- Member of Parliament
- Liberal
- Scarborough—Guildwood
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 62%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $111,926.23
- Government Page
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-30 and add my voice to this. I hope I am bringing a bit more light than heat, because I have been listening here for a while and there seems to be a lot of heat but I am not sure how much light there is in it.
I am splitting my time with my favourite colleague from Toronto—Danforth. I look forward to what she has to say and possibly look forward more to what she has to say than to what I have to say.
I also want to extend my concerns to our colleagues and the people of Nova Scotia and the Maritimes generally for what they are facing this weekend.
I cannot help but make the observation of dissonance between what this chamber, particularly on the Conservative side of things, says and the realities of climate change. How many once-in-a-lifetime events do we have to have every year before we realize that climate change is among us? We have been watching the floods in Pakistan. We have been watching the fires out in western Canada and watching California literally burn down. We express sympathy for that. We rush in as best we can to repair the damage after the fact. However, we fail to deal with the fundamental issue that is before us, which is the reality of climate change.
Therefore, the most practical solution is to apply a cost to the carbon that we all put in the air. We all put it into the air, yet we are extremely resistant to doing anything about it. I just want to make that as an observation. There is a dissonance between the way we talk about climate change and the climate emergency, and the willingness to actually make the sacrifices that are necessary in the form of some form of taxation or costing, in order to be able to mitigate the costs.
However, this is a discussion about Bill C-30. It is a bill that, it looks like, enjoys virtually unanimous support in the House. It is one of a suite of measures that the government is taking to fight inflation. I am kind of amused by that language: fighting inflation. I am sure inflation is just scared that the Government of Canada, the governments of the provinces or any government is fighting it, because inflation is what inflation is.
I have found that the members opposite are really quite elegant and eloquent in describing the problem, which is the high cost of groceries, the high cost of fuel, the high cost of rent, etc., and are very able to do that. I have heard it in my own riding. I have found that the answers that I give in my own riding do not resonate. When I say that it is partly due to Putin's war, the response of my constituents is “we do not care”. When I say it is difficulties with supply chains, my constituents say, “we do not care”. When it is having to do with various other causes, my constituents just do not care. The reality is that they want me, us, the government, to do something.
The government actually has a limited array of things that it can do to fight inflation. The first one, of course, is monetary policy. This is generally where everyone nods off who is not already asleep because monetary policy is possibly the most boring thing ever. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your getting an extra coffee before I rose to speak.
Monetary policy is essentially run by the Government of Canada. Years ago, the government made a very wise decision to take monetary policy out of this chamber, out of the political vicissitudes of the day, according to whatever the government or the Parliament of the day thought should be done with monetary policy, so that is run independently.
Some of us can criticize the Bank of Canada, and some members of the opposition in particular seem to be very enthusiastic about criticizing the operation of monetary policy. I could even make the argument that it started to raise interest rates a little slowly. However, it certainly has done what it can do to raise interest rates and restrict the supply of money.
Doing that, however, has consequences. The consequence is that it slows economic activity, and when we slow economic activity, we create unemployment. That is not a very good outcome for any of us, really. That is the consequence of monetary policy, and it needs to be moved forward.
The previous member talked about the government of Mr. Trudeau in the seventies. I was around in the seventies and remember stagflation. Stagflation meant having the worst of both world: inflation plus a high unemployment rate. Fortunately, we are not there, and possibly we have learned something about the application of monetary policy.
That is the first instrument any government has for dealing with this. It is being executed as well as it can be executed, and there has been some impact in cooling the real estate market.
The second array of the government's abilities is fiscal policy. Notwithstanding what some might say, this government is in relatively good shape with regard to debt-to-GDP ratio. I know we ran the debt-to-GDP ratio up during the COVID era, but there are no free lunches in this world and it will need to be dealt with.
At this point, a couple of things have been done well, one of which is buying long-term debt at low interest rates, so the cost of debt, at this point at least, is limited. We also have a reasonable unemployment rate at this point, so there is full employment and a government that has its fiscal house under control, although I would not say in order. There are challenges in managing that, but still, the fiscal situation is not bad for this country.
The third element of any government's approach to inflation is programs. That is part of what we are talking about with Bill C-30 and the temporary increase in the amount of HST refund for those who qualify, which is primarily people with an income of under $40,000 a year.
In my riding, the Canada child benefit is a huge benefit. It is $100 million a year going into my riding, affecting something in the order of 8,000 of families. The money goes to the people who actually need it the most. Economists can make the argument that we are putting money into the economy and are therefore creating our own level of inflationary pressures. There is some truth to that, but if it is a choice between rent and eating, I am sure my constituents appreciate the Canada child benefit, just as they appreciate the rent subsidy, the carbon rebate and the child care program that is going forward.
These are all programs that a government can put forward. It is a reasoned response to a very difficult situation largely caused from outside the country on a relatively small economy.
1204 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/1/22 9:29:19 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, it is an honour and a pleasure to participate in this debate.
I will be splitting my time with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. I am not quite sure how that got in there, but my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands and I are apparently splitting this time, and I am honoured to do so.
As members have heard, a number of us travelled to Vilnius, Lithuania, in the past few days to participate in the parliamentary NATO conference. It was truly one of those extraordinary experiences, which I had the honour of sharing with the members for Saint-Jean, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, North Island—Powell River and Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, as well as Senator Cordy and Senator Bellemare.
As the member for North Island—Powell River indicated, it is an important element of our responsibilities to participate in these meetings, which extend parliamentary diplomacy and extend our values as Canadians as we try to wrestle with some of the most intractable issues in global politics.
When one lands in Vilnius and comes out of the airport, one sees a country that is sort of emerging from Soviet occupation. Some of the buildings are extraordinarily beautiful. Some are clearly classic, and others are this brutal Soviet architecture, which is just kind of falling down. When one gets to the hotel, one is in a revitalized area of the city, and as one emerges from the hotel, one is confronted with the history of the Baltics, the history of Lithuania. As one walks out of the hotel and goes to the main street, on the left are the parliamentary buildings, about three blocks away, where the issues are debated, which is essentially where we were for the three or four days that we were in Vilnius.
I must say that the presentations were absolutely extraordinary. They were pointed, detailed, very useful and very united. Interestingly, one of the speakers there was the defence minister from Ukraine, and, today, he received a threat of assassination. Nothing focuses the mind like that. However, this was the kind of atmosphere in which we spent, peripherally I would say, three or four days.
From the hotel, if one goes left, there are the parliamentary buildings, and if one goes right, about the same distance, three blocks, one gets to the Vilnius version of Lubyanka, which is where the Russians tortured and killed political prisoners. This one in Vilnius is now a museum to the genocide of the Soviet occupation. Our delegation did not have time to tour what has been turned into a museum of genocide, but as I walked down the sidewalk, in this beautiful, old town of the city, with a gorgeous park right across the street, I saw inscribed on the walls of this prison the names of the people who had been tortured and killed in that building.
What is even more extraordinary, when we read the birth dates and the death dates, is that these people were 23, 25, and occasionally 40 years old. Sometimes they were 21 years old, and sometimes they were even a teenager. Their lives were cut off at the beginning of their aspirations to live a full human life. The reality of these brutal occupations of the Baltic nations over the course of history just descends on us. This is where history and geopolitics merge.
The Baltic nations, whether Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania, have always been the highways to Hell, and whether it was German or Soviet occupations, they have been occupied. Lithuania has actually enjoyed relatively few years of independence, so for the average citizen of Lithuania, this is is not an abstraction. It is not an academic discussion at Carleton University or the University of Ottawa political science department. This is reality for these folks, so when we talk about Finland or Sweden joining NATO, that means something, and that is a real security guarantee that, up to now, they have not enjoyed.
They are afraid, and for a darned good reason, of the Baltic Sea turning into a Russian lake because they would then be threatened not only from land borders, but also from the Baltic Sea, much like the Black Sea, which Putin is attempting to turn into a Russian lake. The joining of Sweden and Finland to the NATO alliance puts that whole enterprise in an entirely different light, and it enables citizens in countries such as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia some measure of guarantee, which we, as Canadian citizens and North Americans, do not even understand. We do not get it.
For the Europeans, World War III has already started. They understand Bucha in a way that we do not understand it, because Bucha is on the main street to Vilnius. It is memorialized in the lives and deaths of those young Lithuanians, so we are, respectfully, quite naive about what this actually means.
My colleagues and I had some extraordinary experiences, but the one experience that really stayed with me was supper with the committee chairs of the Polish parliament, the German parliament, the Lithuanian parliament and a young Ukrainian MP who reminded me, frankly, of my daughter. I asked her how she was coping with this, and she said she was frozen inside because she had lost family and colleagues. She understood this in a visceral way that none of the rest of us do. The other experience that really hit on me was what the rest of us experienced, which was a young Ukrainian MP calling into the conference who had only five minutes. As she spoke, she said that her signal had been tracked and she needed to hang up the phone, and she went to the bomb shelter.
That is reality in the Baltic nations and Ukraine. I wish I could convey that to my colleagues and our nation.
985 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Apr/5/22 4:09:44 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. and very capable member for Kings—Hants.
It is an honour for me to participate in this discussion, and I like to see it as a discussion as opposed to a partisan debate because this affects us all. Security is a universal problem, regardless of where one falls on the political spectrum.
I am going to take an unusual tack and take us back to 1940. At that point, Canada had something in the order of the third or fourth largest navy in the world, probably one of the larger armies in the world and a growing air force. In fact, Canada was considered a place where a lot of the training took place for people in the air force.
It was not a good time for the allies. The Germans were making really good progress right across Europe, literally taking over quite a number of countries, and the British were rightly concerned. The British gold reserves had been moved to Canada. There was talk that the royal family might need to be moved to Canada. The situation was pretty grim.
President Roosevelt was trying to help as best he could with the allies, but he was hampered by domestic politics. Of course, Canada was involved in that war at that point in 1940 very extensively. Prime Minister Mackenzie King realized early on that Canada was going to need to transfer its security arrangements from the declining British Empire to the ascendant American Empire. To that end, he met with President Roosevelt in Ogdensburg, New York, in a railway car, and he negotiated with President Roosevelt the transfer of those security arrangements. Both the prime minister and the president saw that the defence of North America was going to take a mutual effort.
President Roosevelt was concerned about the upscaling of Japanese aggression in the Pacific, and he saw the British Columbia coast as an easy entry point to North America. German subs were lurking in the north Atlantic, sometimes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and President Roosevelt felt that something had to be done.
The initial position of President Roosevelt was to simply make the Canadian military part of the U.S. north command, and that was a position that was rejected by Mackenzie King, who wanted to keep the Canadian military as a separate stand-alone military under the direction of the Government of Canada and the Parliament of Canada.
Out of the Ogdensburg agreement came the Permanent Joint Board on Defence. It was, has been, and still is the senior advisory body to develop defence architecture for North America during the past 80 years. However, the working presumption has been that Canada would have a fully functioning stand-alone military capable of defending Canada and contributing significantly to the defence of North America.
That was very true 80 years ago, and for a long time it continued to be true. Canadians like the idea of being independent of the American military adventures. However, what they do not like is paying for it.
Members will recall in this very chamber President Obama, in the nicest, kindness and gentlest way, saying that they would appreciate some help with burden sharing. Members will also recall that President Trump, in his own irritating way, said much the same thing.
Secretary General Stoltenberg has also said much the same thing and has taken note of our contribution to NATO, yet the entire premise of Mackenzie King's argument with President Roosevelt was that Canada would have an independent military that was capable of defending Canada and contributing significantly to the defence of North America. NORAD was the most significant outcome of the permanent joint board on defence, and it has been a valuable point of collaboration between the two militaries. Canada has been a huge beneficiary of that treaty.
That was then, however, and now is now. Over the years, through all Canadian governments, military capabilities have declined, along with our percentage of GDP spent on military spending. We have, as a previous member said, enjoyed a prolonged peace dividend. What he did not add, and I add it here, is that it has been at the expense of our American cousins. As John Manley, the former foreign affairs minister, once said, we cannot always go to the bathroom when the bill arrives. We have spent too much time in the bathroom, and the bill has arrived.
“Strong, Secure and Engaged” contemplated about $163 billion of additional spending over 20 years. Unfortunately, even this relatively modest goal has proved to be difficult, as the military has lapsed about $5 billion in the last three years. The military's own readiness report makes for some depressing reading.
Then along comes February 24, when, as others have said, everything changed. Our entire threat assessment accelerated the timeline way beyond anyone's previous expectations. At that time the defence committee was engaged in a threat assessment. When we began the threat assessment, none of us had anticipated that Russia would actually carry out an invasion of Ukraine. If we are to defend our own sovereignty and, as importantly, contribute to the sovereignty of others, we have to step up with real fiscal firepower. It is in equipment and personnel, and it is in personnel and it is equipment. Witness after witness after witness at the defence committee keeps telling us about CAF's problems with recruitment and retention of personnel.
Military personnel are expensive. It costs literally millions of dollars to train and retain a pilot. Retaining a pilot is as difficult as training a pilot. Cyber-specialists are a hot commodity, and private companies can offer generous salaries and benefits that are very attractive.
Witness after witness tells us of a procurement system that is broken. Journalist Gwynne Dyer once said that the next war will be a “come as you are” war. There will not be any time to fix anything and there will not be any time to buy new stuff, and the bills will be huge, in part because we kept kicking the decisions down the road. I am glad to see a decision has been made on F-35s, but the all-domain warning system is going to be a hugely expensive acquisition.
Russia has been showing that it has hypersonic capability and that it has militarized the Arctic. If we cannot defend our sovereignty on our own, then we will have to rely on others, and if we have to rely on others, we have to hope that their interests align with ours. Prime Minister Mackenzie King intuitively understood the desire for an independent sovereign nation, and he further understood the cost of being that independent sovereign nation.
1136 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/1/22 1:56:22 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, let me say, first off, that I am splitting my time with the hon. member for Humber River—Black Creek. Whatever time I do have, I will leave for her.
This is my first opportunity to thank the people of Scarborough—Guildwood for my re-election. This will be my 24th year in the House of Commons, nine elections. Some may question the sanity of the citizens of Scarborough—Guildwood, but I am quite grateful.
I am also grateful to the small army of volunteers who have helped me over the years to be here and to represent the people of Scarborough—Guildwood. For some apparent reason they seem to think I continue to do a decent job, and I hope to continue to work for their faith.
I know it is always a dangerous thing to thank individuals, but I want to particularly recognize the work of Layla, Meena and Atik; Natasha and Mark; and Napas, all of whom worked 24-7 for the entire election period. Of course this was a pretty challenging election for all of us. We had to do things differently.
Finally, far from least, I want to thank my wife Carolyn, who has been at my side for the last 24 years, actually far more than these 24 years. She is an amazing woman with amazing accomplishments, and probably the most amazing thing of all is that she continues to love me and be married to me. I know we are all grateful for miracles.
I originally started to write out these thoughts in November, because that is when the reply to the Speech from the Throne started. Here we are six to eight weeks later. I looked over my notes the other day, and they are somewhat irrelevant at this point. In part this is because, if it is said that a week is a long time in politics, in truth two months is even longer, so I have had to do a rewrite. Indeed, the pandemic has changed everything. I want to just turn to the topic at hand and concentrate on the issues of the economy. I hope to add a little bit more light than heat, but that is not always true in this chamber.
I have noted a lot of discussion about inflation, something in the order of 4.8% last month. In the United States it is 7%. There is this endless conversation about whether we are better than the OECD average or poorer than the OECD average. The comparators become a little meaningless over time, but the reality is that this is a worldwide phenomenon. Canada, as a large trading nation where 40% of our GDP is dependent on trade, is particularly vulnerable to the economic currents outside of its borders. For the time being at least, inflation will be a reality and a preoccupation of this government and, indeed, any government.
The second point I wanted to make, assuming I have a little bit of time, is on the issue of interest rates. Currently, rates are quite low, but I was gratified to hear the Bank of Canada's governor indicate that it is going to be addressed and he is on the way to addressing that. I personally would have preferred a little action a little bit sooner, because I too was consumed with the grocery aisle indicators of inflation.
I look forward to expanding on these profound thoughts. I know my hon. colleagues will wait in their seats to hear what I have to say after question period
600 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jan/31/22 10:16:52 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Chair, I will be sharing my time with my former seatmate, the member for Vancouver Centre.
It is getting late, and I note that at the end of this week is the beginning of the Olympics. There will be one nation out of all the nations in the world that will not be allowed to compete under its own flag, and that is the Russian nation. The Olympic committee finally got sick of all the corruption, doping, cheating and lying that was coming out of the Russian government and will not allow Russian athletes to compete under their own flag.
This is what we, meaning the family of nations, the universe of nations, including Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Ukraine, deal with on a daily basis, because nothing happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin's express permission. When he says there might be 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border or that they are just exercises and there is nothing to see, it is just nonsense and no one should really pay much attention because he does not speak the truth very often.
I was once privileged to spend some time with Senator Lisa Murkowski. She has available to her a map of the Arctic. I do not know if it is available publicly, but it is like looking at the Arctic from 50,000 feet above the North Pole. What it shows is the remilitarization of the Arctic by the Russian government, with all of the refurbished old bases and all of the new installations as well. While Canada, even from that map, is far away from the Russian bases, the U.S. is very close, at the Bering Strait, as are Finland, Sweden, Greenland, Denmark and Norway. The remilitarization of the Arctic, in my judgment, is what contributes to why it is in Canada's best interests to fully participate in the Ukrainian repulsion of this Russian aggression.
Henry Kissinger once said that nations do not have permanent friends or enemies; they only have interests. Regardless of whether one is Ukrainian or not, or whether one has diaspora in one's community or not, in my judgment it is in Canada's best interests to fully support Ukraine.
Russia routinely launches massive cyber-attacks on Canada, the last one being at a hospital in Newfoundland. It is nothing but a mafia shakedown: “If you pay us millions of dollars, we'll let you have your hospital back.” Russia routinely steals significant amounts of industrial and commercial intellectual property. Russian oligarchs have purchased significant pieces of industrial and commercial property in order to burrow deeply into Canadian society, and that money has been generated from very dubious sources. Russia is quite skilled at the game of misinformation and disinformation.
There are many, many more reasons why Ukraine's security is our security and our security is Ukraine's security. I would ask members to cast their minds along the eastern European flank to western Russia, because if Ukraine goes, the next place to go is Poland and the Baltics. When we get past Poland and the Baltics, we get to Finland. After Finland is Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and suddenly this is at our border.
I see my time is up, and I look forward to my colleagues' questions.
556 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
