- 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
Madam Speaker, this legislation would increase the corporate income tax rates of banks and life insurance groups by 1.5% on taxable income above $100 million. It would eliminate interest on the federal portion of student loans and apprentice loans. Finally, it would enact the framework agreement on the First Nations Land Management Act. All of those are positive steps that are worthy of support in this legislation.
While New Democrats are pleased to see advancement on these measures, we believe there is much more that the fall economic statement should have offered Canadians struggling with the rising cost of living. We know many Canadians are struggling to pay their bills. We also know many corporations are making record profits at the same time. We know inflation is crippling. The price of food, in particular, has skyrocketed across this country. The costs of utilities, insurance and fuels are all up, making it really tough for many Canadians in every corner of this country to make ends meet.
That is why New Democrats would have welcomed a windfall tax, like the one this legislation already applies to banks and life insurers, being expanded to other corporations that are making even higher profits than those sectors are, like food companies, including Loblaws, and like the oil and gas sector. The revenue the government could recoup from applying this tax to big box stores and oil and gas companies alone would total over $4 billion. That is money New Democrats believe would and should be used to help Canadians mitigate the rising costs they are facing, including the cost of heating their homes. New Democrats have long called for the elimination of the GST on home heating in times of struggle like this, particularly as we enter the winter season.
Eliminating the interest on the federal portion of student loans would offer loan holders an average of $4,000 of savings over the lifetime of their loan, and this is important. For years New Democrats have called for the elimination of interest on student debt. We should not be making money off the debt that students are incurring to get an education. Frankly, I have long believed that post-secondary education should be free, at least the first four years, whether it is an apprenticeship, community college or university, whatever it is, so that we encourage and facilitate our younger generation to become more educated. I believe higher-educated societies are more prosperous societies, and it is an investment. Just like public school is free until grade 12, there is no reason we should not extend that to 16 years of public education.
What is not in this legislation is what will have the largest impact on people. It has been estimated that the cost of home heating could go up by as much as 30% in some places in Canada, so eliminating the GST on that would be a simple way to offer Canadians respite in an immediate way.
Food bank usage has drastically increased as the grocery chains that supply Canadian consumers with the food they need to survive are recording profits of $1 million extra a day.
Health care systems across this country are in chaos. There is no new money and no progress after the recent meeting of health ministers for improving health care and ensuring that the federal government increases its share of spending to better approach the fair deal that historically is the underpinning of the Canadian health care system.
The economic policy being used in this legislation is a good start, but it is not broad enough. If we expanded some of these good concepts in a much more broad, targeted and intelligent manner, we could generate billions of dollars that could be used for these very valuable social and economic development programs.
Once again, when we educate our young people, it is not merely good for them. These are people who will generate the ideas, economic activities and professional skills that will generate income into the future, so it is an important economic basis as well.
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- Oct/6/22 3:47:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think the NDP has been the loudest, strongest and longest voice in this House on going after tax havens. We have been raising that in every election I have run in since 2008. We were doing it before that as well. In fact, this motion does talk about forcing CEOs and big corporations to pay what they owe, by closing loopholes that allowed them to avoid $30 billion in taxes in 2021 alone. That results in a corporate tax rate that is effectively lower now than when the government was elected.
Part of closing loopholes is going after that money that is parked in offshore tax havens as a means of extracting the wealth from Canada and parking that capital offshore to avoid taxes. That is immoral and should be illegal, and only the NDP has consistently called for effective action to close those loopholes.
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- Oct/6/22 3:45:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was a pleasure to serve with the member on NSICOP. The motion is, I think, very well crafted. It identifies the problem in a very pithy way, and it identifies four concrete solutions. I suppose there are always things to add, and the Conservatives could have added an amendment if they had wanted to.
In terms of inputs, what we are talking about here is plain gouging. It is my assertion that corporations, including food companies, are using the supply chain problems as a cover to gouge consumers. There is no question about that, because their increases bear no resemblance whatsoever to any of the input costs, including wages, which is usually the single largest component of any product, like a food product. They are gouging agricultural producers as well. It is certainly not our farmers who are reaping the benefits of these prices. It is the food companies themselves. That is why we are zeroing in on them.
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- Oct/6/22 3:43:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would be pleased if the Liberals voted in favour of this. I hope they do, but one vote today is not going to make up for decades of inaction and refusal to make corporations and companies pay their fair share. There absolutely is a comprehensive corporate gouging across all sectors of this country.
My colleague asked what other sectors are doing it. The oil and gas sector is doing it. In fact, some of the biggest oil companies have recorded the highest profits in the history of their companies in the last 12 months. The so-called FIRE sector, which is finance, insurance and real estate, is recording double-digit profit increases, as are other companies across this country.
This corporate gouge is not limited to the food sector, for sure. That is why we need fair corporate taxation, something the NDP has called for over a long period but both the Liberals and the Conservatives have refused to do.
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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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