- Member of Parliament
- Member of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians
- NDP
- Vancouver Kingsway
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 59%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $153,893.57
- Government Page
- Feb/14/23 4:59:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, like my colleagues, one of the issues I have with this motion is that it does not place any emphasis at all on the role that corporate profits have in driving up the cost of living in this country. It is quite clear that this is the case.
Another issue I have is with the Conservative orthodox economic thinking that deficits invariably cause inflation. If that were the case, we would have had rampant inflation in this place when the Conservative government of Stephen Harper ran seven consecutive deficits from 2008 to 2015, which did not happen.
I have heard the Conservatives say it is inflationary to spend money on dental care, yet the leader of the Conservative Party has said he would adopt the recently announced health care accord for the next 10 years, which injects an additional $46 billion into the economy. Can my hon. colleague explain how that is not inflationary if other government spending is?
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Madam Speaker, the great Canadian economist Jim Stanford just published a report through the Centre for Future Work, and he found the following:
...15 sectors...were...the source of the fastest price increases experienced in Canada since 2021. Products like gasoline, groceries, mortgage interest, home energy products, and building materials have led the acceleration of inflation—and those higher prices flow directly into the record profits recorded in those 15 sectors. Large price increases for just 8 specific products sold by those super-profitable sectors account for over half of the rise in Canadian prices in the latest 12-month period; without those 8 products, overall Canadian inflation would be one-third lower.
Does my hon. colleague agree with the NDP that unless we attack the record profits and excess profits made by these corporate sectors, we are not going to get a handle on inflation in this country?
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- Nov/1/22 3:31:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the opening line of this motion says, “That, given that (i) the cost of government is driving up the cost of living,” and I just want to drill into that a bit.
I have done some research. In the OECD, which is made up of 38 countries, the average inflation rate is 10.2%. The inflation rate in Canada at the same time is 7.6%. Of the 38 countries, a very healthy majority are conservative governments, including the U.K. The U.K. has had a Conservative government for the last 12 years, and its inflation rate is 8.8%. Hungary's inflation rate is 13.7% and it has a very right-wing government. Poland's inflation rate is 15.8% and it has a right-wing government.
Where does the member get his data or rationale for the statement “the cost of government is driving up the cost of living,” when just about every right-wing government in the world has inflation exceeding what ours is in this country?
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- Oct/6/22 3:32:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, once again I am pleased to rise in the House and bring the voice of the people of Vancouver Kingsway to this chamber, particularly as we discuss this very critical and important New Democrat motion that would make such a difference to so many Canadians' lives across this country.
I might add that I am going to be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Timmins—James Bay, who will once again provide the powerful view of people from northern Ontario.
In short, this motion calls on the government to recognize that excessive corporate profits fuel inflation. It would force CEOs and large corporations to pay what they owe by closing tax loopholes. It would request the Competition Bureau to launch an investigation into the behaviour of chain grocery stores, and it would support the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food in its investigation of high food prices and obscene profits in chain grocery stores.
The context in which this NDP proposal arises is very important. People in every corner of this country are frustrated and hurt that they are paying excessive, historically high prices for their food while the huge food chains are making massive, unprecedented profits and their CEOs in particular are getting huge bonuses off the backs of hard-working Canadians.
After seven years in government, the Liberals are still protecting the profits of the wealthiest in this country by refusing to toughen the Competition Act to punish corporate CEOs who are gouging consumers and, in this case, also agricultural producers.
For their part, the Conservatives played their role in the current crisis when they were in government by cutting the tax audits of the wealthiest Canadians and prioritizing excessive CEO profits over the interests of working men and women. The Conservatives refused to toughen the Competition Act when they were in government as well.
Only the NDP members are standing in this House fighting for the people who are suffering from these high prices. We will continue to pressure the Liberals to make sure that the wealthiest CEOs in the largest profitable corporations in this country pay what they owe and stop the price gouging that they are inflicting on people.
Let us review some of the basic facts. It is absolutely crystal clear that the inflation being experienced today is greedflation. It is not caused by governments or deficits. It is not caused by workers' excessive wages. It is caused by excessive prices. In particular, it has been caused by price gouging by corporations who have used the cover of the pandemic and the war to jack up prices and, in turn, their profits.
Let us review the facts. In August of this year, the price of the grocery basket rose 10.8% in one year, more than twice as fast as people's wages. Where did that come from? As people pay the price for the biggest increase in the grocery basket since 1981, the Sobeys' CEO has been given a total compensation package of $8.6 million in 2022. His increase is more than 15.5% over 2021. While a quarter of Canadians, which is nine million Canadians plus, are cutting back on food spending, a necessity of life, Metro's CEO boosted his company's profits to $275 million just in the last reported quarter, which is 9% higher than the same point in 2021.
I am going to stop here just for a moment. I am sure members are noticing a pattern: 9%, 15.5% and 10.8%. These are all numbers over the inflation rate of 8% today and they are all caused by CEO increases, massive compensation increases and price gouging by food producers. Do we wonder where inflation is coming from?
While Canadians pay the price for rising food prices, billionaire Galen Weston, chairman of Loblaw, has increased dividends to shareholders from $118 million to $125 million, just in 2022. Who is paying the price for this? A new survey shows that nine out of 10 Canadians are now tightening their household budgets because of continuing high prices. Another survey found that 23.6% of Canadians have had to cut back on the amount of food that they buy. Imagine that. Almost one in four Canadians is reducing their caloric intake in this country while rich, wealthy corporations make massive profits and reward their corporate masters for doing so.
Despite a slight deceleration in the rate of inflation recently, food prices continue to rise at a rate of over 10.8%, so in 2002 Canadian families are expected to pay almost $1,000 more for groceries than in 2021. This is a crisis. This is a problem. People are being hurt every day by this price gouging.
What do the Conservatives say? They say to cut the deficit and cut taxes. That is their solution, but they refuse to say a word in this chamber or outside the chamber about the cause of this problem being corporate greed. Why? It is because the Conservatives are the party that represents Bay Street and the party that represents large corporations and CEOs in this country. While they claim to support the little guy and working people, their silence on issues like this speaks volumes.
For the Liberals' part, they claim to care as well, but their policies, in truth, on these economic issues are really no different from those of the Conservatives'. While people are paying the price for the biggest increase in the grocery basket in over 40 years, we find ourselves at this juncture in history.
What is the NDP saying we should do about it? We are saying, let us take action. That is because we know it is not people's wages that are causing the cost of living crisis, but again the obscene profits being made by corporations and CEOs. Indeed, corporate profits, along with prices, have reached their highest share of Canadian GDP ever, and now I am talking about across all sectors. Corporate profits have increased by $22.9 billion this year, which is about a quarter of the increase in costs to consumers.
The contrast between these profits and people who suffer the price gouging is not new. As far back as 2018, Loblaw, run, again, by the billionaire Weston family, admitted to participating in a cartel from 2001 to 2015 with other major grocery chains to artificially inflate the price of bread. This potentially, what I would call, prima facie criminal practice is reportedly still under investigation by the commissioner of competition.
If someone stole a load of bread in this country today, the person would have been tried, convicted and punished by now, but when billionaires defraud millions of Canadians, it takes years to even investigate. That is under the legal scheme that has been devised by successive Liberal and Conservative federal governments over decades and decades. Therefore, it is no wonder that corporations are price gouging. They have been given the green light by Conservatives and Liberals for years. Where is the penalty? The Conservatives, who like to talk about being tough on crime, do not seem to be too tough on Loblaws right now.
The commissioner of competition recently called for greater enforcement of Canada's competition laws to combat rising prices, and he noted the federal government is ill-equipped compared to other countries. For example, under European competition law, companies can be heavily fined for abusing their dominant positions in the market to exploit consumers, including the imposition of unfair purchase prices.
Recent cases handled by them include pharmaceutical companies that raised their price of off-patent cancer drugs, of all things, by a percentage in the hundreds, and Gazprom, which has been accused of setting unfair prices for gas. These companies will take advantage of crises, even of cancer patients and people suffering from the Ukraine war, to gouge and pad their profits. It is time the Liberal government put an end to this.
The NDP stood in this House today and moved a motion to do exactly that. It will be interesting for Canadians to see how these two parties vote on this, because that will tell the tale. It is easy for them to say they support working people, but we will see who stands up in the House, attacks these corporate profits and stands up for working people when this motion is voted on.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a privilege to rise in the House to speak on behalf of the people of Vancouver Kingsway, to bring their voices to this place, to reflect their experiences and to express how we can, in this House, best support them and their families and the businesses that operate in the wonderful riding that I am fortunate to represent.
Tonight, I rise to speak on Bill C-30, called the cost of living relief act, no. 1. Bill C-30 amends the Income Tax Act to double the goods and services tax or harmonized sales tax credit for six months, effectively increasing the maximum annual GST/HST credit amounts by 50% for the 2022-23 benefit year. What that means is that doubling the GST credit would provide about $2.5 billion in additional targeted support immediately to roughly 11 million individuals and families who already receive the tax credit, including about half of Canadian families with children and more than half of Canadian seniors.
To give an example of the impact of this, single Canadians without children would receive up to an extra $234 and couples with two children up to an extra $467 this year. Seniors would receive an extra $225 on average immediately. I want to stop at this point to say that this is an interim stopgap measure. By no means will this measure adjust or improve the systemic problems of the Canadian economy or address the long-standing inequities that exist along with the poor distribution of wealth in this country. In fact, the distribution of wealth has gotten worse over the decades, as wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands and more and more people struggle. That has been the unmistakable, undeniable trajectory of how wealth and income have been distributed in this country over the last 40 years.
Given the horrible impacts of very unusually high inflation, New Democrats have been pushing for urgent action to address Canada's cost of living crisis for many months. We did not just start this yesterday. We identified this problem and have been advocating, working hard and fighting for Canadians in this place for the last six months.
If the Liberals and Conservatives had supported the NDP's call last May to double the GST credit, which is when we did that in this House, eligible Canadians could have received up to $467 before the start of the summer. This money would already be in Canadians' hands if the two major parties in the House had the same commitment to working people and marginalized Canadians that the NDP has in this country. However, it is the fact that not six months ago both the Liberals and Conservatives voted against the very proposal before the House today to provide this essential relief to Canadians.
New Democrats are now proposing that all parties work together to fast-track Bill C-30 through Parliament to ensure that people receive their increased GST rebate as soon as possible. Last week, Canadians were told by the Conservatives that they will have to wait even longer for relief, because the Conservatives refused to work evenings to get this urgently needed support out the door and, again, opposed the NDP's offer to work on an expeditious basis because we recognize the urgency of the problem today.
New Democrats are delivering real results for Canadians beyond this. The Canadian dental benefit will deliver up to $1,300 to parents with children under 12 who do not have access to dental insurance. The top-up to the Canada housing benefit, again proposed by the NDP in the last election platform will deliver a $500 payment to 1.8 million renters who are struggling so mightily with the cost of housing. This more than doubles the government's original commitment reaching twice as many Canadians as originally promised. Of course, doubling the GST credit will provide $2.5 billion in additional targeted support, again, to some of the poorest and most needy Canadians in our country from coast to coast to coast.
Taken together, the result of these three NDP-driven proposals would mean that a family of two will receive between $3,000 and $4,000 due to NDP advocacy and hard work in this Parliament. That is the result of the NDP working for Canadians.
By way of background, the GST tax credit would help offset the financial impact of the GST for low- and modest-income people and families. That is the whole purpose of it. The credit is paid quarterly, in January, April, July and December, with benefit years beginning in July. The total annual value of this credit depends on family size and income. For the 2022-23 benefit year, eligible people can receive up to $467 for single people without children, $612 for married or common-law couples, $612 for single parents, plus $161 for each child under the age of 19.
I want to pause for a moment, because I have heard people in the House, mainly on the Conservative side, who have scoffed at the amount of money we are talking about here. They have said that this is not enough money, that these are crumbs and that this is an insufficient amount of money. I can tell them that to someone who is trying to live on $20,000 a year or $25,000 a year or $30,000 a year, $500 makes a big difference. I have said it before and I am going to say it again. It is easy for MPs, who make $185,000 a year minimum, to stand in this House, like the Conservatives have done, and tell Canadians that $500 does not mean much to them. That might mean a child's hockey; that might mean a child's school lunches; that might mean clothing for children for a year. That is what $500 means to people who are earning between $20,000 and $40,000 a year, and that is meaningful.
The GST credit is indexed for inflation on an annual basis using CPI index data, but of course, for this year, for the July 2022 to June 2023 benefit year, the value of that GST credit grew by only 2.4%, because it was based on the CPI from 2020 to 2021. Because those increases are based on the inflation rate from the prior year, the current GST credit does not reflect the unusually high inflation that Canadians are experiencing now. Depending on where they live, it is somewhere between 7% and 9%. That is why this money urgently needs to get into the pockets of these needy Canadians as soon as possible, and the NDP will work hard to do that.
I want to pause for a moment to speak a bit about why we are where we are, because there are different views on that in the House. Why are we experiencing inflation of 8% or 9%? New Democrats believe that this is inflation driven by prices, and of course the data and empirical evidence support that. This is not driven by wages. Wages have not gone up 8%. This is not driven by anything other than prices at the gas pump, in grocery stores and in insurance bills issued by companies in this country.
The other thing is that the Conservatives like to pretend that the inflation was caused by the deficit. That may play some role, but everybody who has been paying attention knows that when prices started to rise in this country, it started with the beginning of the COVID pandemic in 2020, when supply chains began to be interrupted around the world. Then we had the Ukraine-Russia war, which of course interfered with all sorts of supply chains and energy resources, and now corporations are clearly using the cover of this to drastically increase their profits and prices, taking advantage of the current situation. Whether it is the so-called FIRE industry, the finance, insurance and real estate industry, the oil and gas sector or major grocery stores, the data from economists is clear. Their profits, not their revenue, but their profits, are at dramatically higher levels.
In the case of the FIRE industry, it is up 24%. Nobody earning wages has received 24% more income. What would justify a 24% price increase? Oil and gas companies in this country are reporting record profits. They have never made more money. Then there are the financial institutions and grocery stores. Every Canadian who walks into a grocery store can see what is happening with prices.
The answer here is not to blame workers; it is not to attack politically. The approach here is to attack the source of the problem, and that means making corporations pay for their excess profits so that the money can to go to the government and it can use that money productively for Canadians, for things like dental care and other programs that will make such a huge difference to Canadians' lives.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague's speech was full of progressive ideas. The underlying issue here is that obviously Canadians are suffering. We have very high inflation, and one of the foundational questions I have, and it is one we struggle with in the NDP, is what the cause of this problem is. We see unbelievable price increases at gas stations, grocery stores and in the insurance industry. We see massive profits being made by corporations driving prices up.
My hon. colleague talked about workers. Does she agree with the NDP that the inflation today is caused by greedflation, by corporations raising prices beyond reasonable levels, or does she blame workers in this country for causing the situation, just as the Conservatives do?
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Madam Speaker, I am glad to hear my hon. colleague say that all parties in the House will support this bill, but I was taken aback by his attempt to make it seem like this amount of money is inconsequential. It is easy for a member of Parliament, who makes a minimum of $185,000 a year, to stand in the House to say that $500 does not mean much to someone. My daughter is an adult with special needs. She has friends who live on $15,000 a year. For someone who is earning $15,000, $20,000 or $25,000 a year, that $500 is incredibly significant.
I wonder if the member could speak to that. Would he agree with me that giving temporary relief of $500 to help fight inflation to people who make under $40,000 or $50,000 a year can make a real difference in their lives?
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