Madam Speaker, it will be my absolute pleasure to be sharing my time with the member for Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne.
As always, it is a pleasure for me to speak on behalf of residents of my riding of Davenport to today's opposition motion by the Conservatives. I am going to read the motion, just because, in my own imagination, I always think that of course there are people who might want to look at this at a future date and they are going to want to know what the opposition motion is about. The motion states:
That, in order to help Canadians afford a simple summer vacation and save typical Canadian families $670 this summer, the House call on the NDP-Liberal government to immediately axe the carbon tax, the federal fuel tax, and the GST on gasoline and diesel until Labour Day.
First of all, there is no NDP-Liberal government, so we should probably just state that up front. There is a supply and confidence agreement between the Liberal government and the NDP.
I would also say that I do not agree with the premise of this motion. It is not the carbon pricing that is stopping Canadians from affording a summer vacation. The only provinces that are actually subject to carbon pricing are those provinces that do not have a current plan in place to reduce their carbon emissions. For example, my home province of Ontario, and it was just mentioned by one of my NDP colleagues here, did have a carbon-pricing mechanism before the current provincial government was elected in 2016. It was a cap-and-trade system with Quebec and California. When the provincial Conservative government in Ontario got into office, it cancelled that system and, unfortunately, not only was there a cost to cancelling it, but the province actually lost, and I remember this very clearly, $3 billion in annual revenue. On top of that, the government did not replace it with another system to reduce carbon emissions.
It is known that climate change is happening. Every country in the world needs to do its part to reduce emissions, to meet its Paris Agreement targets and to move to a low-carbon future.
The Conservatives like to make bold and, sadly, unfounded assertions that carbon pricing is worsening food-security challenges in this country, but there is no evidence that this is happening. In fact, time and again, the data suggest that the impact of carbon pricing on inflation is the equivalent of a rounding error. We hear that time and time again in the finance committee. This fact is also supported by the Bank of Canada and many others. Carbon pricing has no real, discernible impact on any increases of food costs in this country. We have seen experts appear at the agriculture committee suggesting the same, saying that they can find no straight line between carbon pricing and food costs.
Therefore, what do we know? During a high inflationary period worldwide, compared to G7 countries, many that do not have carbon pricing, Canada has the second-lowest food inflation rate.
What else is the data telling us? It is telling us about the impacts of climate change on food costs. Let us take, for example, the impact on grapes or cherries, like those in Okanagan Valley, British Columbia. Increased forest fires taint the crops, rendering the products of those farmers unsellable. Blueberry farms in Nova Scotia, like the one in the riding of the member for Cumberland—Colchester, who unfortunately spoke against carbon pricing yesterday, are losing large amounts of crops to huge fluctuations in precipitation that lead to either drought conditions or extreme wet weather. Let us also talk about the impacts of flooding on animal agriculture, like what we saw during the atmospheric river flooding in the Lower Mainland of B.C. We saw cows up to their udders in flood water; we saw many barns destroyed; and, unfortunately and very sadly, we saw many animals perish.
We also have seen the climate impacts on invasive species on our crops. We have seen that climate change helps the spread of new pests that threaten both crops and animals. We are also seeing the climate change impacts on the warming of the oceans, and that this warming poses a serious threat to the billion-dollar east coast lobster fishery.
I could go on and on with a lot of examples, but these are the costs that we have to be very focused on. These are the real costs of climate change, and they are happening in real time, year after year.
Where is the leader of the party opposite to be found in actually addressing these issues with real solutions? He is nowhere. We all remember last year when, being the leader of the party opposite, he had to cancel the axe the tax rallies in Yukon and Okanagan Valley because of wildfires. Yet, he has absolutely nothing to say about climate change, nothing to say to farmers and the next generation of farmers about how the Canadian government will take their concerns seriously and support them to be more resilient in the face of a changing climate.
Actually, there is something else that members opposite are not being honest about. Taking away the price on pollution would also remove the Canada carbon rebate and hurt people with that key income support, which is helping them to put food on the table. The Canada carbon rebate benefits lower-income Canadians the most. These are Canadians who tend to suffer most from food insecurity.
Germaine Romberg in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan is on a fixed income and depends on the Canada carbon rebate payments to make ends meet to pay for rent and for other necessities. The $300 she got every four months last year on top of her disability payments made a world of difference for her monthly bills. She is not alone; this story has played out with Canadians across the country.
A study published late last year in the Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics, called “Canadian food inflation: International dynamics and local agency”, looked at the difference between the amount Canadians pay and the amount they get back in the Canada carbon rebate. The author concluded that:
Removing the tax may actually make some Canadians, particularly lower-income and rural Canadians, worse off than they are under the carbon tax...The impacts of the carbon tax on food prices are suggested to be small. If they are smaller than the difference between CAI payments and carbon tax paid, many Canadian households will suffer a net loss due to the repeal of the tax.
This is the same thing that the Government of Canada has been saying all along: Eight out of 10 Canadians get more back than they pay.
There are tens of thousands of Canadians out there like Germaine in Saskatoon, who, if they lost their rebate payments, would have their ability to purchase food severely diminished. We know that Conservatives, sadly, would deprive people of these rebate payments if they ever got into power.
I am going to repeat something that one of my colleagues said this morning, because I really believe it is important to be repeated. It reads:
Carbon pricing continues to be the most efficient, simple and cost-effective way to meet our targets. It is a measure that encourages the whole population, every household and every business, to find ways to cut pollution, whether and however they would like. It sends a powerful message forward of confidence to businesses to invest in cleaner technologies to be more energy efficient in the future.
Carbon pricing does not raise the cost of living. In provinces where the federal fuel charge applies, as I mentioned earlier, it represents only a tiny fraction of inflation and increase in the price of groceries, which is less than half a percent. However, there is a 10% supplement for people living in rural and remote communities. We proposed increasing it to 20%, but the Conservatives, sadly, have been delaying Bill C-59 for months now. I am hoping that they will stop delaying this, but for provinces under the federal pricing system with a Canada carbon rebate, 80% of Canadian households receive a refund greater than what they pay. In fact, if carbon pricing were abolished today, not only would clean energy investment and job creation grind to a halt, but our low- and middle-income families would have less money in their pockets.
I am urging all members of this House to vote “no” to the opposition day motion, because, unfortunately, the Conservative opposition party has no plan to address climate change, and no plan to actually help Canadians who are struggling to make ends meet.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the opposition for putting forth another opposition day on one of Canada's most successful tools to reduce our carbon pollution. Carbon pricing works, and that has never been clearer.
Before I go on, I would like to say I fully support the Speaker's idea to have the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands take the first question so we can talk about how we fight climate change, not whether we fight climate change. The Conservatives seem hell-bent on letting our planet burn.
Carbon pricing works at the business level, and carbon pricing works at the personal household level as well. In fact, it increases the success of all other emissions reductions policies because it builds in a powerful incentive for energy efficiency right across the Canadian economy. We might call carbon pricing the sixth player on the ice in Canada's emissions reductions plan. ECCC's modelling shows that carbon pricing alone accounts for around one-third of the emissions reductions expected in Canada between 2005 and 2030. Other independent experts have calculated it to be even more effective in cutting Canada's carbon pollution.
The Conservatives do not need to listen to experts, whom they have said are so-called experts, but they should heed the advice of William Nordhaus, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, who just recently said that Canada is getting it right on carbon pricing, that we are getting it right on carbon reductions, that our pollution is going down as a result and that our economy continues to be very strong. Let me summarize quickly how our department calculates emissions reductions.
We use a program called EC-PRO. It is a computable general equilibrium model that allows us to perform complex statistical calculations. We begin by preparing a reference scenario that includes all current federal, provincial and territorial emissions reductions policies and calculates the total emissions expected by 2030. Then we prepare a second hypothetical scenario that excludes carbon pricing altogether. We also exclude all provincial carbon pricing policies, including those from Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec, which are not covered by the federal system. Finally, the difference is used to estimate the effect of carbon pricing on emissions. This results in a difference of 78 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent, which represents about a third of the total reductions that Canada plans to make between 2005 and 2030. This is according to our commitments under the Paris Agreement, which we reaffirmed when we formed government in 2015.
Our modelling also shows that the effect of carbon pricing is very rapid. It is one of the least expensive, least intrusive and quickest ways to reduce carbon emissions. By 2023, just the fourth year of this plan, our emissions would have been around 24 million tonnes higher without Canada's national minimum carbon price. It has the same effect as taking more than seven million internal combustion passenger cars off the road.
I will remind my colleague from the Conservative Party, who earlier asked a member about the calculations he used for the $670 savings the Conservative Party is boasting about and asked if he was going to drive his electric car, that electric cars do not require fuel. It seems to be lost on the Conservatives that they are an innovation that do not require the input of fossil fuels.
In short, putting a price on pollution works, and our data proves it. It is not just our data. It is also the data of 300 independent economists from across this country, renowned people who work at universities and whom the Conservatives continue to call so-called experts. If they have any experts, Conservative experts, who would like to come forward with some data, economic analysis or anything that indicates carbon pricing is having a negative impact on the real affordability challenges that Canadians are experiencing, I am here for it. I asked them for it back in December and have not seen anything since.
Carbon pricing continues to be the most efficient, simple and cost-effective way to meet our targets. It is a measure that encourages the whole population, every household and every business, to find ways to cut pollution, whether and however they would like to. It sends a powerful message forward of confidence to businesses to invest in cleaner technologies and be more energy efficient in the future.
It is truly mind-boggling to see all of the misinformation out there being spread especially by the Conservative Party of Canada. Carbon pricing does not raise the cost of living. Economists from across this country, people who are experts on these types of analyses, indicate that, yet the Conservative Party chooses to continue to toe that line, which is based on absolutely no factual data.
In provinces where the federal fuel charge applies, it represents a tiny fraction of inflation and of the increase in the price of groceries. As my colleague from the NDP pointed out, Trevor Tombe, from the University of Calgary in Alberta, said that it adds to the price of groceries a very negligible amount. We are talking about pennies on a full cart of groceries.
I would also just point out that there is a 10% supplement for people living in rural and remote areas, who do not have access to things like active transportation or public transportation. They might be more reliant on propane or natural gas, as other forms of heating are less available in rural Canada. We proposed increasing it by 20%, but the Conservatives have been delaying Bill C-59 for months now, withholding that money from Canadians.
For provinces under the federal pricing system, with the Canada carbon rebate, 80% of Canadian households receive a refund that is greater than what they pay. In fact, if carbon pricing were abolished, not only would clean energy investment, innovation and job creation all grind to a halt, but our low- and middle-income families would have less money in their pockets.
I would like to expand on another piece of false information that is being driven by the Conservative Party of Canada, with respect to how carbon pricing has an impact on our economy: No, carbon pricing does not hurt businesses, and it does not hurt the economy.
In other countries similar to Canada, cold ones that also get warm in the summer, we see that pricing systems like ours offer the stability to build more prosperous economies. Sweden, which put a price on carbon over 30 years ago, has managed to cut its emissions by a third and double its economy.
The same is true for us, such as in British Columbia, which has had its own system for more than a decade. Many members of the Conservative Party of Canada served in the B.C. legislature under the Liberal Party when it was instituted. They seem to have forgotten that it has been lowering their per capita emissions and per GDP emissions in the great province of British Columbia for decades now. They have also seen, over the exact same time, rapid economic growth and innovation. Congratulations to British Columbia. On that piece of policy, the federal government is proud to follow in its footsteps.
We also must consider the demand for clean innovation, which is growing worldwide. We have seen investments in Canada. In fact, foreign direct investment in Canada is at an all-time high, and that is because people want to invest here. It is a great time to invest in Canada. We have the green energy and the great ideas that the world really depends on when it comes to innovation and a green revolution. That is why they are coming here to do business.
Because carbon pricing attracts investment in clean energy technologies and low-carbon industry here in Canada, it allows Canadian companies to take the lead. If we abolished it, we would lose our position in the global race toward carbon neutrality and we would sacrifice all of the jobs that come with it. It would do serious harm to Canadian companies that are exporting to other countries with carbon markets that will impose carbon adjustment mechanisms at their border. That includes the entire European Union, for example. It also includes the U.K., and other countries plan to do so soon.
Canada has already made so much progress. As a result of the suite of climate change-fighting, emissions-reducing policies implemented since 2015, Canada is set to exceed our 2026 interim climate objective of a 20% reduction in emissions from 2005 levels. There goes another Conservative talking point up in smoke.
It is amusing when opposition members accuse us of missing climate targets, when they do everything in their power to kneecap the policies that are, in fact, getting us to achieving our targets. The most recent projections, published last December, suggest that Canada should achieve a 36% reduction by 2030. We are getting there. The latest national inventory report confirmed that emissions are consistent with our forecast and remain below prepandemic levels.
Canada's emissions, with the exception of the pandemic, have never been so low in 25 years. This is a great achievement, something that the entire House of Commons ought to be proud of and ought to be looking for ways to make even better. Electricity and heat production in the public sector has become less polluting due, in part, to further reductions in the use of coal and coke in those applications. Fugitive emissions from oil and gas extraction have also decreased.
The numbers are very clear. Carbon pricing works, and it will make it possible to achieve one-third of Canada's emissions reduction targets by 2030. It also helps ease the cost of living for families that need it the most. It is good for business and it is good for the economy. The revenue-neutral nature of our carbon pricing system is less costly than offering subsidies or adopting regulatory measures.
With respect to the Conservative motion today suggesting that we drop all levies and tax on fuel over the course of the summer, the suggestion that it would save a family $670 is obviously false. They would have to drive over 25,000 kilometres in those few months. It also really ignores the fact that Canadians who really need it receive an HST refund four times a year. They receive a rebate.
I remember, when I was growing up, that my mom really looked forward to that. There was usually a trip to Swiss Chalet when my mom received the HST rebate. It was really, really helpful for our family. At that time, I think it was about $90 four times a year, and it is more now.
However, more than that, the Canada carbon rebate is really supporting families, particularly those on the lower and modest income scale, not because they receive a bit more, as with the HST refund, but because everybody receives that incentive. Everybody receives the same amount. A family of four in Alberta receives the same as another family of four. The Conservatives have shamelessly called this some kind of a trick. It is not a trick; it is a rebate, a refund. The Canada carbon rebate is just like the Canada child benefit and just like all of the services and the programs we have implemented to lower poverty in the last eight years. The Canada carbon rebate really works and, like I said, it is less costly and less intrusive than offering subsidies or adopting strict regulatory measures. We absolutely must maintain it.
I do not need to remind members of the urgent need for action. It is, unfortunately, wildfire season once again. Our country is very vulnerable to climate change. I read this statistic just recently, and it is absolutely alarming. Canada is 0.5% of the global population, about 41 million people on a planet of more than eight billion people. However, over 40%, I think it was 45%, of families displaced from their homes as a result of wildfires in 2023 were Canadian. Canada is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. We warm faster and we dry faster. When it is dry, as is forecasted for this summer, we get more wildfires, and more intense wildfires, and that means more Canadians will be driven from their homes.
Every day, Canadians see the costly impacts of climate change, from droughts to wildfires and floods. Climate change costs average Canadian households about $720 a year. The costs of climate change are not spoken about enough in this House of Commons. Climate change is one of the leading causes of grocery inflation. People go to the grocery store and say, “Hey, why is lettuce $3.50? Why are tomatoes all of a sudden $1.99 or $2.99?” It is because of climate change. It is because those crops are grown in places that are vulnerable to climate change and the extreme weather that has an impact on drought and on all sorts of important measures. It really speaks to the need for a more fulsome food strategy in Canada, and I support that as well.
For families that are having a difficult time paying for groceries, the Canada carbon rebate really supports them, and it is important to note that it supports lower- and modest-income families even more. The next rebate is coming on July 15 and, for many families, it will be more than the average because if they did not submit their taxes by April 15, that rebate will be quite a lot higher than it was going to be alternatively. July 15 is the next installment for the Canada carbon rebate. Whether families live in Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, as your family does, Mr. Speaker, P.E.I., Newfoundland, New Brunswick or Ontario, they all will receive the Canada carbon rebate on July 15.
Over the same period of time that we have seen all of these changes, household revenues could decrease by as much as $1,900 just because of climate change. Climate change is having a really negative impact. There was actually an op-ed in the National Post by a former Conservative MP talking about how climate change might actually be good for Canada. What a cynical, pessimistic, horribly misguided viewpoint that would be. Climate change is costly, and Canadians are more vulnerable than average citizens around the world.
That is not to mention the physical and mental health problems it causes. Not that long ago, only about a year ago, the skies in Ottawa were completely turned orange from wildfire smoke, and members in this House had a difficult time breathing. How quickly those Conservatives forget.
The recently announced 2024 federal budget was named “Fairness for Every Generation”. Generational fairness means that we cannot saddle our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren with cleaning up our climate mess. Indeed, it is our obligation to make changes to our emissions behaviour so that we leave the planet better than we found it, like a good campsite. We are currently in the century of climate impact, and we cannot kick this can down the road: never again. Previous generations have been talking about climate change, global warming and other impacts on our natural environment, on our country and on our economy. I will not be one of those who ignore it in favour of other priorities, like higher oil and gas profits, as the Conservatives seem so committed to do.
Carbon pricing gives us a much better chance of success than virtually any other policy. It is also important to recognize that our carbon-pricing protocol is just one measure in a suite of protocols.
As I said, Canadians are on the front lines of the climate crisis. Climate change manifests itself in our lives on a daily basis, whether it is with respect to air quality or, in the unfortunate scenario that many Canadians have experienced in the last year, an evacuation order. It has already forced us, and will continue to force us, to adapt and change the way we manage our businesses, organize our lives and interact with nature.
Warmer temperatures come with more intense and frequent weather events everywhere on earth, but especially here at home. On a global level, it has been estimated that between 2000 and 2019, extreme weather events have caused damages averaging around $143 billion. That is $16 million per hour throughout the entire year for the last 20 years. Climate change is a real threat to our economy, to our livelihoods and to our very lives.
Here at home, Canadians have experienced first-hand the severe weather events, such as hurricanes, storms, flooding, extreme heat and wildfires, which are now common, severe and more disastrous than ever. That is why I was actually very disappointed to hear the previous speaker on this from Nova Scotia talking as if climate change and extreme weather were not connected. They indeed are. We need not look any further than to some of our great Canadian paleoclimatologists and amazing economists. People research this, and members of this House ought to lean in on some of that economic and paleoclimatic data for insight.
These kinds of weather events have had major impacts on property and infrastructure. They cause environmental damage. They threaten our very lives, and our food and water security. The impact of extreme weather events on Canadian communities is not limited to one given place. We see those changes across our country and severe weather from coast to coast to coast.
When we are looking at the financial impacts of extreme weather, six out of 10 of the costliest years on record in Canada were in the last decade. Indeed, 2023 was the hottest year on record, and 2024 is slated to be even hotter. January of this year had the highest temperature ever recorded in a January on record. February was the hottest February ever on record. March was the hottest March ever on record. It is staring us right in the face. The climate crisis is not an optional thing that we must act on; it is 100% mandatory. Future generations are depending on us.
If the Conservatives want to continue to use their slogans and their misguided approach with absolutely no data, to further inflame the conversation around the affordability crisis without offering any solutions, I would just ask that over the course of the summer they travel to a university or ask a climate scientist for a little bit of insight so they can come back to this House in September with some data to back up their claims on either one of these two things: They are suggesting that carbon pricing is ineffective in reducing our emissions, or they are suggesting that the Canada carbon rebate is not supporting affordability right across this country.
Both are true. They are facts. It is hard to argue with facts when economists point to them and say, “Hey, what you just said is actually not controversial; the math works out. We did the math, and we agree. That is actually supporting Canadians.”
Speaking of poverty reduction, I came to this House because I was concerned that poverty in Canada was legislated. I am a strong believer that we can just decide as a country to implement some policies to reduce poverty. I also know that poverty and climate change are linked. Climate change actually impacts poorer, more modest-income Canadians more significantly. When we have a heat wave in this country, seniors without air conditioning suffer more than wealthy people with a swimming pool in their backyard, who can take a dip and cool down.
Communities that are mostly paved, without a lot of canopy, are a lot hotter than communities with a nice canopy and lots of trees. Having grown up in a co-op with lots of nice trees, a co-op that had the forethought 40 years ago to plant a bunch, I knew that. We could hang out in the park in our little co-op and play softball. When it got hot, we could hang out underneath a tree. That is not the same in every community. A lot of those lower-income apartment buildings have a lot of concrete and not a lot of trees. Climate change impacts more modest-income Canadians worse.
Just to close up, the motion in question here is to reduce gas prices over the course of this summer so that Canadians could save money, according to the Conservatives. However, what they are ignoring, as they always do, is the Canada carbon rebate. The Canada carbon rebate will send, in Alberta, $450 quarterly, four times a year, so $900 over the next six months or so, to Canadians. That is actually more than the amount the Conservatives are saying folks will save.
The Conservatives want to axe the Canada carbon rebate. They want to take that money away from lower- and middle-income families and make sure that oil and gas companies can profit. I will say it once again: Who needs an oil and gas lobby when we have the Conservative Party of Canada?
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I declare clauses 323 to 341 carried.
The House has agreed to the entirety of Bill C-59, an act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 21, 2023, and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, 2023, at third reading stage.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time.
I am glad to have the chance to rise to share more about why Greens cannot support this amendment, but we will continue to support Bill C-59, the fall economic statement, despite its imperfections.
Let us be clear: The amendment is essentially saying not to move forward with Bill C-59 at all in its entirety and, instead, to just repeal the carbon tax under the guise that this would help people across the country deal with issues with respect to the unaffordability of day-to-day life. Well, we cannot support the amendment, because repealing the carbon tax will not do any good for the vast majority of Canadians who are having a difficult time with the cost of living. There is a reason for that.
There is a lot of talk of food banks in this place, but has any parliamentarian taken a look at what food banks are actually calling for? For example, what was the Daily Bread Food Bank calling for in its pre-budget submission? It actually has three recommendations, and all three call for increasing and moving quickly to put in place the Canada disability benefit. This would provide support to people with disabilities, who are disproportionately living in poverty across the country. Forty per cent of people living in poverty are people with disabilities. Groups such as the Daily Bread Food Bank have been joining in solidarity with the disability community to call on the government to put in place a Canada disability benefit that would bring people with disabilities above the poverty line. There is no mention of that in the amendment, which would just get rid of everything else that is in the fall economic statement. Not only that, but repealing the carbon tax would mean removing the rebates that go with it, which leave lower-income Canadians in my community better off; it is true.
The carbon tax went up two cents a litre last year, and rebates went up along with it. The pure profits of the oil and gas industry in the same period of time went up 18¢ a litre. There were no rebates for any Canadian on that gouging, and that is not just the total profits, it is only the increase. It went up from around 26¢ a litre to around 42¢ a litre or so. This gouging of Canadians is leading to the $38 billion a year in profits in 2022 alone for the five largest oil and gas companies operating in Canada. This is after share repurchases and dividends are all issued. It is why folks such as myself and others have been calling to put in place a windfall profit tax on the excess profits of the oil and gas industry, the way many other jurisdictions already have all around the world.
In fact, the government put in place a windfall profit tax on another sector already. In the midst of the pandemic, banks and life insurance companies had an extra 15% tax on profits over a billion dollars. It has been done before in this country. We could do the same when it comes to the oil and gas industry, and if we did, we could use those dollars to invest in real solutions to help address the unaffordability of day-to-day life for Canadians who need this the most. For example, we could increase service and reduce fares for public transit across the country; we could make it cheaper and provide more incentives for Canadians who want to retrofit their homes. These are the kinds of measures that would actually help address affordability. Repealing the carbon tax will not do anything to help Canadians who are struggling with day-to-day life.
On the subject of the fall economic statement itself, while it is imperfect, Greens have been supporting it; it includes many measures that will help folks in my community and others across the country. The first I would like to talk about is when it comes to making psychotherapy and counselling services more affordable. There was a long-held promise and commitment that was followed through on in Bill C-59 to remove GST and HST from those services. It is a small measure that would make it more affordable for Canadians across the country to access mental health services.
I would expect all parliamentarians in this place to agree that we need to do more to make mental health services available. Admittedly, the government actually committed $4.5 billion in the last election campaign for mental health transfers. The Liberals have not followed through on that, but they did put in place this measure to remove GST and HST from psychotherapy services. It is an important, good measure that, as Greens, we want to see made available to Canadians as soon as possible.
There are also really important tax credits that would help bring along support for renewable energy across the country. There are tax credits that would benefit companies in my community, such as VCT Group, which is designing and building the future of solar energy. In fact, in conversations I have had with VCT Group executives over the last year, they have shared with me directly how contracts that they would like to see move ahead are being held back because these tax credits are not yet in place; prospective customers of theirs do not have the business case to move ahead unless they see them in place. Even with the tax credits, the payback period for certain projects is still particularly long, but there are far more potential customers of theirs who would be open to moving ahead should we see Bill C-59 and the clean manufacturing tax credit included in it move ahead. This is one reason Greens have been so keen to finally get to the end of the day when it comes to getting Bill C-59 passed.
Again, this is the fall economic statement. We are in the late spring months now and have yet to see it move through. We are keen to see measures like this moved ahead. In fact, it was at committee where Greens even tried to improve on this to have that tax credit. As it stands right now, these tax credits are only available if both the manufacturing happens in Canada and the equipment is exclusively used in Canada. As Greens, we attempted to amend the bill at committee to allow for solar-powered lawnmowers, for example. A company in my community called Swap Robotics manufactures those. However, they are used in Canada only half the year, and they are used in Florida half the year. Because they are used outside Canada half the year, companies such as Swap Robotics would not be eligible for that tax credit. As Greens, we would have liked to see that expanded further. We were not successful with that at committee. However, what is in the fall economic statement is still an important and good measure; we are still going to support it.
I would like to close, though, with the one piece of Bill C-59 that we are most concerned about, and that is another fossil fuel subsidy. It is a massive tax credit for a false climate solution called “carbon capture and storage”. The tax credits in Bill C-59, which have been rolled out for the last three years, amount to $5.7 billion. All this could be redirected, for example, to actually funding the Canada disability benefit and to building public transit infrastructure; instead, it is being wasted on this false solution technology that, more often than not, emits more carbon than it captures around the world. In closing, I will read a quote from Environmental Defence back in 2021. These are the words of Julia Levin, warning the government not to create the tax credits it did create, including in Bill C-59. She said:
Carbon capture is being used as a Trojan horse by oil and gas executives to continue, and even expand, fossil fuel production. It’s a dangerous distraction driven by the same polluters who created the climate emergency. The Government of Canada should not use any kind of financial support or tax incentive to prop up false climate solutions that only serve to delay the necessary transition off of fossil fuels.
I could not agree more with Ms. Levin. Climate scientists around the world have been warning us to get our dollars focused on the most efficient use of funds. There is certainly not such as focus with this subsidy to carbon capture and storage. However, on balance, Bill C-59 has measures that we need to see move ahead, and Greens will be supporting it.
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Mr. Speaker, in Bill C‑59, the government is creating a new department, the department of housing, infrastructure and communities. None of those areas fall under federal jurisdiction. This means the minister can interfere more, impose conditions on the provinces and municipalities, and cause more bickering and delays.
Pierre Elliott Trudeau already tried this in 1971. He created a similar department, and it was a total failure. During the department's existence, there was nothing but bickering until it was shut down in 1979.
Does my colleague agree that when the Liberals do the same thing over and over again, it really seems like a farce?
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to rise tonight to talk about the fall economic statement. I came in here actually prepared to talk about the question of privilege. I am shocked that the government would shut down debate in the House on a question of privilege over the partisan activities of the Speaker. Our House of Commons, our institution, is being discredited and undermined by the Chair, the Speaker of the House of Commons. We have to continue to have a fulsome discussion on that, so I am disappointed that the government would use its power to force debate on Bill C-59, the fall economic statement. Last time I looked, it was May 27, and here we are talking in the summer about the fall economic statement from 2023.
I am going to be splitting my time with the member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge.
As Conservatives, we have said all along that we want to make sure that we build the homes, axe the tax, fix the budget and stop the crime. The government has no intention of doing any of that. We know that housing in this country is in a desperate situation, that in the nine years under the Liberal-NDP coalition, the cost of rent has doubled, the cost of mortgages has doubled and the number of housing starts is below that of what we did in 1976.
We say we want to axe the tax, and that is very important to my riding. I was just meeting with some cattle producers from Manitoba, including from my riding, and they were telling me over and over again that every time they have to pay the carbon tax, every time the carbon tax is hidden in all the supplies they buy, it all trickles down, and that means that they are getting less and paying to the government more. Of course when they sell their cattle, for which right now, thankfully, the price is at record highs, people are complaining about the price of beef on the store shelf.
One has to remember that the coolers that store shelves have their beef in are often powered through thermal electricity or natural gas, We know that this adds an extra cost to the price of beef. We know that in the transportation of that beef from the farm to the packer and from the processor to the retailer, it all gets added in and consumers are paying more. Of course, they cannot afford it.
We are going to fix the budget because the government continues to run up huge national debt and larger-than-ever deficits that are actually going to hurt each and every one of us. We know that the Governor of the Bank of Canada has said that this has not been helpful in controlling inflation. It has not been helpful in its being able to bring down interest rates. Of course every time we have a Trudeau as prime minister, we pay record-high interest rates.
With my first farm, which I bought back in 1984 under the former Trudeau, the interest rate on my mortgage was 21%, which was pretty high and pretty impossible, almost, for a 19-year-old young farmer to get going. I had to eat that at the bank because of the out-of-control spending by the Liberal government at the time, from 1980 to 1984. Our young people today are paying the cost because of out-of-control spending and little care for the economic performance of the country under the Liberal-NDP coalition.
Of course, we have to stop the crime. The government has, for nine years, ignored the plight of Canadians who are dealing with increasing criminal activity, including violent crime, which has gone up by over 32% across the country, including in my riding of Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman and including in the city of Winnipeg, where the member for Winnipeg North resides.
We see, over and over again, repeat offenders generating 90% of the crimes that are being committed against Canadians. We want safer communities, and that is why as Conservatives under the leadership of our leader, the member for Carleton, we will implement jail, not bail, and keep violent repeat offenders, those who are perpetrating crimes, behind bars and actually reduce crime across the country.
As members know, I am the shadow minister for national defence. I am very concerned by the way the government has ignored our Canadian Armed Forces and how it has gone from a proud, honoured institution to where it is now, again, in a decade of darkness, which occurred, of course, under the Chrétien era. We are living that again. Members and veterans of the armed forces have told me that they are actually in a decade of disaster because of the dithering and delays being carried out by the current government.
We know for a fact that the world has gotten much more dangerous. We know, and it is not just because of Russia's invasion in Ukraine, that we are seeing increased sabre-rattling by the Kremlin with NATO members in the Baltic region, which we just witnessed this past week with its redrawing of boundaries along Estonia and Russia and between Finland, Sweden and other Baltic nations with Russia. That type of aggression and provocation by President Vladimir Putin and his kleptocrats in Moscow continues to undermine our security.
We know that the Communist regime in Beijing and the People's Liberation Army continue to sabre-rattle with Taiwan. The rhetoric coming out of Beijing this past week after the inauguration of Taiwan's new president was deplorable. We know that its ongoing aggression against the Philippines in the South China Sea and around the Second Thomas Shoal continues to undermine security co-operation and peace and prosperity within that region. We know that Japan, South Korea and other Indo-Pacific countries are more and more concerned about China's growing disturbances in the region.
We know that the government has failed to make the investments in the Canadian Armed Forces to meet our NATO target, and the Washington Summit is coming up. There has been a lot of concern expressed by our allies, especially since the defence policy update came out, that there is no plan to meet the NATO target.
The Minister of National Defence has said that the Canadian Armed Forces is in a death spiral. He has said that our equipment is worn out and unsustainable. At committee today, the Minister of National Defence said that our Victoria-class submarines are no longer serviceable. We know that the greatest proliferation of weapons systems in this country outside of air-breathing missiles, which are hypersonic; intercontinental ballistic missiles; and the advancement of more cruise missiles and drones, outside of that domain, the next biggest growing proliferation of weapons is submarines. The best way to defend against a submarine is to have a submarine, and the minister is saying today, essentially, that we no longer have serviceable submarines to defend Canada in our maritime approaches.
We have to make sure that we are standing up for our troops. The minister said that we are short 6,700 housing units. We hear stories of members of our Canadian Armed Forces living rough. They are living in cars, tents and campers. They are couch-surfing in places like Halifax, Esquimalt and Toronto. We know that they need to have proper housing.
We cannot recruit because the government, under the NDP-Liberal coalition, has not put the troops first and foremost in its minds, making sure they get the kit they need. The government will say that it gave a recent raise, but in giving that raise it also increased the rent of military housing. We actually passed a motion here just two weeks ago calling on the government to reverse that decision. Of course, the Minister of National Defence and the Liberals voted against it. This has affected our recruitment capabilities, and that is why we are still short 16,000 troops.
We know that readiness continues to be undermined. All of us remember Gen. Andrew Leslie, a former army commander who was also the whip for the Liberals for some time. He has come out and stated that he is “not aware of any other [NATO] army, which will be deploying troops to the front line of a possible confrontation with Russia, who are not 100 per cent trained according to a variety of battle test standards.”
He is saying that the defence policy update, the most recent budget by the Liberals and the main estimates that we are dealing with at committee have undermined our overall readiness. We are now at only 61% standing ready. We are not training our troops like we are supposed to be at CFB Wainwright in Alberta before we deploy to places like Latvia. We are no longer doing fighter pilot training in this country. We have farmed that out to places like the United States and Italy. We do not have base training here. We do not even have enough pilots in the Canadian Air Force to fly our current fleet of fighter jets.
I would just say that based upon the comments we heard just this past week from multiple U.S. senators and from the ambassador, Canada is an outlier in NATO. Eighteen percent of the countries will meet the 2%, and 13% have a plan to get to 2% within the next couple of years. Canada is the only country that will never make it, and that is because we have a Prime Minister who actually said that we will never be at 2%.
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Mr. Speaker, I thought the member for Victoria said “Orson Welles”, and I found a quote from Orson Welles on politics, which reminds me of the member for Winnipeg North: “I have all the equipment to be a politician. Total shamelessness.” I think that is my colleague across the way.
Coming back to the actual issue being debated, Bill C-59, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, in his commentary about the fall economic statement, commented about the lack of transparency from the Liberal government being a concern. One issue I have noticed in the departmental results, which are part of the estimates process, which is eventually part of the statement, is that we see various departments such as the Department of Indigenous Services did not have 67% of its goals set for its priorities. For Veterans Affairs, it was 70%, and for Environment, it was 40%. I wonder if the member could comment on the lack of transparency from his own government on this important issue.
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Mr. Speaker, Bill C-59 includes more than $12 billion for carbon capture by western oil companies. It also includes $18 billion to help oil companies buy nuclear power plants, known as small modular reactors, to replace the natural gas used to heat the oil sands with polluted water, so that they can save the gas and export it instead, particularly through the Coastal GasLink pipeline.
Bill C‑59 gives the oil industry about $30 billion. Is that the Liberals' environmental plan?
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Mr. Speaker, when we came to Parliament this morning, we had anticipated that we would be able to talk about some of the needs that Canadians have, and what we see day after day coming from the official opposition are ways in which it can prevent the government from passing important legislation.
It is interesting. Right now, we are dealing with Bill C-59, which is the fall economic statement. I would like the members of the Conservative Party to start looking in a few mirrors, and they would see that they are not reflecting something that Canadians truly want to see take place. As opposed to the Conservative Party's wanting to have a proactive chamber that helps, assists and supports Canadians, they want to prevent virtually any and all legislation from passing. The only way in which the government can get the Conservatives onside with legislation, where they will actually look at any form of seeing it go through without great opposition to it, is if they are shamed into doing it. If the Conservatives are not shamed into doing the responsible thing, more often than not what we will see is a Conservative Party that will do whatever it takes in order to prevent legislation from passing, and we see that in many different forms. We saw some of that even earlier today, when the Conservatives' focus was more on the issue of character assassination than on dealing with the important issues.
What would Bill C-59 do, as an example? One would think that the Conservatives would be a bit more sympathetic to the needs of rural Canadians. Within this legislation, we have the doubling of the top-up for the rebate. That is within the legislation. This legislation should have passed late last year. It is interesting that the Conservatives will stand up and say that we cannot pass legislation and, at the end of the day, it is the Conservative Party that has not realized what Canadians expect of an opposition party in a minority situation.
At the end of the day, we recognize the importance of Canada's middle class and those aspiring to be a part of it. We recognize the importance of generation X and the millennials and the needs that they actually have. Whether it is the budget or the fall economic statement, which we are debating today, the Conservatives, day after day, continue to do what they can to prevent the legislation from passing, as opposed to a government that understands and brings forward legislation that is truly reflective of the values and the needs of Canadians.
I have had the opportunity here and there to add some thoughts in regard to that issue and how we bring forward a budget or the budget implementation bill in the manner in which it is brought forward. We have a Liberal caucus with members of Parliament who consistently are in the communities we represent, often bringing ministers into the constituencies, not only where we represent but even beyond that, so we can funnel back into Ottawa the ideas and the thoughts that we are hearing from Canadians from coast to coast to coast. Therefore, when people look at the important legislation, like budget implementation acts or budget bills in general, people will see that they are a reflection of what we have been told when talking to Canadians and the different stakeholders throughout the country.
That is one of the reasons why we find, more often than not, that Conservatives will actually avoid talking about the substance of the legislation in many ways. They try to cheapen the policy debates and discussions that we have inside the chamber in favour of talking about things like, let us say, bumper stickers and the ideas that they have going forward into the next election. How often do we hear the Conservatives saying they are going to axe the tax? That is it. That is their number one bumper sticker.
We had a party annual general meeting in downtown Winnipeg this past weekend, and I was on one of the MP panels. I was asked a question about how I, as a member of Parliament, would respond to the Conservative Party's simple message of axing the tax. In responding, I said that people need to realize that as a Liberal government, we talk about how we care about Canadians. We talk about things like the dental plan and the pharmacare plan. We talk about the first-ever disability program. We talk about how we are investing in housing. Liberals talk about caring for people. We talk about caring; the Conservatives talk about cutting. If I was to try to amplify that to my constituents, I would be emphasizing the contrast: Conservatives cut; Liberals care. That, to me, is the contrast that we need to say to Canadians is very real and very tangible. I do not say that lightly.
We negotiated with the different provinces about the issue of child care. As an example, going into a federal election, we had a number of signed agreements, and the Conservative Party said it was going to rip up those agreements. Conservatives did not support the child care program. Shortly after the election, we continued to push the issue of child care. At the end of the day, every province and territory came on board. As a direct result, we have a national child care program, as a result of this government. It is reflective of what we were hearing, not only at the doors during the election, but also in between elections. That is a message, as I said, that we brought here to Ottawa. That is how we formulate budgets and fall economic statements. The Conservatives do not support the child care program that we have put forward. They do not support $10-a-day child care. We saw that in terms of going in and going out of the last federal election, because they said they would rip it up. When I spoke to Liberals in the province of Manitoba, that was the type of thing that I talked about. We need to talk about that contrast.
When the Conservative Party says it is going to axe the tax, what it wants to do is misrepresent the facts. There is a rebate. There is a doubling of the top-up rebate for rural Manitobans and rural Canadians. That is there. They are not receiving that because the Conservatives refuse to pass Bill C-59, the fall economic statement. Take a look at the amendment the Conservatives proposed. I think this is the bill where they proposed to delete the short title or some silly thing like that. Why? It is not only because they want to be able to hear me speak more on the issue. It is because they do not want the bill to pass.
There are other aspects within the legislation and within budgetary measures. Let us do the contrast. Let us talk about the misinformation and that whole doubling of the top-up for the rebates. It is a major issue. It is about the environment. It is about getting more money in the pockets of 80% of Canadians, but that is not the messaging that the Conservatives talk about. Even though it is the truth, it is not the messaging. Instead, they say they are going to get rid of the price on pollution or the carbon tax; they are going to kill the carbon tax. Not all provinces have the carbon tax. There is British Columbia, as well as the Province of Quebec; that is a fairly significant percentage of the population in Canada. For those that do, like my home province of Manitoba, 80% of the constituents in Winnipeg North will receive more money as a direct result of the price on pollution. What does that really mean? Sure, there is a carbon tax component to it, but there is also the carbon rebate, and 80%-plus of my constituents are going to receive more money back through the rebate than they are actually paying out in the tax. Why have the program? It is time that polluters paid.
There is a certain element there that we need to amplify, in terms of how we care about the environment and the Conservatives do not. They do not have an idea. They used to. In fact, 95% of the Conservative Party that is sitting over there today, in the last federal election, knocked on doors with a Conservative platform. Inside that platform, if people read it, they will see that the Conservatives actually supported a carbon tax. It was the Conservative Party and its former leader, not the leader before this leader, but the leader before this leader's leader, Erin O'Toole. When Erin O'Toole was the leader, it was a part of his election platform. In his election platform, he went around telling Canadians he was going to have a price on pollution or he was going to put in a carbon tax, but that has changed.
Let us take a look at other things where we can contrast the Government of Canada and the Liberal Party with what the opposition is actually saying. We have a dental care program, which started off with children. Legislation was brought in to support that, whether it was the economic statements or the budget statements, and we appreciate the support that comes from the New Democrats on this, as they have been very strong advocates.
At the end of the day, the dental program is a program that is helping a lot of children. When I spoke on the legislation dealing with this, I can recall talking about how this program would help prevent children from having to go into emergency because of dental-related issues and not getting those issues dealt with. This is going to enable so many more children to get the type of dental services they need, at least in part. The Conservatives opposed that.
We expanded the dental program. The dental program is now also for those 65 and over. I believe that is what it is at right now, and for individuals with disabilities. It is all being rolled out. We are talking about thousands of people who have already benefited from this particular program, and the Conservatives are going to take it all away.
These are the types of examples that I use when I talk about how Liberals care and Conservatives cut. That is the reality.
I cited a couple of examples. I could have talked about housing-related issues and the initiatives the Liberal government has taken. I would challenge any member opposite to tell me another national government that has done more in terms of supporting Canada's housing industry. I can save them the research and tell them, quite frankly, that it has not happened. The government has led the way in working with municipalities, provincial governments, non-profit groups and indigenous people in ensuring that we have a better future with respect to housing and the crisis that we are having to face. Contrast that to the cuts that the Conservative Party is proposing. These are the types of things that really matter to Canadians.
We are aware of the concerns in regards to affordability. When the world was facing inflation, throughout, Canada did reasonably, actually some would argue exceptionally, well in comparison to the G7 countries or even the G20 countries. We did exceptionally well, but we still hit, I believe in June 2022, just over 8%, and it caused a great deal of pain and concern across the country. We reinforced the importance of the Bank of Canada. At the time, the Conservatives were critical of the Bank of Canada. They do not see what is happening around the world and the impact, yet they jump up so easy like jelly beans, and they yell and blame and say how Canada is broken. In reality, they should do a comparison to other countries around the world. From the point of being over 8% back in the summer of 2022 to today, we have now had four consecutive months of reasonable inflation, and it is going down. I think it is down to 2.7%, which is going to help Canadians. It will hopefully lead the way to getting some sort of interest relief in the coming months. However, they try to give a false impression, which is what Conservatives do all the time, but Canada is not broken. Compared to other countries around the world, we are doing well, but we need to continue to improve where we can.
Putting this budget implementation to the side, we can look, from my perspective, at one of the most powerful statements from the Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister, which was when she talked about foreign investment coming into Canada. Canada, on a per capita basis, is number one in the G7, and of all the countries in the world, we were number three on foreign direct investment in the first three quarters of 2023. There is a reason for that.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, I was just heckled, and it was not parliamentary.
However, I would tell members that we are creating opportunities that would not be there if the government was not prepared to get involved. I am thinking about the tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs, green jobs, dealing with things such as Volkswagen, Honda and Stellantis, and that is just here in Ontario, in eastern Canada. This industry is being highly motivated to expand because of, in part, the Douglas Ford provincial government, which is a Progressive Conservative government, and I underline the word “progressive” as opposed to the Conservative reform we have here in Ottawa. Working with the government, we are creating those types of opportunities because we are committed to working for Canadians and to having their backs, building a stronger, healthier economy. We have a government that genuinely cares and that is not focused, like the Conservatives are, on cuts.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pretty critical point in the legislative agenda that has come up.
I agree with the Bloc Québécois member and her argument that there are many bills we would like to discuss.
I appreciate that this is a critical time right now. We have a lot of legislation that we need to discuss in the House, legislation that our constituents have sent us to this place to get through. It is serious things that are so important, such as Bill C-49, Bill C-59, Bill C-70 and Bill C-64. We have two opposition day motions just this week. We are trying to deliver the help that Canadians so desperately need, including through legislation like the fall economic statement, which the official opposition has filibustered at committee for months and which is something that would deliver a great deal of support in terms of housing.
Something I am particularly proud of as a part of that piece of legislation is actually the removal of the HST on psychotherapy and counselling services. It is something that would help those who are working within that profession, and something that I actually had a conversation about just yesterday with a psychotherapist who asked me when we would be getting the legislation passed. I said we are working on it and trying to make sure it goes through. The person I spoke to needs the fairness for the removal of the federal tax to occur. She spoke to me about how important it was for her clients to have equality within the services that are provided to them. We know, of course, that we are in a mental health crisis and that every bit of assistance helps in that regard. That is one piece of legislation that the official opposition has filibustered at the committee.
There are, of course, amendments to the Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia accord act that we need to get through. There is the foreign interference act, which is of course becoming more and more important as we move through this parliamentary session.
I do not know how many times New Democrats have to talk about how incredibly important pharmacare is. We certainly know that the official opposition does not believe that. I think about the millions of Canadians who rely upon that piece of legislation to help them afford the medications they need, diabetics in this country, and I believe there are 3.7 million of them, who need the legislation to go through so they would not have to worry about the cost of their diabetes medications and devices. So many constituents have written to me thanking me for moving that forward.
Those are the key pieces of law that we need to get moving in the House. Yes, we are sitting until midnight most nights to do that. New Democrats believe in that absolutely because it is for people that it is important. There is an opposition party determined to delay every single one of the bills. Time again, the Conservatives have obfuscated, filibustered, screamed and yelled in outrage and then attempted to delay and stall all of that progress, all of those supports. I find it unacceptable.
The fact is that what the Conservatives are now calling out, in terms of their outrage, is that the Speaker seems to have been caught up in supposed partisan activity that clearly was not of his doing. He did everything he was supposed to do, ran through the permissions that he was supposed to get, and yet mistakes were made. The partisanship that the Conservatives are so outraged about actually fuels their own partisanship fire of trying to find yet some other thing that they can hold on to, so much so that it will delay again all of the incredible supports that we need to get to people.
I see this every day, whether I am at the procedure and House affairs committee or here in the House. The Conservatives are desperate to cling on to anything they can, and destroy whatever we are trying to do in the process, to show that this place does not work, because that fits into their communication strategy. I am sorry, but I am not going to allow something to fit into their communication strategy to disrupt what needs to happen for my constituents.
The member across the way for Winnipeg North did quote the letter, but I want to mention it again. We are here, in this case, over a tweet that was sent out by the Liberal Party without having consulted the Speaker. The letter is very clear. It is from the national director of the Liberal Party, apologizing very clearly to the Speaker. It states, “The Liberal Party of Canada unequivocally apologizes to you for this mistake, and we take full responsibility.”
Was there a mistake made? Absolutely. Is it horribly unfortunate? Absolutely. Are we punishing the right person in this instance? No. Should there be more vigilance on this issue? Absolutely, of course. However, calling for the Speaker's resignation is clawing to the communication strategy that benefits one group. It does not benefit the entire House. I do not agree with that. We on this side of the House do not agree with that.
We have to work on the legislation that the people have sent us to work on. We have a very important job, and I have no time for all of the bickering and squabbling. Canadians need this place to work. They need us to get to work. We can make this all about ourselves or we can make it about them. Canadians deserve that. New Democrats want to help deliver the supports they need. The work is urgent, and the official opposition just wants to delay. That is all I have to say on this matter.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be providing 10 minutes of remarks, and I will be welcoming questions from my parliamentary secretary, the member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore. I will be using my time to discuss measures in the recent budget to combat crime, especially auto theft and money laundering. I will also touch on legal aid investments and provide an update of our work on online safety.
Auto theft is a serious problem that affects communities across the country. Not only does it affect people's wallets, it also causes them to feel unsafe. The number of these thefts has risen and, in some areas, they are growing more violent. These criminals are increasingly emboldened. Our government is committed to ensuring that police and prosecutors have the tools they need to respond to cases of auto theft, including thefts related to organized crime.
We also want to ensure that the legislation provides courts with the wherewithal to impose sentences commensurate with the seriousness of the crime. The Criminal Code already contains useful provisions for fighting auto theft, but we can do more.
This is why we are amending the Criminal Code to provide additional measures for law enforcement and for prosecutors to address auto theft. Bill C-69, the budget implementation act, sets out these proposed measures. These amendments would include new offences targeting auto theft and its links to violence and organized crime; new offences for possession and distribution of a device used for committing auto theft, such as key-programming machines; and a new offence for laundering proceeds of crime for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with, a criminal organization. We are proposing a new aggravating factor at sentencing, which would be applied to an adult offender who involves a young person in the commission of the crime. These changes are part of the larger federal action plan on combatting auto theft that was just released on May 20.
Auto theft is a complex crime, and fighting it involves many partners: the federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments, industry leaders and law enforcement agencies.
I will now turn to the related issue of money laundering. Addressing money laundering will help us to combat organized crime, including its involvement in automobile theft. However, the challenges associated with money laundering and organized crime go beyond auto theft.
That is why we are continually reviewing our laws so that Canada can better combat money laundering, organized crime and terrorist activity financing.
Bill C-69 would give us more tools to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. These new measures would allow courts to issue an order that requires a person to keep an account open to assist in the investigation of a suspected criminal offence. Currently, financial service providers often unilaterally close accounts where they suspect criminal activity, which can actually hinder police investigations. This new proposed order would help in that regard.
I hope to see non-partisan support from all parties, including the official opposition, on these measures to address organized crime. It would be nice to see its members support something, rather than simply use empty slogans or block actual solutions. We see this as well in their efforts to block Bill C-59, the fall economic statement, which has been in this chamber for literally months. That also contains a range of measures to combat money laundering, which have been asked for by law enforcement. For a party that prides itself on having a close relationship with law enforcement, I find this obstruction puzzling.
What is more, under Bill C-69, the courts will also be authorized to make an order for the production of documents for specific dates thanks to a repetitive production order. That will enable law enforcement to ask a person to provide specific information to support a criminal investigation on several pre-determined dates over a defined period. That means that the individual will be required to produce specific information to support a criminal investigation on several pre-determined dates.
These two proposals resulted from the public consultations that our government held last summer. We are committed to getting Bill C-69 passed by Parliament in a timely manner so that the new measures can be put in place as quickly as possible and so that we can crack down on these serious crimes as soon as possible.
I would now like to discuss our investments in legal aid. Just as we need to protect Canadians from crime, we also need to ensure that people have equitable access to justice, which is an integral part of a fair and just society, and a strong legal aid system is a key aspect of this. It strengthens the overall justice system. Budget 2024 includes measures to increase funding to criminal legal aid as well as legal aid for immigrants and for refugees to Canada.
For criminal legal aid, budget 2024 provides $440 million over five years, starting in 2024-25. This would support access to justice for Canadians who are unable to pay for legal support, in particular, indigenous people, individuals who are Black and other racialized communities who are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. Indeed, legal representation helps to clear backlogs and delays in our court system as well.
This essential work is only possible with continued collaboration between federal, provincial and territorial governments. The proposed increase to the federal contribution will assist provinces and territories to take further actions to increase access to justice. This legal aid will help with the backlogs I just mentioned. Unrepresented and poorly represented litigants cause delays in our justice system. Making sure that these individuals have proper support and representation will help ensure access to a speedy trial. This, in combination with our unprecedented pace of judicial appointments, 106 appointments in my first nine months in office, will also address backlogs. In comparison, the previous Harper government would appoint 65 judges per year on average. I exceeded that amount in six months.
For immigration and refugee legal aid, budget 2024 would provide $273.7 million over five years, starting in 2024-25, and $43.5 million per year ongoing after that. This funding would help support access to justice for economically disadvantaged asylum seekers and others involved in immigration proceedings. This investment would help maintain the confidence of Canadians in the government's ability to manage immigration levels, and to resettle and integrate refugees into Canadian society. To do this very important work, Justice Canada continues to collaborate with provincial governments and with legal aid service providers, as well as Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Together, we are exploring solutions to support sustainable access to immigration and refugee legal aid services.
Before I conclude, I would like to talk a little about Bill C-63, which was raised by the member for Fundy Royal. The bill addresses online harms and the safety of our communities online. Much has already been said about this very important legislation, which would create stronger protections for children online and better safeguards for everyone in Canada from online hate and other types of harmful content. What is critical about this bill is that it is dedicated to promoting people's participation online and not to limiting it.
This legislation is informed by what we have heard over five-plus years of consultations with diverse stakeholders, community groups, law enforcement and other Canadians. This bill focuses on the baseline responsibilities of social media platforms to manage the content they are hosting and their duty to keep children safe, which means removing certain types of harmful content and entrenching a duty to act responsibly.
This bill is about keeping Canadians safe, which is my fundamental priority and my fundamental duty as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of this country. It is about ensuring that there is actually a takedown requirement on the two types of most harmful material: child pornography and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images, also known as revenge pornography.
There are five other categories of material that would be dealt with under this bill, including material that includes inciting violence, incitements to terrorism, hatred as defined by the Supreme Court of Canada, bullying a child and also inducing a child to self-harm. I am speaking now not only as the Minister of Justice but also as a father. I think that there is nothing more basic in this country for any parent or parliamentarian than keeping our children safe.
I am thankful for the opportunity to speak about how we are making Canada safer and making our justice system stronger, more accessible and more inclusive for all people.
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Mr. Speaker, if you will indulge me for a minute of my four minutes, I offer condolences to my Aunt Freddie and my cousins and their children on the passing of my Uncle Phil earlier this evening, and to my dad and his sisters, for whom he was their older brother. He was a very generous man. He worked very hard. He gave to his community and to his church community. He was loved by his family and he loved his family. He loved Canada and he will be missed.
In the short time I have, I am going to really focus on one aspect of what I was going to speak about as we look at Bill C-59, the fall economic statement from last November. Of course, we have had the federal budget since, and it has only compounded the cost of living issues and housing issues that we are seeing across Canada. Therefore, let me focus on something that I hear so often from constituents in my community and that weighs very heavy on their minds. It is the interest rate increases that have resulted as a consequence of the inflationary spending, the inflationary taxes and the inflationary deficits of the NDP-Liberal government.
Whether it is the $20 billion of inflationary spending that was piled on in the fall economic statement or the $50 billion that was piled on in the recent budget, that has an impact. We know from the report from Scotiabank that 2% of interest rate increases can be attributed to government overspending, and other banks have made the same comment. The CIBC made the same cautionary warning prior to the recent budget.
Flamborough—Glanbrook is on the western edge of the GTA, surrounding the city of Hamilton. It is made up of very fast-growing communities, where people have fled the GTA to buy a house for a more affordable amount than what they could get in Toronto or Mississauga. Communities like Waterdown, Binbrook, Elfrida and Hannon are where first-time homeowners, often young families, new Canadians or even seniors who are looking to retire on modest savings, have seen these alarming rate increases. I hear this from the mortgage brokers. I hear this from constituents. It is an absolute gut punch to see those interest rate increases that have resulted from the policies of the Liberal-NDP government.
We had the report earlier in May from the Bank of Canada, which predicted the very steep incline we are going to see in the next few years in mortgage payments. If it is a variable mortgage, the prediction is for a median monthly payment increase of up to 60%. If it is a fixed mortgage that someone is renewing, the median monthly payment could be increased by up to 20%. That has a devastating impact on household budgets, and that is, again, the consequence of these inflationary policies and the spending by the current government.
In my final few moments, I will just say that hope is on the way. The common-sense Conservative government would cap the spending, fix the budget and axe the tax so that these people in my communities and across Canada could actually afford their mortgage payments, or it is not impacting their rents, so hope is on the way.
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Mr. Speaker, the best thing I can say about Bill C-59 is that it gets us a day closer to the election that will change the government and save Canada from the reckless NDP-Liberal coalition government that is wrecking our country. We have a plan that will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, stop the crime and save Canada. We will make Canada the greatest country that we all love so much, the country that was so much better before the Prime Minister was elected.
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Mr. Speaker, it feels like perhaps it is the hour, but things are getting a bit testy, and I thought I would take this in a different direction, because bills like the one before us are always a mixed bag. There is stuff in them that some folks support, and there is stuff in them that some folks really oppose.
I am wondering whether my colleague can just pick one thing from Bill C-59, the bill that we are debating, that he supports and that he thinks would take our country in the right direction. Can he tell us what it is?
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Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the member talks about the passage of Bill C-59 and blames the government. What the member does not tell people who are listening is that the Conservative Party focused a great deal of attention on filibustering and preventing legislation from passing. This is one of those pieces of legislation, and their tactics were just demonstrated by yet another amendment to it. However, the member believes, or tries to give the false impression, that the government is not able to pass the bill, when it is allowing for opposition to continue in this fashion to prevent legislation from passing. Interestingly enough, this particular legislation would allow for the top-up of the rebate to be doubled for rural areas.
I am wondering why the Conservative Party chooses to filibuster all legislation and then tries to blame the government for not passing legislation, yet its members cry when we bring in time allocation.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure and an honour to rise in the House. I want to give a shout-out to my family, including my daughters, back home in the city of Vaughan. My daughters should all be sleeping because they have school in the morning. I wish them a wonderful day tomorrow.
Before I get into my formal remarks, I will give an example that personifies how we are doing the right thing to grow our economy in this beautiful country and also invest confidently in Canadians and Canadian families, and that is the recent announcement by Honda to invest $15 billion into the Canadian auto sector and the development of electric vehicles, along with the manufacturing plants.
Last week, I was able to join the Premier of Ontario, the Prime Minister, ministers across the board and many of my hon. colleagues of the House for an announcement of $1.6 billion from a Japanese company, Asahi Kasei, to develop separators for electric vehicles. This will create thousands of jobs in the Port Colborne area of Ontario and provide bright futures for families there, something that we believe in. Confident governments and countries invest in their citizens.
A few days later, I was able to visit Vellore Corners Dentistry, Dr. Elena Panovski and her staff, to talk about the Canada dental care plan. This dentist sent out a flyer in my neighbourhood and many neighbourhoods in the city of Vaughan, telling patients that if they are eligible for the Canada dental care plan, they should go to her clinic. The dentist had also put up a billboard along a major regional road in the city. I visited the clinic and met Peter, an 80-year-old senior citizen in my riding, someone who came to this country and worked hard. He had his Sun Life Canadian dental care plan card with him and was at the dentist thanks to the program that we have implemented. That is awesome. That is progress.
We were sent here to do what is right for our citizens. In fact, as of today, over 90,000 seniors have gone to dental care providers across this country. If we do not all clap about that, I do not know what we are going to clap about. Members on the other side are not clapping. Over two million eligible seniors have signed up, have been approved and will receive their cards. Why is that important? It is important because the day I arrived here in 2015, one of the programs that I knew would make a difference in the lives of literally millions of Canadians was a dental care program, and that is what we have done.
We have done so much: the Canada child benefit, raising personal income tax rates on the wealthiest, cutting taxes for the middle class, raising the basic personal expenditure amount, signing free trade deals with countries around the world and being at the table, and we will continue to do so.
This bill will implement important and fiscally responsible measures from the 2023 fall economic statement that support our government's efforts to build more homes faster, make life more affordable and create more good jobs. Our government is working to create a better future for all generations, and Bill C‑59 is essential to making that goal a reality.
With Canada's housing plan and the 2024 budget, we are taking numerous steps to help increase the supply of housing with the goal of reducing the high costs Canadians face. Bill C‑59 promises to support those efforts by helping increase the supply of rental housing in Canada. About one-third of all Canadians rent their homes, but the number of available rental units has failed to keep pace with demand.
Bill C-56, the affordable housing and groceries act, which received royal assent on December 15, 2023, and the federal component of the HST on the cost of newly purpose-built rental housing introduced a 100% rebate on the GST. Bill C-59 would extend the eligibility for the GST rental rebate to co-operative housing corporations that provide long-term rental accommodation. Our objective, as a government, is to incentivize the construction of even more rental units, and that is what is happening in the Canadian housing market.
We know that our growing, vibrant communities also require critical infrastructure, like public transit, modern water systems and community centres, which is all infrastructure that Canadians depend on daily in their lives. That is why Bill C-59 would establish the Department of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities in the federal lead for improving housing outcomes and enhancing the public infrastructure.
The cost of living is weighing heavily on household budgets. Bill C‑59 would make life more affordable by strengthening competition to help stabilize prices in Canada. We have heard public concerns about increasing corporate concentration and the power of private sector giants.
Complementing the changes introduced in Bill C-56, which I mentioned a few moments ago, Bill C-59's suite of amendments to the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act would provide Canadians with more modern and effective competition laws.
As everyone knows in this House, I love capitalism and wealth creation, which lead to higher standards of living, but what I do not like is corporate concentration and measures that are introduced that are anti-competitive by organizations and companies, and that is why we need guardrails. That is why it is smart for us to introduce amendments to the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act, which the opposite party had ignored for the years that it was in power, and it can remain in opposition for many more years.
Together, these amendments would represent generational changes to Canada's competition regime. More competition means lower prices, more innovative products and services and more choices for Canadians in where they take their business. The amendments are designed to empower the Competition Bureau to better serve the public in its role as watchdog and advocate dynamic markets.
Bill C-59 would further modernize merger reviews and position the Competition Bureau to better detect and address killer acquisitions and other anti-competitive mergers. The legislation would also support Canadians' right to repair by preventing manufacturers from refusing to provide the means of repair of devices and products in an anti-competitive manner.
Our plan is also focused on Canadians' well-being. Therapy and counselling play a critical role in the lives and mental health of millions of people in Canada, but they can also be costly. To ensure that Canadians can get the help they need, our government is taking the necessary steps to make these essential services more accessible and affordable. Bill C‑59 would eliminate the GST and HST from psychotherapy and counselling therapy.
Our government is also taking care of young families. EI parental or maternity benefits provide essential support to new parents. The legislation would bring in a 15-week shareable EI benefit and amend the Canada Labour Code so that adoptive parents who work in federally regulated sectors have the job protection they need while receiving the new benefit. The legislation would go even further by creating new paid leave for federally regulated employees with a view to supporting families in the event of a miscarriage.
Turning now to Canada's fiscal position, we do know that Canada's deficit-to-GDP ratio is number one in the G7 and G20: we have the lowest deficit-to-GDP ratio in the G7. Our net debt-to-GDP ratio is also in the mid-30s range, which is top-notch. We are one of the few countries in the world with an AAA credit rating. These ratings were affirmed and confirmed after the budget was delivered by the rating agencies, one of which I spent several years working for, and covered many sectors that we talked about in this wonderful House, which continue to employ hundreds of thousands of Canadians and continue to grow our economy.
It has been an honour to rise in this House and, again, I wish all the residents of Vaughan—Woodbridge a wonderful Thursday morning and wonderful and safe travels to work.
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Mr. Speaker, I am splitting my time with the very hon. member for Vaughan—Woodbridge.
I am very pleased to rise today to speak about Bill C-59, which would deliver on key measures from the 2023 fall economic statement to advance the government's economic plan to make life more affordable, build more homes and build an economy that works for everyone. This is an economic statement that is about fairness, not just fairness for today, but fairness for generations to come.
I have been continuing to work with my constituents over these past eight years as a member of Parliament. I have a very active youth council of dynamic members who keep me updated on what is important to them in this generation. I have a very active women's council that keeps me updated on what is important for them to make sure that they are thriving within our country. I have attended thousands of events over these past number of years to ensure that I am listening to what Canadians want. I have had stakeholder meetings to listen to what people have to say, to take in that feedback and to make sure we are using it to make good policy.
Over these past eight years, I would put to the House that we have made very good, solid, sound policy. I say this because I have heard from constituents about those needs. Canadians are the backbone of our economy and when we empower Canadians we are strengthening our economy and that is what the fall economic statement is really all about and what we have done over these past number of years in government is all about.
I will share a couple of examples with the House. For example, Lisa, who is on my women's council, has a start-up with respect to the environment. She works around the world to ensure that we are representing Canada with a global framework to build sustainable development to make sure that we are fighting climate change.
Another person on my women's council is Huma, who is starting a second career by going into college at this late stage in her life.
There is a member of my youth council who is now studying in med school and is trying to get into law school.
Mechatronics is a growing industry—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Ms. Iqra Khalid: I love that people are heckling. I am trying to get my point across for my constituents. If it is okay, guys, can you just settle down for a second? You will have your time with questions and answers. Is that okay?
An hon. member: What, are you the Speaker now?
Ms. Iqra Khalid: A little bit. Thank you. I appreciate that.
I was talking about Fardeen, who is an engineering student studying mechatronics—
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
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Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be sharing my time with the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, who, I am sure, will happily rise and comment about how proud he is to represent people from his riding.
Now, after 20 minutes of absolute fiction from the member for Winnipeg North, I thought I would continue with a bit of fiction that describes, so well, Bill C-59 and Liberal financing. It is by Hemingway, from The Sun Also Rises. It goes like this. “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”
That is exactly the Liberal government.
There is another great line, which is not fiction. I wish it were fiction, but it is not. It is actually from the Prime Minister himself. It is a great line: “The budget will balance itself.” Does everyone remember that? What do we get with the Liberal Prime Minister saying that the budget will balance itself? We end up with $1.4 trillion in debt. That is $93,000 for every single household in Canada; $3,400 per year, per household, just for interest on the Liberal debt.
We think about it like the GST. It is 5% on everything purchased. People go out to a restaurant, have a beer or go to a Blue Jays game. Perhaps they would go to the Edmonton Oilers game, but not the Vancouver Canucks game because they are gone. They pay 5% tax on the ticket. This year, we expect the GST is going to raise about $52 billion. The equivalent of every single penny of the GST collected is going to go solely to the interest on the debt. It will not go toward health care or toward any of the fantasy things the member for Winnipeg North brings up; it is just for interest.
The interest on the debt next year is going to be so bad that the GST will actually have to rise to almost 6% just to cover the interest. That is more than we give for health care to the provinces and more than we give to defence. Over the next five years of the budget, it is going to be $338 billion of interest payments.
Do members remember the Prime Minister, when questioned about interest costs, condescendingly saying to Glen McGregor, “Interest rates are at historic lows Glen”? Guess what? Interest rates are not at historic lows, and the Liberals, when they actually had a chance to lock in those interest rates that supposedly were at the historic low, did not. The Liberals actually borrowed vast sums, almost a half a trillion dollars, on a short-term basis. This debt is coming due, and the government is going to have to refinance, so instead of paying 0.25% on that $454 billion, it is going to be a lot more. Billions of dollars are added every year, just in interest.
Let us imagine that someone who is buying a house is at the bank, and they are negotiating a mortgage. A bank officer tells them that he has an all-time low for interest rates and that they can lock it in for a long time at 1%, and the customer says that they are going to roll the dice because they do not think the rates are going to go up. Then, boom, all of a sudden, they would end up with 5% to 8% when they renew. People would not do that. No one would be foolish enough to do that, but that is what the Liberal government has done. It has just basically said that it does not want a long-term, locked-in rate and it is going to roll the dice. Then what happens? We end up with massive increases.
What could we actually buy with that $338 billion that the government is going to pay just in interest costs alone for the next five years? The government could buy 5,600 ArriveCAN apps, not at the $80,000 it was originally going to be, but at the $60 million that the government paid for it. It could buy 17,000 contracts with GC Strategies to develop apps and to not actually do any work on them. The government could do a half a million studies from contractors such as KPMG to advise the government on how to cut back on contracts from the government. The government famously paid KPMG $670,000 to provide advice on how to cut back on contracts to people like those at KPMG. It could buy 42,000 luxury barns, like the $8-million barn it put up at the Governor General's property.
Do members remember the Liberal cabinet spending $1.3 million on three luxury getaways to talk about the affordability crisis? The Liberals could actually afford 260,000 of their luxury getaways to discuss the affordability crisis. They could buy 37 million nights at the $9,000-a-night luxury plaza where the Prime Minister took his Christmas vacation, but was just staying with friends like every other Canadian.
Now, I say some of these things just to show how ridiculous this spending is, but in real terms, we could actually build, with that $338 billion, just on interest, a new hospital for the 100 largest cities in Canada. So, basically, for every city with more than 35,000 people, we could actually build a brand new $3.5-billion hospital. We could increase health care transfers to the provinces by about 700%. We could buy 482,000 houses across the country at the current average house price of $700,000. Instead, it is going to interest, but that is okay, the budget will balance itself and “interest rates are at historic lows, Glen”. We do not have to worry about it. We could actually afford 800% of the current outlay that all Canadians are paying on pharmaceuticals, not a fake pharmacare plan of the Liberal government, for contraceptive and diabetic medication. That is not pharmacare; that is two items. The government could actually pay for everything with just 12% of what it is paying on interest right now.
Now, I want to get to Bill C-59 itself, the fall economic statement, with just a couple quick items from the Parliamentary Budget Officer. This is from his highlights. He says, “Revisions to the...economic outlook and fiscal developments...lower the outlook for the budgetary balance by [$19] billion.” So, the PBO is saying that things are getting worse by $19 billion.
He goes on to say, “Government announced [$23] billion in new spending that was partially offset by [$3] billion in 'refocusing”. So, lots of added spending.
The fall economic statement claims to expand the budget commitment to “refocus government spending, with the goal to identify an additional $2.4 billion in savings” over a four-year period. Now, that is out of $465 billion a year in revenues, about half a trillion a year, and costs about a $2.5-trillion spending budget over the five years. The Liberals are going to save $2 billion, including half a billion this year, even though it is money that they are saying now is not needed, but it went through the Treasury Board process as needed.
He continues, “There is currently little information available on the status of the $15.4 billion in Budget 2023 spending reviews” and savings announced by the government. “Further, there is currently no publicly available information related to the $3.6 billion spending to be reallocated in 2023-24.”
Now, one of the things the government has promised to cut back on in this $3 billion is outside consulting. Of course, if members remember, in 2015, as the member for Winnipeg North, I am sure, will tell us, the Liberals promised to cut back on outside contracting, consulting. What has happened instead is that it has ballooned to $21 billion, including, as I mentioned, $670,000 to KPMG to advise the government on how to stop spending so much money on companies like KPMG.
I have a couple other favourites that the Liberals spent money on through outside contracting. They gave Deloitte a quarter of a million dollars to give a four-page report saying not to buy sophisticated IT security equipment from despotic regimes. They paid a quarter of a million dollars also to Deloitte for a fairness study on an RFP for a security contract for something that they sole-sourced under government policy. There are 50,000 people in the public service whose job is to make sure that the contracts are fair, but they decided they had to give money to Deloitte.
It is clear the government has no clue what it is doing with the economy. It is clear it has no clue what it is doing with the budget. The budgets will not balance themselves. A Conservative government, however, will balance them.
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Uqaqtittiji, my colleague's intervention was excellent.
I will ask the member about the Competition Act and Bill C-59, particularly because it is the NDP that is the only party that is fighting corporate greed. I would like to give a specific example.
I am a member of the indigenous and northern affairs committee, and it was my motion that got the North West Company, a grocery company that is subsidized by the Liberal government, to offer subsidies to alleviate poverty. However, instead of using the subsidy to alleviate poverty, the North West Company is helping to feed corporate greed. For example, the CEO, Dan McConnell, would not answer my questions regarding his salary, his benefits or the bonuses that he gets. Instead, he said that he would give me the responses in written form, which he has now provided. That CEO, in 2023, earned $765,000 and in the same year received a bonus of just over $1 million.
How would the Competition Act and Bill C-59 help to address that kind of corporate greed?
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Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member who just finished his speech. I would like to say at the outset that the number of Quebeckers already registered for the NDP's dental care program is in the hundreds of thousands. We also know that thousands of Quebeckers are getting their NDP dental care card every week. I think that is extremely important.
Pharmacare is another topic of discussion. All of the major unions in Quebec say that they view the NDP's pharmacare bill, Bill C‑64, in a very positive light. It is important to mention these two things. The NDP is the one proposing measures in the House to improve the daily lives of people across Canada. That is extremely important.
We are supportive of the fall economic statement, Bill C-59. I will talk about some of the measures the NDP has inserted into it, but I will start by saying that this is not an NDP budget.
Of all the governments in the country, the two most popular are the government of British Columbia and the government of Manitoba, and they are two NDP governments. They have both been very effective. The Manitoba NDP government is new, but it is extraordinarily popular. This is because the NDP really knows that the essence of good stewardship, of managing a democratic government, is ensuring that it is not the rich who are taken care of but, rather, regular folks. We have formed government provincially, of course, in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Nova Scotia. All those governments have been governments that have made a difference in the lives of people.
The simple reason the two most popular governments in the country right now are NDP governments is the financial statements that are issued by the federal ministry of finance. As members well know, the federal ministry of finance is not a hotbed of social democrats or democratic socialists, but it does publish the fiscal period returns. If members look through them, and I hope they do before the end of the evening, they will see that, over the last 40 years, the best governments, in terms of managing money, paying down debt, expanding education services, expanding housing services and expanding health care systems have been, systematically, over the last 40 years, NDP governments. That is why the two most popular governments in the country right now are NDP governments. It is because the NDP is not beholden to lobbyists.
The corporate Conservatives are run by lobbyists. Their national executive is run by lobbyists. There are lobbyists permeating the Conservative headquarters. The Conservative caucus and the campaign team are all lobbyists for the corporate sector. When the Conservatives were in government we could see how badly they performed. They do not understand the issue of stewardship. The infamous Harper tax haven treaties have bled over $30 billion, each and every year over the last 17 years, out of this country. That is $30 billion that could have been used for health care and housing. It could have been used for a variety of services for veterans, seniors and youth. It could have lowered post-secondary education costs. It could have made a big difference, but that was not what the Conservatives chose to do.
The Liberals, when they came to power, kept many of the tax breaks that had been given to the richest of Canadians, the wealthiest of Canadians, who have never paid their fair share, and the most profitable corporations. The NDP's approach is different, which is why the fiscal period returns to the federal ministry of finance show conclusively that the NDP and NDP governments are the best at managing money.
This is not an NDP budget, by any means. There are elements that the NDP forced into the budget that would make a difference in the lives of working people. The reason we are supporting it is the amendments we have achieved, in the same way that we brought dental care to Canadians. There are two million who have signed up already, including 100,000 seniors. There are many who are, for the first time in their lives, getting access to dental care, and this is just in the first two weeks of this new NDP program. NDP dental care is making a difference.
Earlier tonight, we moved the pharmacare bill to the health committee, which is where it should go. I am looking forward to those hearings over the next couple of days. People have been waiting for decades to have pharmacare added to our health care program and our health care strength in this country.
Mr. Speaker, you will recall in this House, as I am sure you have a great depth of historical memory, that 60 years ago in this House of Commons, just a few feet from this temporary house in the West Block, in Centre Block, Tommy Douglas, as the founding leader of the NDP, brought forward universal health care, which was viciously fought against by Conservatives at the time, who did not want to see people getting health care. However, it was a minority Parliament and Tommy Douglas was able to successfully deliver universal health care to Canadians.
Tommy Douglas always thought that we needed to make sure that health care was available from the tip of our heads right to the soles of our feet. He always envisaged that we would move to pharmacare, that we would move to dental care and that Canadians would have access to the full range of health care services that all other countries with universal health care enjoyed. Fortunately, we have the member for Burnaby South as our leader who feels the same way, and this has been a hallmark of NDP leaders over the decades. Every time there has been a minority Parliament, the NDP has stepped up as the worker bees of Parliament, as the adults in the room. We have gotten things done that have made a difference for Canadians, from universal health care to a whole range of other things like the Canada pension plan, employment insurance and all those things that make a difference in people's lives. All of them come thanks to the NDP, because that is our role in Parliament.
Therefore, when we look at the fall economic statement, we can see already that NDP stamp that makes a difference, but unlike the corporate Conservatives and the lobbyist Liberals, we do not believe in spending enormous amounts of money on the wealthy, on the pampered and on big corporations. We do not believe in funding massively the corporate sector. We believe in negotiating with the corporate sector. The reason we are pressing so hard for pharmacare is that countries that have universal pharmacare are able to have the bulk-purchasing negotiating power that forces down the price of drugs. New Zealand is a great example, where there is a reduction of 90% in the cost of certain medications because the New Zealand government was able to say to the pharmaceutical companies that if they wanted to come into that market, they would have to pay New Zealand's price. Currently, with the patchwork of plans that the corporate Conservatives and the lobbyist Liberals have put into place over decades, it is the pharmaceutical company executives who decide what the prices are, and that has to change.
The fall economic statement does contain some measures that we believe would make a difference. First off, we believe firmly in starting to adjust a taxation system that has become profoundly unjust and unequal. We have said that when we look at the infamous Harper tax haven treaties that cost us $30 billion a year, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, and we look at the range of other loopholes that exist, it is important to take steps to ensure that those loopholes are closed. The real taxation rate for Canada's largest corporations is single digits because of the loopholes. Because of the corporate executives' ability to write off and because of their ability to take money overseas where they do not have to pay taxes on it, their real taxation rate is in the single digits, less than 10%.
Why not ask Canadians what their taxation rate is? Middle-class Canadians pay their taxes expecting that they will get services and supports in return, but instead, under the Harper regime, we saw that the Conservatives slashed services to those taxpayers who had paid money into the federal government and they gave that money away. They gave it to tax havens. They gave it to the banks. Unbelievably, the Harper regime gave $160 billion to the banking sector so that the banks could prop up executive bonuses and corporate dividends.
The Conservatives have never apologized for that, and Liberals have never apologized for the $750 billion, again, in liquidity supports that they offered to the banking sector just a few years ago. It took 96 hours to provide $750 billion in liquidity supports. Between the two, the corporate coalition of Liberals and Conservatives, over the past 15 years, has given, unbelievably, in current dollars, over a trillion dollars in liquidity supports to the banking sector to prop up dividends and profits and executive bonuses.
We look at the health care problems that we are experiencing, the housing crisis and other problems that exist. We had, today, the member for Nunavut, who is an extraordinary member of Parliament, asking about day care that is not being adequately funded in Iqaluit, yet for Liberals and Conservatives, between them, giving a trillion dollars to the banking sector is no problem.
We can look at the tax havens over the last 15 years. That is half a trillion dollars. That is $30 billion a pop, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, given away to overseas tax havens without a penny of return to Canadians, yet we look at people with disabilities. Half of those who have to go to food banks to make ends meet, half of those who are sleeping outside in the parks and main streets of our country, are people with disabilities. They are not getting what they need in terms of support, but between Liberals and Conservatives, the corporate coalition, for 15 years, half a trillion dollars went to offshore tax havens.
We can look at oil and gas CEOs. Between both the Harper Conservatives and the current Liberal government, over the last 15 years, we have seen $100 billion given to oil and gas CEOs. There is a ton of money that goes to the wrong places in this country. That is why NDP MPs are here fighting on behalf of Canadians, delivering on pharmacare and affordable housing, finally. We had to push the Liberals hard on that over the last couple of years.
We are delivering on dental care, anti-scab legislation, a clean energy strategy and all those things, because, as worker bees in Parliament, we believe firmly that the investments need to happen with families and regular people right across this country, not the rich and the pampered. That is where the corporate Conservatives love to spend tons of money. That is where we have seen, sadly, the Liberal government spend tons of money. We believe that money needs to go to regular people.
When we look at this fall economic statement, there is a first step. Again, the NDP pushed hard for that. We finally will get an annual tax of 3% on types of digital services. This is earned by larger companies with more than $1.1 billion in revenue. This is an important step that we support. Again, is this an NDP budget? No. Does it take an important first step? Yes, it does.
As for the investments in housing, the apartment construction loan program, $15 billion, and the affordable housing fund over the next three years for non-profit and co-op and social housing, we support those as well. In fact, the member for Vancouver East fought hard and so did the member for Nunavut, to make a difference in terms of housing.
I do need to mention the anti-scab legislation for a moment and the work of my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, who did a remarkable job in making sure that, finally, replacement workers will be banned at the federal level, and Parliament will be called upon to get a final vote on that in the coming weeks. This is vitally important.
The NDP MPs work as a team. Our leader is the member from Burnaby South. We have made an enormous difference in this Parliament. We made an enormous difference in the last Parliament. We will recall, at the height of the COVID crisis, that it was the NDP that was pushing the government, fortunately in a Parliament where I think it is fair to say that all parties did work together, to invest more than $40 billion to ensure that people, families, people with disabilities, seniors and students were taken care of. Small businesses actually had the wherewithal to keep that shingle out as part of their small business by some rent relief.
All of those things came as a result of the NDP fighting hard on behalf of people. There have been two consecutive minority Parliaments where the NDP has made a difference.
Let me get to the crux of what is in Bill C-59 that we can support. The amendments that were brought originally by the member for Burnaby South, the leader of the NDP, would finally enhance the Competition Bureau. This is fundamentally important. We have had no consumer protection in this country. The corporate sector, the lobbyists, have really been paramount. We have seen, over the decades, how successive Liberal and Conservative governments have refused to do anything to enhance consumer protection.
The member for Burnaby South, the national leader of the NDP, brought forward enhancements to the Competition Act that would ensure that we can crack down on food price gouging and gas price gouging that we are seeing. It has happened with impunity because the Competition Bureau has not had the tools to take action against it. Members will recall that the member for Burnaby South tabled a bill in this regard. The NDP fought hard. We negotiated hard. We did our work as the worker bees in Parliament.
As a result of that, many of the enhancements to the Competition Act are now in this legislation. This is important because despite the protestations of the member for Carleton, who tries to pretend that putting a price on pollution has led to the difficulties and challenges around the rise in food prices, we know that most Canadians understand, unlike the member for Carleton, that it is actually food price gouging that has taken place. We are seeing massive profits in the grocery industry. We are seeing record CEO bonuses.
We have a Conservative Party that is absolutely inundated with lobbyists. Lobbyists run its national party and run its campaign team. This is no surprise because of all the corporate Conservatives have done. Their past track record is giving massive amounts of money to the corporate sector, without ever asking for anything in return. It is like they are not even trying to get any benefits for Canadians. They just hand it out. There were the infamous Harper tax haven treaties, $30 billion each and every year handed over to the wealthiest of Canadians in the corporate sector, and they never asked for a thing in return.
The role the NDP plays in Parliament is so important because the Competition Act amendments that we brought in would mean that we could start cracking down on the egregious food price gouging Canadians are experiencing when they go to the grocery store, and gas price gouging. Just a few weeks ago, my colleague from Courtenay—Alberni signalled this. I know my colleagues in British Columbia, like my colleague from South Okanagan—West Kootenay, can attest to this. The prices in British Columbia all of a sudden skyrocketed by 30¢ a litre. There was no explanation because the companies can do that now. They can do gas price gouging.
The companies do this when we have peak season in terms of travel in British Columbia. It is a beautiful province. We like to get around in British Columbia. The gas companies can gouge with impunity because the Conservatives have allowed them to do this and the Liberals have allowed them to do this. Finally, with these enhancements, the Competition Bureau and the Competition Act would be able to crack down on this gas price gouging that has inflicted so much pain on British Columbians and Canadians right across this country.
These are two important elements that are part of this bill, and it is why we are supporting it.
I wanted to give a shout-out to my colleague from London—Fanshawe. She presented a private member's bill waiving the GST on counselling and psychotherapy. The NDP has also put that into this bill. That would make a difference for all those who need counselling and psychotherapy. Those who have experience with mental illness, mental challenges and mental health know how important it is to be able to pay for those services. This is another innovation that would make a difference.
The NDP has achieved a lot to improve the bill, and we will support it.
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