- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Parry Sound—Muskoka
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $125,505.29
- Government Page
- Nov/29/21 12:00:17 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-2
Madam Speaker, quite simply, yes I would. Training is crucially important in our economy, and we need to be doing more of it.
There is also the issue of immigration and making sure new Canadians have access to the jobs they are fully trained to do. I will make note of the work being done in the province of Ontario right now with the minister of labour there. They are making great strides, and that is an example for the federal government to follow as well.
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- Nov/29/21 11:47:16 a.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-2
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to stand up in the House of Commons and speak about any issue. Of course, this particular bill, Bill C-2, is an important one that requires a lot more study.
Targeted support sounds really good, especially for the tourism and hospitality sectors, which are some of the hardest-hit sectors in our economy. Of course, I am the member of Parliament for Parry Sound—Muskoka, and many will know that tourism is a pretty significant part of our economy. Like every other member in this House, I do not just come here and hope people hear what they need to hear. I speak to folks in my community to find out what is going on.
When it came to Bill C-2, I felt it was important to find out what those sectors are saying. What is being said in the tourism and hospitality sectors and the hardest-hit sectors? Restaurants Canada is reporting that they are desperate to find people to work. Job vacancies in Canada have surpassed one million now. Employers in high-contact industries, such as restaurants and hotels, have the highest proportion of unfilled positions, at about 14.4%. They are looking for people. They are busy. They have the business, but they cannot get people to work. It begs a question: What is really going on? When I read this I thought that I needed to speak with some folks locally in my area.
There are countless local stories in Parry Sound—Muskoka of small businesses, restaurants and hotels that are open and busy with lots of business. They could be open seven days a week, but they cannot find the staff to do it.
Jamie Blake of Blakes Memories of Muskoka in Seguin township pays well over minimum wage. They are trying to hire a manager right now. It is a really good position that pays well. They just cannot find anybody, so they have to close two days a week. They can only be open five days a week and are missing out on a lot of business.
I spoke with Jeff Watson, who owns a couple of Tim Hortons in Gravenhurst. His stores went from being 24-hour operations to having reduced hours. They have hired an agency to help them find employees but have yet to receive a single application. They cannot get anywhere.
I spoke with Didier Dolivet. He is the general manager of Red Leaves Resort, a very nice resort in Minett and one of the fanciest ones in Muskoka. He said that business is great, domestic travel has gone up and Ontarians have discovered Ontario. It is great. They are travelling locally, and there is lots of business. The problem, of course, is that they cannot get staff.
Traditionally in motels, hotels and resorts, it has been a challenge really for years to find staff to work in the housekeeping department specifically, but Didier reports that housekeeping is just the start of it now. They cannot find people in every single sector of their business. As a result of the lack of staff to fill positions, such as chefs, and leadership and management positions, they are unable to maximize their occupancy because of the shortage of labour. Their inability to fully staff their resort means service levels have declined, and as a result of that, visitor satisfaction is declining. It is actually almost worse for their business right now, so they are really struggling.
The message is clear: Businesses need people to work. Should we be incentivizing people to stay home right now?
It is not just the tourism sector that has this issue. Greg Lubbelinkhof of Cedarland Homes in Parry Sound is trying to build homes to help solve the housing crisis that exists there. Despite offering full training, exceptional wages and great benefits, they cannot find people to do the skilled trades. They are putting work off up to two years. They are turning work down because they just cannot find the people to do the work.
The BDC has reported that 40% of small and medium-sized business are struggling to find employees. Statistics Canada has indicated that job vacancies have increased in every single province. It is certainly worse in British Columbia, Atlantic Canada and Ontario, but every single province is struggling to find people.
How did we get here? I have done a little reading, and I came across a special report on the high cost of living by Philip Cross. He is with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute now. He is an impressive man. If he is listening, I would like to meet him sometime and chat with him because I think I could learn a lot from him.
Philip Cross is a Munk Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Prior to joining it, he spent 36 years at Statistics Canada specializing in macroeconomics. He was appointed the chief economic analyst in 2008 and was responsible for ensuring the quality and coherency of all major economic statistics. He also wrote the “Current economic conditions” section of the Canadian Economic Observer. This guy knows what he is talking about. He is a pretty impressive guy.
What he has illustrated is that overspending by a government during the pandemic actually created significant distortions in the economy, which drove up personal savings, particularly of the wealthier in our society, and made significant distortions in labour market choices. The programs simply were not targeted enough. He writes:
Average net savings for households in the top income quintile nearly doubled, from $12,000 to $21,322, in the second quarter of 2020. Meanwhile, average household savings in the bottom two quintiles rose by $2,000 each. Swollen household incomes and savings had repercussions for housing, labour markets and inflation.
The government's most striking distortion during the pandemic was to provide so much emergency income support that personal disposable incomes actually rose in a recession. Earned income fell sharply, but massive government support more than made up for the difference. The increases in incomes and savings show that much government aid was not needed, especially during the slow shift from the economy-wide stimulus to targeting specific sectors.
People had too much money. People were not working, and they had lots of money. We have heard my colleague say that too much money chasing too few goods means inflation, so now everything is more expensive. Families in Parry Sound—Muskoka are telling me that it is more expensive for them to drive to work, it is more expensive for them to put groceries on the table for their families, it is more expensive for them to heat their homes and many of them simply cannot find a home at all. We need our committees digging deeper into this.
I give the government at lot of credit. It came to the rescue very quickly and reacted to this pandemic, the uncertainty in our economy and in our world. It reacted very quickly, but it was sloppily done, and government members were almost hostile when Conservatives and other members of the opposition made suggestions to improve things and to make things more targeted. As a result, we are in a situation now in which it has overstimulated the economy. The rich have gotten richer, and the poor are getting poorer, and we are making life more difficult.
Targeted supports are important. I am not sure I trust the government to actually target them properly, which is why it is absolutely crucial for the House to get back to work and for committees to get to work and dig deeper into this to make sure we are analyzing these targeted supports. We need to make sure that money is not being wasted and that we are not overstimulating the economy unnecessarily in specific areas.
We have a lot of work to do. I am eager to get going on that work, and Canadians deserve a real plan to make their lives more affordable. Canadians need a real plan to dramatically increase the housing supply all across this country. Canadians need a real plan to responsibly reduce the government's inflation-causing spending. Canadian businesses need people to work and they need us to get to work, so let us get to work at committees.
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