- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Sarnia—Lambton
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $118,419.33
- Government Page
- Apr/8/24 1:47:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I share my colleague's concern with the number of scandals that are going on. I wonder about the cost to Canadians when we add up the $60 million on the arrive scam, the $150 million missing from the sustainable green fund and the $172 million that went missing under Catherine McKenna.
How do we quantify this for Canadians?
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- Nov/23/23 1:59:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague talked about housing and she mentioned the accelerator fund. I wonder if she is aware that the fund has been closed since August 18 of this year, so there is no further money coming forward and no further money announced until 2025-26.
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- Oct/26/23 12:59:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and speak about the Canada Infrastructure Bank. At the outset, it is important to reflect upon how this bank got started and what promises were made when it was put together.
Thirty-five billion dollars that had been earmarked for infrastructure in municipalities was taken back by the federal government to create this bank. This is money that municipalities needed to build their roads and sewers and upgrade their bridges and everything else. The government took that money and put it in this Infrastructure Bank. The story at the time was that the government was going to attract private investors and was going to leverage taxpayer money probably 11 times.
Here we are now, seven years later. I am sure members thought I was going to say “after eight long years”, but from 2016 to 2023, it is seven years. No projects have been built, and there have been lots of comments about the projects that are on the way to being built. However, as an engineer who worked in building and construction, I would say that if I had been given $35 billion seven years ago, I certainly would have built something by now, instead of just paying large salaries to executives, as we heard my colleague talk about.
In comparison, the Conservatives under Stephen Harper had multiple kinds of infrastructure funds. They spent $53 billion and did 43,000 infrastructure projects in 10 years. Compare that to seven years and zero projects completed, or compare it to some of the other infrastructure projects taken over by the Liberal government.
The Liberals took a pipeline that Kinder Morgan was going to build for $4.5 billion, paid $7 billion for it, and now it has cost $30 billion and it is not finished yet. That is the reason the committee members, when they talked about the Infrastructure Bank, listened to witnesses who were involved in it and invited the Parliamentary Budget Officer, and at the end of the day, the committee had one recommendation. That recommendation was to abolish the bank, because it clearly was not coming anywhere near achieving the goals.
With respect to the money leveraging that was supposed to happen, we can go to the government web page. The government started with $35 billion and now we see that it is $38 billion. The $3 billion extra that came as this great leveraged money is really, over that period of time, a 1.7% increase. It would have been better to put the money in the bank and invest it. The government would have made more money that it has leveraged in this existing Infrastructure Bank.
If we listen to the people who are talking about the good things the Infrastructure Bank could do, it is not that Canada does not have a need for infrastructure. We do not build anything. Under the Liberal government, 18 LNG facilities were cancelled.
Let us talk about broadband. Broadband is something everyone needs. The government has been repeatedly called on to increase the amount of broadband, but again, zero projects have come out of this particular fund.
We need nuclear facilities. We know that to meet the existing electrical demands and to grow, we do not have enough electricity in the grid, and we do not have enough infrastructure in the grid. In my riding of Sarnia—Lambton, we are having a number of new plants built, but we do not have enough electricity or infrastructure there. These are projects that Canada needs to build as a nation.
We hear demands from other places across the country where they need rail infrastructure, places that need airport infrastructure and of course there is the need for pipelines to get our products to one coast or the other.
I am not here to say that we do not need infrastructure. I am just saying the government does not seem to be able to build anything.
We have had much discussion in the House of Commons about the housing crisis in this country, that we have the most land but we have built the fewest houses. In fact, the Liberal government built the same number of houses that were built in 1972, this after recognizing that we are five and a half million spaces short. One would think that if they do not know what to do with the $35 billion in the Infrastructure Bank and there is a huge housing crisis in the country, maybe that is a place to start to funnel that money to municipalities that have plans.
My riding of Sarnia—Lambton has a great plan. It has put $38 million over 10 years into affordable housing and $40 million into maintaining and upgrading existing housing. It also has five projects over five years that will create 2,000 spaces. We are trying to close an affordable housing gap of about 6,500.
Many municipalities have plans, and their plans are different. They could use this money back that is in the Infrastructure Bank, which is busy paying off bonuses to executives and not finishing projects. That is something that should be considered.
We also have a lot of infrastructure needs related to climate change. Shoreline erosion is the first one I would raise. In my riding, we need $150 million to address the shoreline erosion. The member for Cumberland—Colchester was talking to me about the one way of transiting to access the land, which is being eroded, and it would cut off the Atlantic provinces if it were to collapse. It really needs work.
There are needs for infrastructure. We should not be giving all of our money away to build infrastructure in other places, such as to the Asian infrastructure bank, which the Liberals gave $250 million to in order to build pipelines. They are building the piplelines they will not build here in other places.
I always try to bring some positive ideas when I speak in the House. One of the ideas the Liberals might want to try is something being done in my riding, where postwar houses were built structurally to take another level on top. Private mortgagers are giving mortgages to first-time homebuyers to redo the house with an apartment above and an apartment below. This would support the mortgage and triple the amount of housing. Something like that would be a great thing to do with the amount of money that was put in the Infrastructure Bank. Instead, it is a failed initiative.
The one recommendation from committee was to abolish the bank, and I support that.
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- Oct/26/23 12:15:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We all want to make sure that the facts are presented in this House. The fund of which the member is speaking actually did 43,000 projects, and there was $53 billion—
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Madam Speaker, the budget contains much inflationary pressure. There is $15 billion for an infrastructure bank that never built a project and another $15 billion for a slush fund in the Canada growth fund with no details on what that is about. Although there is such an crisis in affordable housing, as there is in my riding, the budget has $5.5 billion dollars to build only 4,500 spaces and remove barriers to building maybe another 100,000. That is a huge gap, and it is another inflationary pressure.
Could the member comment on that?
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Mr. Speaker, I think it is very important to separate the different parts of this bill because it is clear that everyone thinks that the government has a right to have people pay their fair share, for example, and to make sure that we have Amazon and Netflix helping out our performers and artists.
Full disclosure, I did make a CD. I did write a book. I could be considered an artist, although I will let those who consume the product be the judge of that.
Do our Canadian artists need that help? We have Shania Twain, Alanis Morissette, Terri Clark, Celine Dion, Jason McCoy, Keanu Reeves and Ryan Reynolds. Do we really need that help? I think Canadian artists are able to succeed in a streaming environment on their own. I think everybody can pay their fair share.
Let us look at one of the models from Bill C-18, which we are talking about at committee right now, where Taiwan has gone ahead and made a deal with big tech companies to donate $250 million to fund things in their country. We are already getting $5 billion. Where is the government on that negotiation?
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Madam Speaker, I share my colleague's concern about the fact that the bill is ambitious. Currently, we cannot even fund the heritage sites we have in my riding. Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie came from Sarnia, and his grave is there. It was very difficult even to get money to keep that up. My worry is that the bill is supposed to promote reconciliation, but if it is not adequately funded and we are adding indigenous members to the board, they may start to perceive that they are not actually seeing anything.
Does the member share my concern?
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Madam Speaker, I am very happy to be back in the House of Commons debating legislation. I will be sharing my time today with my friend, the member for Calgary Midnapore.
When I heard the minister talk about Bill C-35, it was like it was the panacea of child care. One can imagine my surprise when I looked at it. The agreements have already been made with all the provinces and territories, and the $6 billion for the $10-a-day child care has gone out the door, so why do we need this bill?
The bill says it would do a few things. It sets a vision out, but if we look at the vision, it is all common-sense stuff, like we want an early childhood learning system that should be diverse, flexible, accessible and affordable. That is not visionary; it is pretty simple. Then it sets out the government's commitment to long-term funding, which it has already signed up in the contracts. Again, why?
Then it sets out the principles that guide the ongoing federal investments. If we look at the details, it says we are going to go with what the provinces have said. However, it would establish a national advisory council on early learning and child care. Why do we need a national advisory council on early learning and child care, when there is such a council in every one of the provinces that we just signed contracts with? Is this just another opportunity to hire a bunch of Liberal insiders to do work that is already being done?
I want to be clear for members opposite who are always saying that the Conservatives do not support this bill. The Conservatives support child care. Let me start with my own experience. One can appreciate, for a chemical engineer flying around the world, with flights out of Sarnia leaving at six in the morning, how easy it would be to find somebody to take the kids at 5 a.m. What if the plane gets delayed, which of course never happens with Air Canada? What if I do not show up until 11 o'clock at night to pick up my kids? Who is going to want to be that child care provider for any length of time?
I had some amazing child care, some at home and some more public in nature, but I also had those bad experiences. There was the one who had her boyfriend over all the time while she was watching my kids. There was the one who was smoking pot while she was watching my kids. There was one who let the kids go swimming with the guy next door without accompanying them because she was watching soap operas. Then there was the day I showed up and my kid was eating cat food sitting on the stairs because she had not had lunch. I would certainly like to emphasize in this House that I really support good-quality child care, and it is not easy to come by.
That said, it is clear that we are trying to echo the system that exists in Quebec. When I was on the status of women committee, we did many studies, and one of them was on unpaid care, with child care as a specific focus. We made recommendations to the government, and I will read what they said:
That the Government of Canada, in partnership with Quebec and the other provinces and territories, with the goal of ensuring that all families in Canada, regardless of geographic location or immigration status, have access to high-quality, affordable and inclusive childcare options, work to:
adequately and sustainably fund, through transfers to the provinces and territories with the rights to retraction with full compensation, an affordable and culturally appropriate national early learning and childcare system; and
ensure that this national system includes options for Canadians such as, sufficient public childcare spaces to meet demand, or sufficient financial support to Canadians who wish to care for their children at home.
That was in 2020, so it was not that long ago.
Absolutely, when it comes to wanting child care options, this is a place to start, but CUPE has said there is three times the need for spaces. Even if we look to the Quebec system, there is a two-year waiting list there. People who have family members who are already in the day care system in Quebec can get another kid in from their family, but new families cannot get in the door. What do they do?
In addition to what the government has put forward, there are going to be additional solutions needed. We have to have flexibility. When we think about this from a cost perspective, I have seen many studies that show that if we want more women in the workforce, we need to provide this kind of child care.
Let us say, according to the members who spoke previously, that we are giving $14,000 to each person as a subsidy for their child. After taxes, some of that goes back to the government. In addition to that, somebody is going out to work and they are paying taxes. There are ECE workers who are watching the children and they are paying taxes. Many studies have said this is a cost-neutral exercise that will result in more women in the workforce, and that is what we want.
However, we have to make sure we are flexible enough for those who work long hours, like nurses. My one daughter is a nurse and they have 12-hour shifts. Finding day care for that is not going to be covered by the current system the government has designed. There are many places where people prefer to have a grandmother or aunt watch the children. What is the financial incentive to make the system fairer there? I leave it to the government's creativity, but there is definitely something to be done there.
There was a promise a few years ago to make 42,000 child care spots available. I think that was a 2018 promise from the Liberals. I am not sure how many of those actually happened, but when I did the math and divided up 42,000 spots among 338 ridings, it sounded like fewer than 200 spaces per riding, which is nowhere near what was needed. Again, there is the problem of not having enough spaces.
There has been discussion about the labour shortages. There are definitely labour shortages in every business I am hearing from in my riding, but specifically with respect to ECE workers. I hired an ECE worker in 1989 or 1991, and I was paying $1,200 a month. Think about what that is in today's dollars and how much it would cost to pay them, but the pay for ECE workers is really not that good. A lot of them, although they get the training, do not end up staying in the business.
I think there is something to be done in terms of making the wage attractive enough to get those additional workers in the jobs. We see the same thing with PSWs in the health care system where the wages just are not good enough or the hours are not enough for somebody to live on. I definitely think there is something to be done there.
With respect to the actual bill, there are some suggested amendments that have come from associations. The Association of Alberta Childcare Entrepreneurs suggests it has a problem with the committee makeup of this national advisory committee, which I am not sure we really need. If we have one, we should have representation from both private child care centres and the not-for-profits in order to hear all the voices.
The Association of Day Care Operators of Ontario wants to make the bill more inclusive by deleting the reference in the bill to public and not-for-profit child care providers, so that we could have the flexibility that some of the members have indicated they would support. Different provinces are going to want to allow a combination of private and not-for-profit child care. I think that would be good.
Another thing missed in this bill is that not every day care is the same. Depending on the location, there are needs. For example, let us talk about food programs. There are some places where child care and day care are providing meals because that might be all the food these kids get. In the model that has been put forward, there is no allowance for that. Either those day care facilities are going to have to charge money on top of it, which goes against the whole point of this bill, or they are going to have to stop feeding the kids, which is the wrong answer.
At the same time, there is an administrative burden of applying for all of this funding, and people are already busy watching tiny, busy bodies, so they do not necessarily have the wherewithal for the complicated government applications. Something that could be looked at is to streamline those as well.
All in all, it is a step in the right direction. We need more child care so we can have more women in the workforce. This will certainly create a great number of spaces. I look forward to the government expanding in terms of flexibility and some of the other things I have outlined in my speech.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her speech. I would like to ask her a question.
There is not much in this bill about health and health care funding. Could the member comment on that?
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here at this, the final reading of this bill, before the vote tomorrow and hopefully the bill's going on to the Senate.
It has been a long journey. Over the last at least 10 years, possibly longer, there have been numerous efforts to bring forward bills to get the pension protection Canadians deserve.
Basically, when I looked at the work that had been done, in every one of them there was something that not everyone could agree on, so I cherry-picked from all the different ideas that people could agree on and said, “Let us at least do something. Let us move in the direction of good.”
That is how Bill C-228 came into being. Previously, there was a bill, Bill C-253 in the last parliamentary session, which made it to the industry committee. It was on the priority of pensions.
This bill would do three things.
It would table a report in the House on the solvency of pension funds, so we can have greater transparency and know which funds are in trouble.
It would create a mechanism for us to transfer funds into an insolvent fund from elsewhere in the business, with no tax implication, so we can fix the problem before it becomes a difficulty for the pensioner.
Then, in the event of a bankruptcy, we would pay out pensions in priority over secured creditors like large banks, preferred creditors, and unsecured creditors. That will put pensioners in a much better position. Pension funds will be solvent, in general, and when there is a bankruptcy, large creditors are way more likely to be able to survive one company's going bankrupt than an individual who has paid into their pension and is counting on it for their retirement.
The bill has had much study. It has heard input from all kinds of stakeholders, and we are here today with what I think is a really good balance of all the rights of the pensioners and those of the suppliers. I think we have a very acceptable balance.
I want to thank a number of people, the member for Elmwood—Transcona, the member for Manicouagan and the member for Joliette, as well as all the finance committee members. There have been numerous people who have helped this bill along, provided their input and provided suggestions to improve it. I want to thank the member for La Prairie, who traded his private member's spot for today in order to move this up quickly and get it over to the Senate.
It just shows that there is broad support for the bill. When we look at the concerns that were raised about the bill, there was one amendment that was made at committee to include severance pay and termination pay in the priority. I supported that. I said I supported it at second reading, but it was ruled out of scope by the Chair and eventually back in the House, where the Liberals wanted the Speaker to rule on it. I think the Speaker was correct in saying that committees do not have the power to put things in that are out of scope, but then we brought a unanimous consent motion.
The member for Elmwood—Transcona brought the motion to have the House decide to put that amendment back in. Unfortunately, at that point, the Liberals did not support that amendment, and the motion did not receive unanimous consent.
That amendment is now out of the bill. That was the controversial part. I think we can agree that the rest is the right thing to do for Canadians.
I am happy to hear the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader say tonight that he has not yet made his decision on how he is going to vote. I would encourage him to vote yes to Bill C-228.
Now is the time, in this parliamentary session, for us, after 10 years of bringing various and sundry bills, to finally do the right thing for Canadians and protect people who have worked their whole lives and paid into a pension fund. It is time to give it the priority it needs to have.
I look forward to the vote tomorrow, and I look forward to having all parties in the House support Bill C-228.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question.
Bill C‑18 is another bill that we are working on. The principle of this bill is to help small media organizations. This is another example of the Liberals saying one thing and doing another. This bill will not really help small organizations because Bell Media, Rogers and CBC will get all the money. I would prefer that Facebook and Google put money into a fund and that the small media organizations sign an agreement to share the money.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his speech.
There is no mention of new health care funding, even though all Canadians are concerned about the current state of our health care system.
What does my colleague think of the situation?
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Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member. I did not see any funds for health care in Bill C-32.
Is the member concerned that the government is not doing enough for health care?
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- May/18/22 2:08:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I was really pleased when my private member's bill to create a framework to get consistent access to palliative care for all Canadians was unanimously passed. The health minister then created the framework and committed $6 billion over 10 years, in 2018, for palliative care. However, here we are four years later and only $200 million of the money pledged has been spent, and most of it was spent on medical assistance in dying. This is unacceptable.
I call on the government to return to the plan: funding to enhance virtual services for palliative care, funding to train nurses and paramedics to deliver palliative care in rural areas and building hospices to serve the aging population. These were just some of the great plans that we need to get back on track.
The special committee that studied MAID said that without good quality palliative care there really is no choice. My bill and the plan developed with all-party support would make that choice a reality.
I encourage the health minister to return to the plan and fulfill the promised funding for palliative care.
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- Mar/4/22 10:29:59 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his excellent speech.
This bill includes measures to provide funding for health care and COVID-19 tests. Every day, the Bloc asks for an increase in health transfers for Quebec.
What does the member think of these measures? Will he support them?
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- Feb/15/22 4:14:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Salaberry—Suroît for her excellent speech.
I worry when I hear the government say that it needs another computer system to pay seniors. I remember Phoenix, which did not work for five years. Why does the government need another system when the funds are usually deposited directly in Canadians’ bank accounts every month?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent question.
I completely agree. Health is a provincial jurisdiction. However, I think there is not enough funding for the provinces to provide excellent care.
What is more, while some provinces have very good practices, I would like everyone to be able to benefit from those best practices and for funding to be accessible to put those practices in place. I think that the federal government has a role to play in that.
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Mr. Speaker, I am definitely always happy to talk about my private member's bill. The problem is that we have seen seniors work their whole lives and expect to have a pension to retire on, and then the company goes bankrupt, pays big bonuses out to their executives and leaves the seniors with either no pension or pennies on the dollar.
What got me going on this was a neighbour of mine, who worked for Sears for 30 years and ended up getting 70 cents on the dollar after 30 years of working. My bill is going to keep that from happening, first of all by giving transparency to see whether there is solvency in the fund; second, by creating a mechanism to top up that fund if it is not solvent; and third, by making sure that if companies do go bankrupt, the people who have worked all their lives and paid into their pensions receive their pensions before big bonuses are paid out or large corporations are paid out.
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Mr. Speaker, that is an extremely important point. Certainly we studied this when I was at the health committee and talked about what would go into national standards. In fact, there have been numerous reports written about what is required. At the end of the day, I support the best practices being leveraged across the country, but that is not where the limitation is. It is not that we do not know what needs to be done.
When it comes to the ratios of staff to clients who are in long-term care, more funding is needed. When we see some of the conditions there, more funding is needed. We know that the provinces, although they have that under their jurisdiction, do not have the wherewithal to do everything that is needed. Therefore, it is important that the government work with provinces and territories to leverage those best practices in long-term care but also to identify how we can get the funding there and how we can actually get the workers there. As members know, we have seen a drop-off in the number of personal support workers, nurses and all of these kinds of careers.
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