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Member of Parliament

Niki Ashton

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • NDP
  • Churchill—Keewatinook Aski
  • Manitoba
  • Voting Attendance: 61%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $142,937.96

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 160 - Feb/14/23
Ms. Niki Ashton (Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, NDP)
  • Feb/14/23 11:59:08 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to discuss the Conservative Party's opposition day motion, a deeply unserious solution to a deeply serious problem. Life in our country is becoming increasingly unaffordable for many, for working people, for people on fixed incomes, for people who live here in northern Manitoba and in so many parts of our country. It is clear from the speeches we have heard so far in the House that both the Conservatives and the Liberals are more concerned with the theatrics of being seen to take the issue of the cost of living crisis seriously, but are not prepared to do what it takes and what is necessary to build an economy that works for everyone. We are all familiar with the statistics. More than half of Canadians are $200 away from insolvency. One and a half million Canadians are relying on food banks. One out of every four kids is living in poverty. One third of Canadians live in inadequate, unaffordable and unsuitable homes. First nations children living on reserve are over four times more likely to live in poverty than non-indigenous children. Almost half of all first nations children live in poverty, a number that is in contrast to 12% of non-indigenous, non-racialized, non-newcomer children who live in poverty. In a lot of ways this reality is becoming worse. The median hourly wage for Canadian employees was $26 in 2021, down from $26.36 in 2020. This is a reality fuelled by corporate greed, where prices have increased and Canadians are falling further and further behind, unable to afford groceries, rent and the basic necessities. Nineteen per cent of low-income Canadians in 2022 were forced to borrow from friends or relatives or to take on more debt to survive. The greedflation crisis is increasing the divisions in our country, and those at the bottom are being asked to take on more while the richest in our country thrive. We still live in a country where the six biggest banks can pay out more than $19 billion in bonuses. The median CEO bonus came in at $1.95 million, up nearly 38% from 2020. The typical CEO gets a bonus equal to 170% of their salary, but this is the way our system was designed. A couple of years ago, the NDP looked into the 100 richest Canadians, all billionaires, and to whom they donated. Fifty-six of them donated to the Liberals and 61 to the Conservatives, and are they getting their money's worth. Both the Liberals and Conservatives refused to close down tax havens on which these billionaires rely. They both refuse to bring in a wealth tax. When corporate Canada got out of paying $30 billion using tax avoidance schemes in one year, we in the NDP immediately proposed solutions to end these tax scams, but the Liberals and Conservatives shut that proposal down, as is tradition. This is the Canada where successive Liberal and Conservative governments helped build the system, but we know that it should not have to be this way. Both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Conservative Party have a long record of coddling the ultra-wealthy. Neither the Prime Minister nor the Leader of the Conservative Party are willing to admit it, but I will let Canadians in on an open secret. Both the Liberals and Conservatives largely agree on the majority of issues that affect Canadians day-to-day lives. There may be some degrees of difference. When the Leader of the Opposition was in government, our corporate tax rate was 15%. The current rate, under a Liberal government, is also 15%. When the Conservatives were in power, they gave billions of dollars to big oil. The Liberal government is doing the same. They both have blocked every effort we have made to have a same tax policy, a fair tax policy that ensures the rich pay its fair share. This what they have built, a system that allowed 123 corporations to deprive the Canadian people of $30 billion in taxes in 2021 alone. We are seeing increased corporate consolidation. Shaw and Rogers are about to merge, which would only make things more expensive for Canadians. I say this coming from a province where Bell bought out MTS, and we were promised more competitive cellphone and Internet prices. All we have seen is prices go up. We know that the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry is going to sit idly by while life gets more unaffordable. This is a type of, dare I call it, “champagne socialism” where risk and loss are the responsibility of the taxpayer but profits and price gouging are just business as usual. That is their record. When we in the NDP saw the corporate greedflation driving food costs, we took action. The cost of food recently hit a 41-year high. People in my generation have never seen inflation this high. We knew action was needed, and we called on the Competition Bureau to investigate grocery chain profits. It may not surprise Canadians that grocery stores that had been caught fixing the price of bread in the past could also rip off Canadians trying to feed their families. This apparently shocked Liberals and Conservatives. However, we knew it needed to be done. We knew that there needed to be justice, and we need to make a difference in people's lives. Let us not pretend that this motion is anything other than the type of faux populism we have learned to expect from today's Conservatives. They identify some parts of the problem, such as spiralling grocery costs and unaffordable housing, but then turn around and propose the most harmful of solutions. These solutions, once again, place the burden on Canadians rather than on those driving up costs. Capping spending on services that Canadians rely on will not allow struggling Canadians to afford groceries. Cutting taxes for the wealthiest people in this country will not mean that people are finally able to buy a house. It will just mean that those with the most are still being asked to help the least. This sort of upside-down politics is at the root of what is wrong with our political system. We must imagine a better way. Imagine a government that did not make it as easy as possible for the richest corporations in our country to park their money in tax havens. Under the Prime Minister's watch, Canadian assets in the top 16 tax haven jurisdictions have gone from $126 billion to a whopping $400 billion. The ultrawealthy have never had it so good. Imagine we had a windfall tax, something this government has refused to implement. A recent report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer found that the NDP's proposal for a windfall tax on big oil and gas and big box stores, which includes big grocery chains, would generate $4.3 billion over five years. Imagine what we could do with that money to help Canadians. Instead, we see the CRA targeting Canadians who tried to stay afloat during the pandemic, demanding CERB repayments, rather than targeting corporations that used the Canada emergency wage benefit to fund stock dividends and buybacks. These misplaced priorities punish already struggling Canadians while robbing those same Canadians of the services they could get if we actually took corporate crime seriously in this country. However, we do not. We do not even have real fines for when corporations engage in tax avoidance schemes. They get caught, but there is no fine; they just have to pay the taxes they should have paid in the first place. These general antiavoidance rule violations mean that there is no reason for corporations to keep from trying to cheat the system. The worst-case scenario is that they owe what they should have paid in the first place. We in the NDP have consistently presented a vision where billionaires pay their fair share; Liberals and Conservatives have worked to block it. We have called on the government to bring in a wealth tax, raise the corporate tax rate to 18% and beyond, bring in a windfall tax, close the capital gains loophole and stop the billion-dollar giveaways to big oil. This could raise billions of dollars in revenue taken directly from the ultrarich, which could be spent on the services that Canadians desperately need. I will not be voting for this motion. I am proud that we in the NDP are speaking out against this, calling out both Conservatives and Liberals for their hypocrisy. I will continue to stand up for the people here in my home, including working people and people on fixed incomes who need help now. I will continue to take on the rich and powerful and the two political parties that enable them.
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