is affordable for every generation. I would urge my colleagues from all sides of the House to work together to expeditiously pass this crucial piece of legislation, instead of doing what we have seen in committee, which is to slow the bill down. We continue to see the Conservatives try to obstruct key pieces of legislation that are helping Canadians in their time of need, and that is not what we have been put here to do.
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Context: House Hansard - 311 - May/8/24
Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ)
Mr. Speaker, I am fortunate to work with my hon. colleague on the Standing Committee on Finance. He always has a thorough knowledge of the issues and makes constructive suggestions. I want to ask him about the amendment to the Competition Act. He referred to it in his speech. For years, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry has been announcing a comprehensive reform. However, the reforms have come in bits and pieces, in Bill C‑56 and Bill C‑59. The commissioner of competition told us it was not enough, that it would take this and that. Public officials replied that if we did such and such, it would affect something else that was not in the bill. In fact, we were supposed to have a bill to reform the entire Competition Act. Does my colleague think that doing things this way amounts to incompetence on the part of the government?
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Context: House Hansard - 311 - May/8/24
Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ)
Madam Speaker, I was not expecting such a lively debate tonight. I thank the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway for his speech, and I congratulate him on the six amendments that he was able to get passed in committee. He touched on them briefly. I would like him to tell us more about that, but I will ask my question. There have been a lot of changes and improvements to the Competition Act, some of which were requested by the commissioner of competition. When it comes to the Competition Act, we know that Canada had a long way to go. Bill C‑56 improved the act, and Bill C‑59 and its amendments are improving it even more. Does the member think that the system is now robust enough that consumers can expect healthy competition at all times, or is there still more work to do in that regard?
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Context: House Hansard - 281 - Feb/13/24
Hon. Andrew Scheer (Regina—Qu'Appelle, CPC)
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your accommodating the timing of this. I apologize to the members who are involved in debate, but because the matter is currently under consideration by the House, I think giving the Speaker as much time as possible to consider it would be appropriate. I am rising to ask that you rule the amendment made to the motion, Government Business No. 34, out of order, since according to Bosc and Gagnon, at page 541, it introduces a new proposition which should properly be the subject of a separate substantive motion. The main motion proposes two things in relation to Bill C-62. Part (a) would establish committee meetings on the subject matter of Bill C-62. It proposes one hour to hear from a minister and two hours to hear from other witnesses. Part (b) deals specifically with the time and management for each stage of the bill. Part (b)(i) would order the consideration by the House of a second reading stage and provides for the number of the speakers, length of speeches, length of debate and deferral of the vote at second reading. It would also restrict the moving of dilatory motions to that of a minister of the Crown. Part b(ii) would deem that Bill C-62 be referred to a committee of the whole and be deemed reported back without amendments, and it would order the consideration of third reading on Thursday, February 15, 2024. Nowhere does the motion deal with the substance or the text of Bill C-62; it is a programming motion dealing with process, not substance. While this can and has been done by unanimous consent, it cannot be done by way of an amendment. The consequence of an amendment to allow for the expansion of the scope of Bill C-62 and, at the same time, proposing to amend the text of Bill C-62, is that it would, if accepted, expand the scope of the motion. The process to expand the scope of the bill outside of unanimous consent is to adopt a stand-alone motion after the proper notice and procedures were followed. Page 756 of Bosc and Gagnon describes that procedure as follows: Once a bill has been referred to a committee, the House may instruct the committee by way of a motion authorizing what would otherwise be beyond its powers, such as...expanding or narrowing the scope or application of a bill. A committee that so wishes may also seek an instruction from the House. Alternatively, a separate, stand-alone bill would suffice to introduce the concept of the subject material that is under the amendment for MAID. It is not in order to accomplish this by way of a simple amendment to a programming motion dealing with the management of House time on a government bill. If you were to review the types of amendments to programming motions, and I am not talking about unanimous consent motions, they all deal with the management of House and committee time, altering the numbers of days, hours of meetings, witnesses, etc. As recently as December 4, 2023, the House disposed of an amendment that dealt with the minister's appearing as a witness and the deletion of parts of the bill dealing with time allocation. This was also the case for the programming motions for Bill C-56, Bill C-31 and Bill C-12. Unless the main motion strays from the management of time and routine procedural issues and touches on the actual text of the bill, an amendment that attempts to amend the bill is out of order. For example, on May 9, 2023, the House adopted a programming motion for Bill C-21, the firearms act. Part (a) of the main motion then stated that: it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, that during its consideration of the bill, the committee be granted the power to expand its scope, including that it applies to all proceedings that have taken place prior to the adoption of this order... The motion went on at some length, instructing the committee to consider a number of amendments to the act. This in turn allowed the Conservative Party to propose an amendment to the programming motion and offer its own amendments to the bill itself, which addressed illegal guns used by criminals and street gangs and brought in measures to crack down on border smuggling and to stop the flow of illegal guns to criminals and gangs in Canada, to name just a few. The point is that if the main motion does not address the text of the bill, an amendment cannot introduce the new proposition of amending the text of the bill to the programming motion, which should properly be the subject of a separate substantive motion.
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Context: House Hansard - 276 - Feb/6/24
Mr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP)
Madam Speaker, it is nice to be able to resume where I left off back in December. Just to refresh the memory of everyone in this place, we were discussing the 10th report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. I have been a proud member of that committee for six years now and I would say that it is the best standing committee out of any committee of the House, because we often arrive at our decisions on a consensus model. We certainly have our differences, but the collegiality stems from the fact that, no matter what political party we represent, we all represent farmers in our respective ridings and have a great deal of respect for the work they do. This particular study is unusual, if we look at the long list of studies the agriculture committee usually embarks on, in that we are dealing more with a retail issue, which of course is the subject of food price inflation. I am happy to say that this 10th report was the result of a unanimous vote on my motion for a study. The study was also backed up by a unanimous vote in the House of Commons when the NDP used our opposition day to move a motion backing up the committee's work. Given the brutal food price inflation rates that many Canadians have been experiencing over the last couple of years, the political and public pressure of the moment, I think, really helped focus parliamentarians' efforts on this important issue in making sure we were paying it the attention it deserved, given what many of our constituents were telling us they were suffering through. Therefore, it was nice to see that unanimous vote and the fact that we were able to get into this study. If we look at the news these days and the experts who research this particularly brutal problem, we already know that a record number of Canadians are having to access food banks. I certainly hear from my constituents in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford that they are having to make those difficult decisions every single week. It has affected not only the quality of food they have been able to buy, but also the quantity of food. I think that is an enduring shame on our country, given that we pride ourselves on being an agricultural powerhouse. If we look at our standing vis-à-vis other nations around the world, we are a very wealthy country, but what we have seen over the last number of decades is that wealth is increasingly being concentrated in fewer hands, and too many of our fellow citizens are struggling to get by on the basic necessities of life. I think this is a call to action for all parliamentarians. It is obvious that the policies we have put in place over the last 40 or 50 years and this sort of obscene corporate deference we have seen from successive Liberal and Conservative governments and the neo-Liberal orthodoxy that exists are not serving our fellow citizens right. We need to take a critical look at why that is. This report contains a number of recommendations. I want to focus on a few of them, particularly on recommendations 11 and 13. Recommendation 11 is something that we heard not only in the course of this study, but also in other studies. It deals with the fact that many people who work in the food value chain, particularly the ones on the other side of the ledger from where the retail grocers come into play, have long been calling for a grocery code of conduct. Initially, the calls were for a voluntary code. I think there was a tremendous amount of goodwill and a bit of leeway given to the industry to figure this out on its own and to come up with something whereby all players could develop the issue and have faith in it. However, what we have seen recently is that some of the big grocery retailers, namely Loblaws and Walmart, are now indicating they are uncomfortable with the direction the code is taking. In my humble opinion, this code simply cannot work if it is going to exclude major players like Loblaws and Walmart, so we may be arriving at a point at which the government needs to step in and enforce a mandatory code. That way, the rules are clear, concise and transparent, and all players in the food supply value chain can understand what they are and abide by them. What we are seeing is that there is a complete lack of trust in the grocery retail sector, and for good reason. Grocery retailers have been accused and found guilty of fixing the price of bread. They have engaged in practices that, on the surface, look a lot like collusion. They have often followed each other's leads in setting prices and so on. Recently Loblaws was forced to climb down from its decision to reduce the discounts. There used to be a 50% discount on items that had to be sold that day. Often people are looking for those kinds of bargains. Loblaws was going to reduce that to 30%. That company consistently shows that it is unable to read the room and that it is completely tone deaf to the public environment in which it is operating. Not only have consumers lost trust in grocery retailers, but on the other side, the suppliers, the food manufacturers and the hard-working men and women who work in primary production and farming have also lost trust, because when they are trying to get their goods put into a grocery market, and let us understand that 80% of Canada's grocery retail market is controlled by just five companies, which is a brutal situation and a totally unfair stranglehold on the market by those five companies, they were often subjected to hidden fees and fines for which they had no explanation. As such, I am glad to see that recommendation 11 calls for a mandatory and enforceable grocery code of conduct. I am also happy to see in this report recommendation 13, which asks the Government of Canada to strengthen the Competition Bureau's mandate and its ability to ensure competition in the grocery sector. The first two bullet points were about giving the Competition Bureau more legislative muscle through the Competition Act and making sure the competitive thresholds the Competition Bureau uses to evaluate mergers and acquisitions ensure that competition does not suffer. I think, based on the hard work of this study and the recommendations of this report, we have actually seen legislative change come to this place, and it was great to see, in particular, Bill C-56 receive a unanimous vote in the House of Commons. It has passed the Senate, and it has now become a statute of Canada by virtue of the Governor General. There are more measures contained in Bill C-59, and our leader, the member from Burnaby South's private member's bill also includes a number of very important changes. Of course members of Parliament are going to have the opportunity tomorrow, after question period, to vote on that bill, and Canadians will be watching to see which members of Parliament are serious about stepping up to fix that particular problem. I also want to talk about the supplementary report that I included as the New Democratic member of the committee, because committee reports reflect the majority view of the committee. In the case of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, that is almost always the unanimous view of the committee. I do not think I have ever really seen a dissenting report, but sometimes some recommendations that some members would like to have seen added to the report do not get in there. I agree absolutely with the main thrust of the report. I think the recommendations were very strong. There were some additional ones, some supplementary ones, that I would have liked to see added. We heard from a number of witnesses who asked our committee to recommend that the government embark on legislative recognition of the right to food, so one of our recommendations would have been: that the Government of Canada acknowledge its obligation as a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights to respect, protect, and fulfill the human right to food by adopting a framework law that would enshrine this right in Canadian law and require the federal government to legislate binding, specific, and measurable targets toward realizing the policy outcomes it set out in 2019 in “The Food Policy for Canada”. Again, when so many in our population are going hungry, it is incumbent upon us as legislators and policy makers to really step up to the plate and meet that need in the moment with specific action. I think that, given that this recommendation came from people who are directly involved in the national food bank network and are dealing with this issue every single day, we would do well as policy makers to listen to that on-the-ground expertise and follow through. I also want to take some time in the final four minutes that I have to really recognize two witnesses who appeared before our committee. They are both economics professors who go against the prevailing orthodoxy of corporate deference that so many economics professors practise. They are, particularly, Professor D.T. Cochrane and Professor Jim Stanford, who I think offer a refreshing and alternative view to the dominant orthodoxy, to look critically at why systems are the way they are. I just want to quote Dr. Jim Stanford: Greed is not new. Greed long predates the pandemic, but greed has had a good run in Canada since the pandemic. After-tax profits in Canada during the pandemic or since the pandemic have increased to their highest share of GDP in history. Amidst a social, economic and public health emergency, companies have done better than they ever have. In response to one of my questions, he went on to say: At the top of the list, there's no doubt about it, is the oil and gas sector. The excess profits earned there since the pandemic account for about one-quarter of the total mass of profits across the 15 sectors I identified in that work. The increased prices that embody those huge profit margins then trickle through the rest of the supply chain. Food processors have to pay that, so they have higher costs, nominally, but then they add their own higher profit margin on top of that. The same goes for the food retail sector. By the time the consumer gets it, there's been excess profits added at several steps of the whole supply chain. That magnifies the final impact on consumer price inflation. Two things have been true over the last number of years. Canadians have been suffering through brutal inflation. They have seen the cost of almost everything rise to almost unsustainable levels, in fact, to unsustainable levels for too many of our fellow citizens. That is one truth of which we can see empirical evidence. The other truth we are dealing with is that since 2019, many corporate sectors have been raking in the cash. Those two facts exist side by side, and we know for a fact that when profits are increasing in many different corporate sectors that Canadians rely on, that money has to come from somewhere, and it has been coming directly from the wallets of the constituents that I represent, the constituents that every MP in this place represents from coast to coast to coast. I will wrap up my speech there by saying that this was an important report and these are important recommendations. I am glad to have been a member of the committee that produced this report. Of course, I will be voting to concur in it. With that I will conclude my remarks.
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Context: House Hansard - 274 - Feb/2/24
Ms. Patricia Lattanzio (Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, Lib.)
Mr. Speaker, today I rise to address the chamber with respect to Bill C-352, which would amend the Competition Act. I think we all agree in the chamber that a stronger competition enforcement regime would be good for all Canadians. The bill proposed by the New Democratic Party, while receptive to the need for change in competition law, and generally aligned with the government's overall direction to date, must, however, be examined in light of the vast number of changes that overlap with and have already been introduced by Bill C-56 and Bill C-59. Bill C-56 became law in December 2023, while Bill C-59 remains under consideration by Parliament at the present time. Bill C-56 implements, and Bill C-59 would implement, an overhaul of the Competition Act following the extensive consultations undertaken in 2022 and in 2023. The government received a great deal of input throughout its consultations, bolstering the knowledge gained over the years of stewardship over this law. The amendment packages assembled in its two bills address most of the issues identified in the law that historically made it weaker than regimes of Canada's closest partners. That would no longer be the case. Modernizing the Competition Act is a necessary step in making Canada's economy more affordable for consumers and more fair and accessible to business. The government's extensive commitment to competition law reform was led by Bill C-56, the Affordable Housing and Groceries Act, followed by Bill C-59, the fall economic statement implementation act, 2023. Both of these bills are directed at enhancing affordability and competition, and together they represent the most comprehensive reform package to the Competition Act in decades. They respond to the submissions of hundreds of very different stakeholders, including businesses, legal experts, academics, non-governmental organizations and the commissioner of competition himself. Bill C-56 implemented a set of targeted but critical amendments, following especially from the Competitions Bureau's market study on Canada's retail grocery sector. As members already know, Bill C-56 brought much-needed changes such as allowing information to be compelled under court order in the course of a market study, helping to remove barriers when diagnosing potential competition issues. Bill C-56 also repealed the efficiencies exceptions for anti-competitive mergers and collaborations, and in so doing eliminated what many observers consider to have been the single biggest contributor to corporate concentration in Canada. The bill further allowed for better prevention and remedy of the abuse by larger players of their dominant position by requiring only proof of anti-competitive intent or effects to prohibit certain forms of conduct. This more appropriately allocates the burden of proof, as compared to the previous test, which significantly limited the number of instances where the bureau could intervene. Finally, Bill C-56 addressed harm from collaborations between non-competing parties that are designed to limit competition. Once this provision is in effect, the bureau would be able to review any type of collaboration whose purpose it is to restrain competition and seek a remedy, including an order to prevent the activity where competition is being substantially harmed or is likely to be. This would be especially impactful on restrictive covenants between grocers and landlords, allowing more grocers to set up shop near competitors. Bill C-56 was, of course, amended in committee through a multi-party effort, incorporating several of the elements in Bill C-352 that now no longer require consideration. Bill C-59 represents an even more substantial overhaul in our competition enforcement regime, addressing a large variety of aspects of the Competition Act. The amendments would give the Competition Bureau a longer period to detect and address anti-competitive mergers that are not notified in advance, helping to address “killer acquisitions” in the digital market. The bill would broaden the bureau's review of competitor collaborations to include those that harmed competition in the past, and would allow for financial penalties to be sought when necessary. Importantly, Bill C-59 would facilitate private actions against a broader range of anti-competitive or harmful practices and empower those affected to seek financial compensation in many cases. This improvement would complement the bureau's work in protecting the marketplace. The bill would also ensure that costs awards would not be ordered against the commissioner of competition in the vast majority of circumstances, another element addressed by Bill C-352. The bill also includes anti-reprisal provisions, which would ensure that co-operation with the bureau or participation in legal proceedings could not be punished by stronger businesses. Additionally, it is worth mentioning that Bill C-59 would strengthen the law's testament of greenwashing the false advertising of sustainability claims while also facilitating environmentally beneficial collaborations that would not harm competition. Moreover, it would ensure that a means of diagnosis for repair could not be denied in a way that would harm competition. All in all, little remains in Bill C-352 that has not already been addressed. On the contrary, Bill C-59 includes several elements missing from this private member's bill. The government's consultation saw over 130 stakeholders raise over 100 reform proposals. All submissions made by identified groups are publicly available, and the government published a “what we heard” report synthesizing them. This public process has been a key source of input to help us develop reform proposals. We are confident that the measures included in government bills comprehensively address the needs expressed by Canadians. In conclusion, I think it is fair to say that the ambition of Bill C-352 correctly reflects the importance Canadians place on having a strengthened competition law framework. However, all of the major issues it raises have been or are being substantially dealt with through Bill C-56 and Bill C-59. As such, I would encourage members of the House interested in advancing competition reform to prioritize the rapid passage of Bill C-59.
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Context: House Hansard - 272 - Jan/31/24
Hon. Bardish Chagger (Waterloo, Lib.)
  • Jan/31/24 6:53:25 p.m.
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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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Context: House Hansard - 272 - Jan/31/24
Ms. Lena Metlege Diab (Halifax West, Lib.)
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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Context: House Hansard - 270 - Jan/29/24
Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP)
Madam Speaker, I am quite pleased to rise today to speak to this latest budget implementation act by the government. I have been listening closely to the debate, so I would like to start by offering some comments on it so far. Then I am going to talk a bit more about the bill. I had occasion to ask the Conservative leader not long ago here in the House about the problem of inflation that Canadians are experiencing. We know they are experiencing it, as we all are. When we go into a grocery store, we see the rising prices. We know people are struggling to stay in their homes. We see it on the street in our communities. We see more people pitching tents in order to have a roof over their head at night, such as it is. We hear stories, unfortunately, of cities focusing their energy on clearing out encampments of people with nowhere to go instead of trying to figure out how to create better homes that provide more warmth and support in a challenging winter. We are hearing about it from constituents, for instance, who are having to choose to cut pills or pay the rent. There are all sorts of ways in which this really difficult economic time is affecting Canadians, so the question for us here in Parliament is what to do about it. Certainly, the Conservative leader has a lot of opinions on that. My question earlier was why, when he talks about inflation and the hardship that Canadians are experiencing, he does not mention whether it is just in Canada. There have been some incredible studies here in Canada saying that price increases over and above the increase in costs for large corporations are responsible for 25% or more of the inflation that Canadians have experienced, so I want to be really clear that those are not price increases. We know that, particularly, a lot of small and medium-sized businesses in our communities are experiencing higher costs and have to pass them on to their consumers. Even some big corporations are experiencing higher input costs, and some of that gets passed on to consumers. However, we are talking about price increases that go above and beyond that increase in costs. It is no excuse to say that they are simply passing on those costs, because they are not. If 25% or so of inflation is attributable to price increases above the additional costs, it means corporations are taking that 25% home in profits. When we look at the profits of oil and gas companies, which increased by 1000% from 2019 to 2021, as an example, those were not increases of passing on costs. Some increases contributed to inflation by being additional price increases just for the purpose of paying higher dividends to corporate shareholders and bigger wages to corporate executives. Therefore, how can the Conservative leader pretend to be serious about addressing the problem of inflation when he is completely silent about the corporate greed that is driving a quarter or more of that very inflation? I would submit that it is not possible. It is not credible. I am proud to be part of an NDP caucus in which the leader is willing to name that problem here in the House of Commons and acknowledge that we will not have a solution to the inflation problem in Canada if big corporations continue to feel they can increase prices with impunity. That is a major driver of inflation and hardship for Canadians. I think it speaks to the electoral choices that Canadians have. We have a Conservative opposition here that would frame itself as an alternative to the Liberals. However, if we actually look at this blind spot, the corporate-controlled Conservatives are not willing to acknowledge it, or do not see it, whichever it is. I will not speak to the question of intention here, but I will just say that it is a blind spot, whether wilful or not. What this means is that, if they were in government themselves, they would continue to do what the current government does. They would be prone to saying that the problems will go away if we just trust the market to deal with them. They would refuse to acknowledge the role that unbridled corporate greed is playing in creating the economic problem that Canadians are facing today. One example of the ways this has manifested with the current government is with respect to housing. The real meat of its housing proposal in the fall was all about “creating more room for the market to solve the housing crisis”. I do not really think we are going to get market solutions to the housing crisis. I do not think that is a revelation. I do not think that is particularly controversial. I know that the market, since the federal government, in the mid-90s, stepped away from producing non-market housing, has had 30 years to solve our housing problems. Instead of solving them, it has created a crisis that is accelerating and getting worse. Simply freeing up Crown land and handing it off to developers to do what they will is not going to solve the problem. The same motive of corporate greed has been driving this housing crisis for decades now and has become particularly acute in the last few years, and nothing about that basic structure will have changed if we are still just expecting market players to solve this crisis. We heard at the finance committee, from home developers, financiers and real estate people, that the market is not going to solve this problem. That is not to say that we do not need more market housing. It is not to say that there would not be more housing built by the market; of course there will be. That is not where we need the attention of government, though. The attention of government has to be on the part that the market will not do and has not been doing, and that is non-market housing. To say that we want to see the government focus specifically on non-market housing is not to discount the role of the market and market housing; it is just to say that the public policy attention of the government does not have to be there. In fact, the virtue of the market is supposed to be that the government does not have to get involved, so let them do their thing, but let us have the attention and the investment focus of our federal government be on addressing the very real problem of non-market housing, which has been neglected for 30 years and absolutely must return, in a significant way, in order for us to solve the housing crisis. It is a problem with the current government, and it will be a problem with any future Conservative government, because they share the same blind spot. What are some of the other things we could do if we acknowledge the role that corporate greed is playing? That is where I think the NDP has played an important role in twisting the arm of the Liberal government to do some things, like a 2% share buyback fee, so that companies cannot just go ahead and, for various kinds of maximization of profit strategies for their shareholders or for the corporation itself, buy back shares as a way of transferring wealth to their shareholders without paying any tax at all. It is of note, and something that New Democrats have been arguing for for a long time, well before this Parliament, that this legislation creates the possibility of implementing a digital services tax, which means a tax on the revenue of large, Internet-based companies, like Netflix and others, who, right now, are paying no tax in Canada at all. This does not make sense. They are not paying any corporate tax on the revenue that they raise in Canada. They get to walk it all out of the country for free. That does not make sense, and it puts traditional broadcasters at a disadvantage. We are seeing the effects that is having on our media market and the ability to hire journalists and pay them to do the work that they do, which plays an important part. However much we may disagree sometimes with the way that news media outlets frame certain issues, their work is, nevertheless, important to a well-functioning democracy. The fact that their competitors have not had to pay any tax at all does a disservice not just to them but to Canadians, who rely on news content for the functioning of our democracy. We have been pushing the government already in Bill C-56, and now again in the budget implementation bill, to make meaningful changes to the Competition Act that would allow for the Competition Bureau to play a greater and more effective role in ensuring that big corporations are not using their market power and their market position to pull one over on Canadians, to make the economy less competitive, and to have those outsized, excess price increases that I was talking about earlier, which are a significant factor in driving inflation. Another thing we can do is to be willing to let corporations know, to the extent that they want to invest in Canada and create jobs in Canada, particularly in the natural resources sector, that there is an expectation that they are going to create good union jobs here in Canada in order to do it. That is why I am very proud of the labour conditions that are attached to the investment tax credits. This legislation would implement those labour conditions for the companies that are investing, with the use of this tax credit in clean technology, in carbon capture and storage. I am not actually that happy to hear about that technology, because I do not think that is the basket we should be putting our eggs in when it comes to emissions reduction; it's technology that has not been proven at scale. However, this government is determined to move ahead, and we hear a lot of positive comments about carbon capture and storage from Conservatives as well. Again, it is another shared blind spot of these two parties, the Liberals and Conservatives. Nevertheless, if that investment is going to be taking place in Canada, I want it to create good union jobs, and I want companies to know that they have to be paying the prevailing wage of the collective agreements in the trade union sector. That means those companies are not going to come in competing on who can pay Canadians the least to do that work. They are going to come in and have to compete on the things we want them to be competing on: How efficient is the technology? How efficient are they at building it? What are their production techniques? That is the way they should be competing. When they are earning a contract, it should be on that basis and not on the basis of how little they are prepared to pay their workers. Too often, in Canada, we have accepted a situation where we are happy to have companies come in and compete on the cost of labour and have a competition about who can pay Canadians the least to do a job that deserves a fair wage, good benefits and a proper pension. I am very proud that with this legislation we are going to be implementing, for the first time ever, conditions on an investment tax break that centres workers in the middle of it and has an apprenticeship requirement. Sometimes it can be a challenge to employers to hire apprentices. I have been an apprentice myself, and when I walked on the job site the first day, I did not know what I was doing. That is what an apprenticeship is like; it is meant to teach people. It is not always a profit maximization strategy for the employer in the short term. In the long term, employers with foresight see the value of passing on that training and knowledge and creating a workforce they can avail themselves of, but we know there are employers for whom that is not their strategy. They have a short-term focus and want to bring on the journeypeople. They want someone else to train apprentices, and then they want to poach them later. However, these tax credits will say that we, as a country, value training the trades workforce of tomorrow, and that if companies want a tax break on the investment, they have to be part of a culture of building that workforce and creating good jobs for Canadians, not just for today but also into the future, giving them the tools they need in order to be able to do that. We saw a Conservative government in Ontario use bankruptcy laws to shut down a post-secondary education institution. My colleague for Timmins—James Bay did a lot of work on raising awareness about what was wrong with that; it should never be done again. New Democrats have spearheaded the effort to get that done, and in this budget bill what we see is a provision that says that the bankruptcy and insolvency laws of Canada and the CCAA will not be able to be used again in the future to perpetrate that kind of nasty closure on a public institution. I am very proud of the work my colleagues have done on that, and it is something that I think ought to go forward. I want to come back to the housing question, because it is an important one. I said earlier that I thought in the fall that the Liberals' focus was on market solutions and that that is not where the focus of the government really needs to be, certainly not to the exclusion of working on non-market solutions. In this bill, what do we see? Well, the only thing that is really happening on the housing front is the creation of a new department of housing infrastructure and communities, which is just merging two departments that already exist. This is not what we do in the face of a crisis. This is not an administrative crisis; it is not that people are not pushing enough paper. It is that there is not enough housing getting built, and changing the name of the department without prioritizing things like recapitalizing the coinvestment fund, one of the few federal funds that is actually building non-market housing, does not make sense. It does not make sense to prioritize shuffling the words in the department name around over advancing that funding. In the fall economic statement, the recapitalization that was much touted by the government as its action on the urgent housing crisis was back-loaded in the budget tables, meaning it will not be coming for another two years. This is particularly shameful when we consider that the territory of Nunavut alone has been asking, on an urgent basis, for $250 million to address the housing crisis that it is seeing and to meet the needs that the territorial government is being asked to respond to. We did not see a mention in the fall economic statement, and there is nothing in the bill, around the Kivalliq hydro link, which is a project that will help deliver power into parts of Nunavut. I hope it will also be accompanied with more broadband access in order to set the stage for more economic development in parts of Nunavut, as well as to try to reduce the reliance in Nunavut on diesel in order to power communities instead of bringing hydro up or, in the long term, perhaps, being able to produce enough electricity in a sustainable way that it could become a seller and bring own-source revenues to Inuit communities in Nunavut. That is the kind of long-term infrastructure investment that would make a lot of sense and that we do not see. Another important investment would be to upgrade the Cambridge Bay airport, which is an important hub for Nunavut. When we talk about Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic, we know that the best way to enhance it is to invest in the people who live there and provide them the tools and resources they need in order to have a strong economy, live in appropriate housing and have access to the services that people rightly expect in the 21st century. Instead, the rumour we have been faced with now for at least a month on Parliament Hill, a little longer if we go back to early December, is that the government is contemplating deep cuts at Indigenous Services Canada. New Democrats certainly want to know more about what the government is contemplating and the effects it will have on first nations, Inuit and Métis communities across the country. It is an area of significant concern for us and something that is not addressed here but that we expect to see addressed in the budget in terms of what the government's plan is and how we are going to ensure that indigenous communities are not once again left holding the bag when a government decides it wants to save money and continue a culture of corporate tax cuts. I want to come back to the question of the role that large corporations are playing in driving inflation. A report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer as recently as December 2021 said that just 1% of Canada's population owns and controls 25% of all of the wealth of the country, and the bottom 40% of income earners in Canada share just 1% of all of the wealth that is produced in Canada. If we think about it, that 25% number is 5% higher than it was at the turn of the century. What has happened since the year 2000 is that the proportion of wealth controlled by the top 1% increased by those five percentage points. I do not mean it increased by 5%; I mean that it went from 20% of overall wealth to 25% of overall wealth. In the same time, the corporate tax rate came down from 28% to just 15% today. We talk about Canadians feeling the squeeze and about the middle class being expected to pay more in taxes to make up for government spending, but the big hole in government revenue comes from the people in that 1%, who are walking away with that much more of Canada's overall wealth than they used to because they pay significantly less tax than they used to. That is why people wonder why it is that government cannot have a robust housing strategy. We used to be able to do it, and we did it coming out of the war. Well, yes, the marginal tax rate that the richest Canadians paid coming out of the war was way higher than it is today, and the corporate tax rate was way higher than it is today. Those things provided the revenue to invest in the middle class that then became the foundation for economic prosperity that lasted for decades. The reason that economic prosperity is drying up and the middle class is feeling the heat so much is that successive Liberal and Conservative governments have let the people at the top off from having to pay their fair share. That is what is making the difference in Canada. The fact that the Conservative leader will not name it means he will not fix it, and that is what Canadians need to know heading into the next election.
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Context: Senate Volume 153, Issue 172 - Dec/14/23
Hon. Pierrette Ringuette

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?
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Context: Senate Volume 153, Issue 172 - Dec/14/23
Hon. Elizabeth Marshall

Hon. Elizabeth Marshall: Honourable senators, against that backdrop, I’m going to start my speech on Bill C-56, but I will go back to Part 1 of the bill and talk about the substance of the bill.

This bill has two parts: Part 1 and 2. I’m going to talk about both parts separately. They are distinct but not unrelated because both parts are intended to address affordability issues that are being experienced by Canadians. I’m going to address each part separately.

The first part amends the Excise Tax Act in order to implement a temporary enhancement to the GST. It’s called the “GST New Residential Rental Property Rebate in respect of new purpose-built rental housing.” Effectively, Part 1 of Bill C-56 enhances the GST rental rebate by increasing the rebate from 36% to 100% and removing the existing GST rental rebate phase-out thresholds for new rental housing projects, such as apartment buildings, student housing and senior residences.

Government officials have said that because the bill is very short with very scanty information, the details will be provided in regulations at a later date. However, they did provide the following information, and although it’s not in the legislation or regulations, it was provided.

First of all, the rental rebate is directed at buildings with at least four private apartment units or residences with at least 10 private rooms. Of the residential units in the buildings, 90% have to be designated for long-term rental. The GST rental rebate will not apply to luxury condominiums or rental units to be converted afterwards into short-term vacation rentals, and the GST rental rebate also applies to substantial renovations that would transform an existing building into new rental units.

While these conditions have been relayed by government officials, regulations have yet to be authorized and gazetted. We just had the discussion about how little time was spent at the National Finance Committee on this. This is information we had to find by researching; it didn’t come from officials directly.

Bill C-56 indicates that the rental rebate program will run to 2035; that’s 12 years. Specifically, the GST rental rebate will apply to projects that begin on or after September 14 of this year, which is when the measure was first announced, until December 31, 2030, but the projects must be completed by the end of 2035.

The fall fiscal update indicates that the estimated cost of this program will be $4.5 billion over the next six years, beginning with $5 million this year and increasing to about $1.5 billion in 2028-29, which is the sixth year of the program. But there have been no further estimates provided for the following seven years of the program, which would run from 2029-30 through to 2036.

Bill C-56 indicates that the program will continue to December 31, 2035, so the estimated cost for those seven years is not disclosed. In fact, it’s not even mentioned anywhere.

At a recent meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, Ms. Lisa Williams, Senior Vice-President of Housing Programs at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, told us that Canada will need to build 5.8 million homes by 2030 to reach affordability. She emphasized that this would be an additional 3.5 million homes on top of what the country is already expected to produce. However, Mr. Bob Dugan, Chief Economist at the CMHC, told us that the corporation had not had time to estimate the specific impact that the GST rental rebate program will have on the building of new rental units. In other words, the government has no estimate on the number of housing units to be built with the $4.5 billion.

Minister Freeland told us yesterday at the Committee of the Whole that one of Canada’s top housing experts has estimated that 200,000 to 300,000 homes will be built with the $4.5 billion. However, it is notable that the minister is quoting an estimate provided by an individual outside the government. It is not the government’s estimate, because the government has not yet estimated or assessed the impact of this housing program.

At the November 23 meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Minister of Housing Sean Fraser said that there was not a specific housing strategy outlined in the Fall Economic Statement, which is amazing, because this program is $4.5 billion, and there are already billions of dollars going into housing by the CMHC and other government departments, yet there’s no housing strategy.

He further said:

We’re working on developing a comprehensive plan that will have a suite of federal measures designed to address the national housing crisis. . . .

Honourable senators, the rental property rebate program is estimated to cost $4.5 billion over the next six years, and, as I’ve already indicated, there’s been no assessment as to the impact this will have on the housing supply, including the number of homes to be constructed.

In addition, the program is to continue for 7 additional years after the initial 6 years — for 13 years in total — with no cost estimates provided by the government for the second round of 7 years.

In addition, the regulations governing the details of the rental property rebate program have yet to be released. How can private sector partners be expected to step up and participate in a program for which the program details are not yet available?

Before I speak to Part 2 of the bill, I just want to summarize the issues with the GST rental rebate program, from my perspective, which I feel has not been addressed.

First of all, there’s been no impact assessment of the GST rental rebate program, which would indicate how the program will impact housing, nor is there an estimate of the number of units to be constructed. Only a partial cost of the program has been estimated. It’s the first 6 years of the 13-year program, and it’s $4.5 billion. There’s no estimate on the costs of the program in the following seven years.

The government has no housing plan, despite spending billions of dollars on housing initiatives. Regulations required to define the details of this program have yet to be released.

Finally, the government has yet to indicate whether housing initiatives — which commenced prior to the announcement of the program, but otherwise meet program requirements — would qualify for the GST rental rebate.

I’m going to move on now to Part 2 of the bill, and Senator Deacon went through that part of the bill fairly thoroughly, so I may not repeat some of the items that he covered. Part 2 is going to amend the Competition Act. I feel very comfortable reviewing the first part of the bill, because finance is my background. When delving into the Competition Act, I’ve had some experience, being on the Banking Committee, but the Competition Act is not what I call my cup of tea; I find it very complex.

Part 2 — the second part of Bill C-56 — is going to amend the Competition Act, and it proposes a number of amendments. There were already some amendments included last year in the budget. I know there’s going to be more coming. Amendments to the Competition Act have been under consideration by the government for some time.

Last November, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry launched a consultation on the future of Canada’s competition policy, which was seen as a major step in the government’s efforts to modernize the Competition Act. The public consultation period concluded on March 31 of this year, and there was significant interest in the consultation.

The government indicated they had received over 130 submissions from identified stakeholders, as well as more than 400 responses from members of the general public. Submissions raised, as Senator Deacon said, over 100 potential reform proposals, and stakeholders included academic experts, law practitioners, labour unions, consumer groups, businesses and their associations and so on.

Included on the government’s website is a 48-page summary of what the government heard during the consultation period, so it’s evident that there is significant interest in the government’s competition policy.

The amendments to the Competition Act included in Bill C-56 appear to be another group of amendments that were anticipated. We received some in the budget bill, and some here now, and I think there are some more in Bill C-59, so we’re receiving it in stages. Hopefully, we’ll be able to see an overall picture.

Honourable senators, we’re all familiar with the challenges faced by business investment in Canada. Numerous studies have been carried out, including a study last year by the Senate Banking Committee. A group of senators, under the leadership of Senator Harder, issued the prosperity report, and we looked at that issue when we were preparing the prosperity report.

The Competition Policy Council of the C.D. Howe Institute released a report last month on Canada’s Competition Act. In that report, the majority of members on the council supported the 2018 view of the Competition Bureau that competition enforcement:

 . . . must strike the right balance between taking steps to prevent behaviour that truly harms competition and over-enforcement that chills innovation and dynamic competition. . . .

In other words, there’s pressure on the government to get it right.

Last month, the Finance Committee in the other place held several meetings to discuss Bill C-56. I knew that we were going to receive the bill, so I was listening to what they were saying. That committee had the opportunity to hear from numerous witnesses, including the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. Their meeting actually lasted two hours. They heard from numerous government officials, as well as witnesses from outside the government.

That committee over in the other place had the opportunity to study the bill at length, discuss it, debate it and suggest amendments, and there was a lot of debate. There were pages and pages of debates that I read. In fact, there were several amendments to the bill made in the other place. They had amendments in the other place.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, we received the benefit of a one-hour Committee of the Whole and one panel of witnesses at a National Finance Committee meeting, which was quickly arranged at the last minute. We did not have the time or the opportunity to study the bill in detail, nor to discuss it as the members did in the other place. I felt like we had become a rubber stamp.

Members of our Standing Senate Committee on National Finance discussed this matter in detail yesterday while in camera, and we have provided an observation to our report on this bill. Specifically, the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, in its report on Bill C-56, states the following:

Your committee supports the measures included in Bill C-56 regarding the enhancement to the goods and services tax rebate for new residential rental property and modifications to the Competition Act. However, it is contemptuous that your committee was afforded a very limited time to conduct its study of the bill. As a result, it was prevented from thoroughly studying the bill and properly performing its duties.

I’m going to move briefly into some of the amendments. Senator Deacon went through a number of them, but I want to mention a couple of the proposed amendments that are in Bill C-56.

According to the government’s website, the Competition Bureau is an independent law enforcement agency which protects and promotes competition for the benefit of Canadian consumers and businesses. Headed by the Commissioner of Competition, the Competition Bureau administers and enforces the Competition Act.

Clause 3 of the bill, prior to its amendment in the other place, proposed to amend section 10 of the Competition Act by adding a new section. This clause would have allowed the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry to direct the Commissioner of Competition to conduct an inquiry into the state of competition in a market or industry if it’s in the public interest.

That original clause in Bill C-56 was amended in the other place, and another subclause was added to also allow the Commissioner of Competition to conduct an inquiry into the state of competition in a market or industry. However, there was concern expressed by some members of our National Finance Committee — including myself, but not solely myself — that the clause permitting the minister to direct the Commissioner of Competition to conduct an inquiry into the state of competition in a market or industry would impair the independence of the Commissioner of Competition.

Clause 3 also requires the minister and the commissioner to consult with each other on the feasibility and the cost of the inquiry, as well as the process for the preparation and publication of, and the public commentary on, the terms of reference, but there is a risk that the independence of the Competition Bureau and the Commissioner of Competition may be impaired.

There are also clauses 4, 5, 6, 7 and 11 of the bill that will amend several sections of the existing Competition Act to include proposed section 10.1. It’s important to recognize that these amendments extend the commissioner’s investigative and enforcement powers, along with the increase in the minister’s participation in the Competition Bureau. I even wonder if maybe the Competition Bureau should just become a division of the department, since it seems like it’s being drawn closer to the department.

Many stakeholders who were consulted on the future of Canada’s competition policy felt that an act allowing anti-competitive transactions undermines the central purpose of the competition policy. Section 92 of the Competition Act is against anti-competitive mergers if they have generated or are likely to generate efficiencies great enough to offset the effects of harm to competition and if such an order would impede the likelihood of those efficiencies. That section of the Competition Act was repealed.

One of the recurring complaints that we hear at the Senate standing committees when studying government bills is the inadequacy of consultations with stakeholders, and Bill C-56 is no exception. Between November 17 of last year and March 31 of this year, the government undertook public consultations with stakeholders and citizens on the future of Canada’s competition policy. On September 20, the government released a summary of the consultations on its website. Unfortunately, Bill C-56 received first reading the following day, on September 21. There were no consultations or discussions with stakeholders on the proposed amendments that would affect them. This is not consultation.

This issue was raised by several senators who attended the briefing by government officials on Bill C-56 on Tuesday. It was also raised by Matthew Holmes, Senior Vice President of Policy and Government Relations with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, at our Finance Committee meeting yesterday.

Mr. Holmes said that the Canadian Chamber of Commerce was supportive of the need to enhance competition in Canada. However, he said that the chamber is:

. . . very concerned by the manner in which changes have been repeatedly introduced as parts of omnibus implementation bills, ways and means motions, or peppered throughout other legislation, such as Bill C-56, without . . . real consultation with the Canadian business community or academic experts in a very particular area of the law.

He said it is almost absurd to be speaking about a handful of changes in Bill C-56 when other changes are being proposed in Bill C-59, which is currently before the House of Commons. Intentionally or not, he said, this approach lacks transparency and obscures the actual plan for the future of competition law in Canada. He said that approach ultimately makes it more difficult, more expensive and riskier for business.

Regarding the market study powers now in the bill, Mr. Holmes said that the Chamber of Commerce would like to see due process and guidelines furthered and developed for the industry so that there is a clear sense of due process in how these market studies would be conducted.

The representative for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce further said that many members of the chamber in many sectors are silent on this because they feel that it is being politicized:

They feel that there is a whole group of sectors that are routinely brought before parliamentarians and admonished. . . . It’s an environment that can become quite toxic towards businesses, and our concern is that we don’t know how this information may be used, shared or provided in a public way in the future.

As there are new powers for market studies, the compelling information and release of that information, we do not know how that information will be monitored, by whom and under what parameters. What are the rules? What are the standards for the access to proprietary information that may be misused by other competitors in the future?

In summary, with respect to the amendments of the Competition Act, including Part 2 of the bill, the consultation process was not adequate.

In addition, the Senate, and specifically the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, to which Bill C-56 was referred, was not given sufficient time to properly study the bill and assess the implications of the proposed amendments. With respect to Part 1 of the bill, the government is implementing the GST rental rebate program estimated to cost $4.5 billion without an adequate plan. Yesterday, the Minister of Finance held up a copy of the Fall Economic Statement and said it was the government’s housing plan. Honourable senators, the Fall Economic Statement is not a housing plan.

At a recent meeting of the Senate Banking Committee, the minister responsible for housing, in a response to a question from the chair of the committee on the housing crisis, clearly said, “. . . there was not a specific strategy outlined in the Fall Economic Statement . . . .”

He further said:

We’re working on developing a comprehensive plan that will have a suite of federal measures designed to address the national housing crisis. . . .

For a program that costs $4.5 billion, there is no plan.

In conclusion, although I have many concerns about this bill, I cannot vote against a bill intended to help Canadians during a deepening affordability crisis, and so I will support it.
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Hon. Scott Tannas

Hon. Scott Tannas: Honourable senators, for the edification of everyone here, there was mention of a pre-study and a rejection of that notion. Just so that everybody is clear, the bill arrived here on Monday; the suggestion of a pre-study was raised on Tuesday; it’s now Thursday. In that time frame, we had the ministers here and the agreement of everybody. We asked the National Finance Committee to hold a hearing and bring as many witnesses as they could, to listen to concerns and to provide us with a report, of which they have done yeoman’s work.

The answer to this problem was not to do a pre-study on Tuesday and Wednesday. The answer to this problem, in my humble opinion, is for us, through the government leader, to provide guidance to the House of Commons on when it is they need to get bills here if they expect them to pass within a certain amount of time.

It was done before quite smoothly. We have heard in various conversations about Senator Carstairs, who stood up to her masters in the House of Commons and said, “If you don’t have a bill here by X date, don’t lean on us to rush through it.” That is the kind of thing that will solve this problem, not a pre-study notion on a Tuesday and some different result than what we have here on a Thursday. Thank you.
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Hon. Jean-Guy Dagenais

Hon. Jean-Guy Dagenais: Honourable senators, never in my 12 years as a senator have I felt so belittled, insulted and victimized by such a total lack of respect for my office and the job we all do here.

Yesterday, we held a committee meeting for a few hours and heard from six witnesses who provided very little information — and that is all the time we got to study a bill that I would describe as half-baked.

Some will say that this bill is important for Canadians, and I agree.

Why then did this government drag its feet for so long? Why did we only get this bill on December 13, just hours before we rise for the holidays? Just because the government is saying that this is urgent does not mean that we should shirk our responsibilities as senators, including the responsibility to rigorously examine legislation, amend it if necessary and, most importantly, properly represent the interests of Canadians in our respective regions.

I want to draw a comparison with Bill C-21. For a month, the committee met three times a week and heard from two, three, or even four groups of witnesses per meeting. Then, it just so happened that all of the amendments that we proposed to better protect our fellow citizens, even the most useful ones, were defeated in committee and in this chamber.

I’m going to take this a step further. This government does not have a very good track record when it comes to the quality of its legislation. I’m not the one saying that. That’s something the Supreme Court pointed out with the bill on medical assistance in dying. The Senate amendments to that legislation would have saved Canadians time and money.

The Senate is called the upper chamber. I fear that this haste to obey the government’s political commands lowers us to a dangerous degree when that same government prevents us from being diligent about the work we were appointed to do. I’ve often heard us called a chamber of reflection. Not a lot of reflection happened with Bill C-56, which we spent less than 90 minutes on.

People call the Senate the chamber of sober second thought. I can tell you we didn’t think about this one for very long. People also say that the Senate is an independent chamber. Let me just say that this use of the word forces me to reconsider its meaning. I sincerely believe that a number of my colleagues should do likewise.

The past three weeks in Parliament haven’t been easy. For all these reasons, I won’t vote in favour of Bill C-56, but I won’t vote against it either. I will abstain. I will do better than that, actually. I’m going to take a coffee break so that I don’t have to witness what I don’t want to endorse.

Thank you.

[English]
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Hon. Pierrette Ringuette

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Senator Gold, please ask your question.

[Translation]
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Hon. Marc, P.C. Gold

Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): I do have a question. Can I ask you, colleague, to reconsider?
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Hon. Clément Gignac

Hon. Clément Gignac: Colleagues, today, I would like to speak to Bill C-56, An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Competition Act.

I want to begin by making it clear that I do not intend to make any amendments to this bill and by saying that I will keep my remarks brief, because I am in favour the initiatives set out in the bill. You are therefore no doubt wondering why I am rising. The reason is that I want to speak out in this chamber, loud and clear, against the very little time that was allocated to studying this bill.

It’s nothing personal against the Government Representative in the Senate or the chair of the National Finance Committee, the Honourable Senator Mockler. On the contrary, as a member of the steering committee, Senator Mockler informed me on Monday at noon that we would have a hard time analyzing and passing this bill before we rise for the holidays, unless we were to take exceptional measures, such as holding a meeting in Committee of the Whole. According to my research, this was the first time in 10 years that the Senate has resolved into Committee of the Whole to debate an economic bill.

Honourable senators, I must admit that I was not familiar with that exceptional procedure. Like my two colleagues from the Canadian Senators Group, I was left wanting more, since each of us were allotted only three and a half minutes to ask questions of the two ministers with responsibilities in the economic sector.

Allow me to publicly thank the leader of the Canadian Senators Group for insisting earlier this week that the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance hold a special session immediately after the Committee of the Whole to hear a few witnesses on this bill.

Hats off to our clerk, Mireille Aubé, and her two analysts, who, with less than 24 hours’ notice, managed to secure the attendance of four witnesses at our committee yesterday afternoon.

Honourable senators, this bill passed first reading in the other place on September 21 and was received here in the Senate on Monday evening of this week. Allow me to point out that the finance committee of the other place was able to devote over eight hours of its time to this bill and heard from nine witnesses. At first glance, you will probably find that reassuring.

However, you should know that the Canadian Bar Association wasn’t able to testify, but it did submit a brief, which I have here. It is 30 pages long and contains 19 recommendations.

Moreover, during the clause-by-clause consideration in the other place’s committee, four amendments were presented and adopted. To me, that’s clear proof that this bill, the first reform of the Competition Act in 35 years, undoubtedly deserved a much more sober second look here.

Honourable Senators, you can no doubt sense a little anger, or at least a little intellectual frustration, in this speech I’m giving as a senator and member of this upper chamber, which is known as the place of sober second thought.

This week, I didn’t feel as though we were part of a bicameral system of Parliament with two chambers. Instead, I felt like I was sitting in the basement of the lower chamber, being treated like a second-class parliamentarian. It’s as if someone had forgotten that we are senators, no doubt of different political persuasions, but all with one common denominator: the desire to do the right thing in a transparent way for the good of Canadians.

I would like to thank my colleagues on the steering committee of National Finance, who agreed to raise the tone a little in the commentary presented last night. Usually, at National Finance, we use gentle, polite and courteous words. This time, we raised our voices a little, pointing out that we found it contemptuous that the committee had so little time to analyze the bill.

Honourable senators, I will close with that. Unfortunately, I think I’ve caught Senator Carignan’s nasty sore throat, so I will end here and probably won’t be able to answer your questions. Thank you.
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Senators

Hon. Senators: Agreed.
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Hon. Pierrette Ringuette

The Hon. the Speaker pro tempore: Is leave granted, senators?
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