- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Barrie—Innisfil
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $99,360.72
- Government Page
- Feb/2/23 3:48:07 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Brantford—Brant for sharing his time with me this afternoon. I will admit it is difficult to follow a former Crown prosecutor who understands intimately not just our justice system but the bail system as well. He has done a good job explaining what some of the significant challenges are with respect to our bail system.
It is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the residents of Barrie—Innisfil, a community that has certainly felt the scope of tragedy over the last several months. It started in October with the killing of two South Simcoe police officers in Innisfil, Constables Devon Northrup and Morgan Russell, and two short months after that we found ourselves in a tragic situation where Constable Greg Pierzchala of the Ontario Provincial Police, a south Barrie resident, was killed in the line of duty.
I stood on that bridge, as I did for Constables Northrup and Russell, waiting for Constable Pierzchala's procession to come by with about 100 OPP officers and other members of the community, like Constable Pierzchala's grade 2 teacher, firefighters and general people of the community, who felt the impact of not just what had happened two months prior, but certainly the impact of what had happened just before the new year.
As I was standing on the bridge waiting for the procession to come by, I had an OPP officer come up to me and ask if he could speak to me for a second. He pulled out his phone and showed me a picture. He told me a story of something that had happened up in Orillia. Police had been chasing a suspect in a car. The suspect had ditched the car and ran, but on the floor of the car by the driver's seat was a nine millimetre semi-automatic handgun with an extended mag. It was clearly illegal and it clearly would have put in danger those police officers who were out that night chasing the suspect.
What was most disheartening with what the officer said was that 24 hours after the arrest of the perpetrator, he was out on bail. Let us think about that. The lives of these officers were at risk 24 hours prior to the person being out on bail, carrying a clearly restricted firearm with an extended magazine. The officer said that we had to do something about the bail system. In fact, he expressed the sentiments of OPP Commissioner Carrique after officer Pierzchala was killed in the line of duty. When Carrique stood in front of the media, the media asked him what he thought was wrong with the bail system and how did he feel. Commissioner Carrique said, “I'm outraged”.
Pressure has built up in the system. We have seen it. We have heard throughout the day from my colleagues on the Conservative side of the numerous examples of criminals who have been arrested and then let out on bail only to be arrested again by police officers. That buildup was almost volcano-like, where the lava dome was about to explode. What Constable Pierzchala's killing did was cause that dome to explode.
We have not just OPP Commissioner Carrique, but we have metro Toronto police Chief Demkiw, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the Police Association of Ontario, the Toronto Police Association and the 13 premiers of the provinces and territories from different political stripes, all unanimous in telling us that we need to fix the bail system. We do not just need to fix it for the sake of safety in our communities. We need to fix it for those police officers who put their lives on the line every day trying to keep our communities safe. When they do catch a perpetrator, like they did in Orillia, and see that individual released in 24 hours, that must be frustrating for them.
How tragic is it when an OPP officer, stopping on the side of the road to help somebody in a ditch, gets ambushed by someone who should not have been out on bail because of a previous violent past, and beyond that, was restricted from having a firearm for life? This exposes the weakness in the system.
I have sat through this debate all day and heard members from the government side talk about Conservatives using this to inflame and incite or using it for rhetorical purposes, the most disgusting of which is fundraising. Actually, we are doing our job. We are reflecting the voices of those Canadians, police officers, police chiefs and premiers who are asking for changes to the bail system, as well as those in our community who are demanding it because they feel unsafe.
We have heard the statistics. Gang-related crime is up 92% since 2015. We have seen a 32% increase in violent crime in this country since 2015. A lot of it has a pattern of consistency with bills being introduced that limit or reduce the bail system and that allow those who commit crimes with firearms to have reduced or suspended sentences. We heard the story today about a rape that took place in Quebec where the rapist is at home serving a sentence. What type of system is that?
How are we fulfilling our obligations as parliamentarians to keep our communities, victims and police officers safe when those who are perpetrating these crimes are out on bail within 24 hours in many cases? I think we are abdicating our responsibility if we are not listening to the voices of Canadians, if we are not listening to those who are demanding a call for changes to Canada's bail system.
A lot of the problems result from these pieces of legislation. If we talk to those who understand this and those who see the increase in crime happening on our streets in this country, when we see those hardened, violent criminals getting let out within 24 hours, they will tell us why that is happening. It is because we have a bail system that allows it to happen. I have talked to those police officers, and I, for one, am so glad they are coming out hard on this issue. Who knows better than our police officers what is happening on those streets?
Let us look at the headlines from the last month. I have pulled some out.
The first one reads, “The man accused of killing Const.... Pierzchala was out on bail on criminal charges, including assaulting a police officer”. We all know that.
An article from January 11 reads, “Man out on release order charged in ‘random’ Mississauga stabbing”.
Another reads, “Winnipeg man wanted after car stolen minutes after suspect’s release from arrest in Selkirk”.
A fourth reads, “Man on release for gun charges charged with shooting a gold dealer in a robbery”.
This is happening far too often in this country. It is right for us to question it, as we are doing today, with a call to action on behalf of those who are expressing deep and grave concerns about Canada's judicial system and what has been happening to the bail system since 2015. It is right to question, and that is precisely what we are doing today. We are questioning the government on its inability to deal with this situation. The challenge is that we cannot solve a problem when we have created it. We have an ideological situation here where it has been made easier for criminals to get out on bail as opposed to protecting victims, communities and our police officers.
Finally, I will say that we have a responsibility to do this. The police officers I have spoken to speak of a lack of respect for authority and policing. Criminals know they have more rights than not only the victims but also the police officers who enforce the laws in this country.
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He said: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on this and to advise you that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, a beautiful part of the country. Of course, the predecessor of the hon. member was a good friend of all of us, Gord Brown, who passed away tragically. He was an hon. member of Parliament and conducted himself with great integrity, at one point as the opposition whip, and he is greatly missed in this place.
The reason why I rise today is to discuss a curious part of the bill, the budget implementation act, which, of course, as we are aware of, is an omnibus bill, a bill that includes many provisions in it. It totals, roughly, well over 400 pages, and it is a difficult bill to comprehend, in the sense of the volume of the bill and the amount of information that is in it.
There is one curious issue about this bill that I think requires further consideration by the committee. That is why I stand here today to propose splitting this bill, to really give the committee an opportunity to look much deeper into this aspect of the BIA, an act to enact the civil lunar gateway agreement implementation act and amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, the Criminal Code, the Judges Act, the Federal Courts Act and the Tax Court of Canada Act, containing certain divisions.
Effectively, what this means is that what the government is proposing on this, and this is why it is curious and why it needs to have further study at committee, including the potential for further witnesses to talk about the consequences of this bill, relates to travel to the moon. We are assuming that, obviously, astronauts are going to the moon. I do not think, and I stand to be corrected, that there has been a situation where a Canadian astronaut has been to the moon, but of course we have had several who have been on the space shuttle and have circumnavigated the earth, and we are very proud. One is in the House right now and I congratulate the hon. member for that.
I will note, Mr. Speaker, that you pointed him out, not I, but we are all proud of Canada's involvement in the space program. The hon. member conducted himself very distinguishedly and proudly as an astronaut, and there have been several others before and certainly after. In fact, I recall that, just a couple of weeks ago, the hon. member rose and paid tribute to a fellow astronaut who was part of the space program. When we lose that legacy, it is difficult.
Curiously, I am not aware of any plans. I know there are plans to go to Mars, for example. This part of the budget implementation act did not address the part about Mars, but I am not aware of any plans for lunar landings. I am not aware of any plans that there are going to be any bases on the moon to which these provisions, not just of the Criminal Code but of the tax act, would apply. I assume that if astronauts do land on the moon and they are paid, they will have to pay tax on it. We are just not sure of that and what impact this would have.
I think this speaks to a broader problem, as I speak to the budget implementation act. I am not even sure what the tax rates on the moon will be. I suspect that maybe they would be higher than they are currently. The only good thing is that there may not necessarily be an affordability crisis on the moon that I am aware of. Of course, if the government is still in power when astronauts do land or live on the moon, I suspect it will be looking at ways to increase levels of affordability on the moon.
We are trying to give the committee, seriously, an opportunity to take this part of the bill and look at it in more depth.
As I said earlier, the budget implementation act is an omnibus bill. Despite the fact that the Prime Minister said in 2015 that he would end omnibus bills and there would be no more omnibus bills, there are hundreds of provisions in this bill, which does constitute and classify it as an omnibus bill. What the Prime Minister did in 2015, as he has done many times over the course of the last several years, was break another promise. This is another broken promise not to have any more omnibus bills, yet we have an omnibus bill with this type of provision in it, and it is difficult to understand what the impact of that is going to be.
Therefore, having the committee analyze the bill and extract it from the budget implementation act, basically separate it out to be able to study it a bit further, is important, and it is important to understand what its implications are. As I said, we are not aware of any lunar plans for Canadians to either land or cohabitate on the moon. However, if they are going to be paying taxes and doing some of the other things that this part of the budget calls for, then I think we need to have a better understanding of that.
I want to speak as well to the types of actions by the government. We see an omnibus bill when the government ran on saying it would not be implementing omnibus bills. We are seeing some other things happening, for example Motion No. 11, which we have talked about in this House previously. This all adds to a further decline in democracy and really speaks to the trust in our democratic institutions.
Recently, and I have said this previously in the House, the Ethics Commissioner came to the procedure and House affairs committee and I asked him about the decline in democracy and the decline in the faith that Canadians have in their institutions, all institutions. When we see these types of motions, like Motion No. 11, and promises not being kept with respect to acts like the budget implementation act, which is clearly an omnibus bill, it further adds to that decline in democracy, and I think all Canadians and certainly all parliamentarians are concerned that we are heading in that direction.
Therefore, we should give the committee an opportunity to look at this part of the bill, and there are many other parts of the budget implementation act that in my opinion should be separated and pulled out from the entire act so that the committee can do its job.
On the subject of the debate we have had, perhaps we could have been talking, debating and asking questions of the government as to what this particular part of the budget implementation act means, but the reality is that we were given very little time to discuss the BIA. The government imposed time allocation. I believe there were only five hours of debate on a 400-plus-page omnibus bill and 11 speakers who had an opportunity to speak to it. If not on this, then perhaps on other parts of this budget implementation act we could have asked the government what it means and perhaps debated it and offered suggestions.
What I am trying to do is make sure the committee is able to do its work and look at this particular part, and there are many parts of this bill. I hope it does, for the sake of the faith in our institutions and certainly the faith in our committees. We see other committees that are doing very important work right now, for example the foreign affairs committee, which is studying Ukraine and what is going on in the South China Sea and how Canada can be better prepared for those things. We see games being played by the government, which is adding to this further erosion in the trust and confidence Canadians have in our institutions, and it is certainly adding to a decline in what we are seeing in many western democracies around the world.
We are going to continue to make sure that Canadians have answers. In terms of the level of importance, I would say it is probably not at the top, but there are questions that need to be answered with respect to this part of the budget implementation act, which is why I stand today to ask that we separate this part of the BIA.
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- May/10/22 11:25:48 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to once again rise in the House to speak on behalf of my constituents in Barrie—Innisfil. I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent.
Today is an opposition day, which means that one of the opposition parties gets to decide the topic of conversation here in the House. This is one of two Bloc opposition days this spring, when we get to discuss some matters that are important to the Bloc and I expect to the people of Quebec. With great respect to my colleagues, and I mean that sincerely, we should be discussing issues that are having a profound impact on Canadians and Quebeckers, such as affordability, the RCMP investigation into the fraud of the Prime Minister and his lucky break with regard to that, the Liberals' conduct on foreign relations and government mismanagement with regard to accountability. We have a passport crisis, a fiasco, that is happening in this country that should be discussed. There is also the increasingly sketchy justification shown by the government for invoking the Emergencies Act. That is just to name a few.
This country has never been more divided than it has been in the last six and a half years, along regional, racial, ethnic and faith lines. The division we have seen in the last six and a half years is a result of the Prime Minister wedging, stigmatizing and dividing Canadians. We have been hearing a lot of disinformation in the House from the government side, and it is, quite frankly, disturbing. It relates to the invocation of the Emergencies Act. Talking today about Standing Order 30 will not, I suspect, gather much attention across this country, perhaps with the exception of the House.
I do not know about anyone else, but when I was in my riding this weekend, as I am every weekend, not a single person came up to me and asked what my position was on Standing Order 30. What is Standing Order 30? In short, it directs the Speaker to read a prayer at the start of the day's sitting before the TV cameras are turned on. No one sees this. It is a private moment of reflection for the 338 of us who sit in the House. That is why the Speaker always follows the moment of reflection with “Let the doors be opened”. The doors are opened and the public comes in.
Only on the rarest of occasions has the public ever actually been privy to it. My staff told me, and some staff have been here for more than 40 years, a long time, that the last occasion the prayer was read in public was October 23, 2014. That is the day after the terrorist attack at Centre Block and the National War Memorial. That was the day that Kevin Vickers, the Sergeant-at-Arms who downed the armed gunman in the Hall of Honour, led the Speaker's parade into the House.
Mr. Vickers was rightly greeted with a sustained three-minute standing ovation by a packed chamber that morning. The prayer was read, and I can say that I understand the moment and the incidents of that week really put into perspective the prayer's call to “give thanks for the great blessings which have been bestowed on Canada and its citizens, including the gifts of freedom, opportunity and peace that we enjoy.”
After the prayer, the House erupted into a very emotional and heartfelt rendition of O Canada. Mr. Vickers, the true hero he was, did not gloat in arrogance or beam with pride. Rather, he struggled valiantly to keep his tears to a minimum, much as we might expect any genuine Canadian hero to be: modest in demeanour and deeply humbled by displays of gratitude.
All of that was visible to Canadians that day because the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, who was then the Speaker, made the executive decision to allow Canadians into the galleries and for the TV cameras to be turned on so we could witness it. The House needed it and the nation needed it, especially after a very distressing day in Ottawa, when no one really quite knew what or how much was happening.
The video of that morning of raw emotions when the prayer was open to the public can still send chills down one's spine. That procedure of a prayer normally read in private is rooted, as I mentioned, in Standing Order 30, which traces its origins to 1927, when our rule book went through a significant update driven by a special committee chaired by the Speaker. That amendment was a simple codification of a practice that began in the 1870s after the adoption of a recommendation from another special committee.
The current prayer read daily was developed by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in 1994 under the chairmanship of Peter Milliken, with a view to having a short prayer reflecting the diversity of religions embraced by Canadians. Do we see a pattern here? It is that committees and consensus drove these decisions.
Canada's Conservatives have long held and long observed the importance and necessity of amending our internal rules and procedures through consensus. It is an important point when we are talking about the rules that regulate the balance between governments and oppositions, especially when we consider the fact that Canadians ask Conservatives and Liberals to swap sides of this chamber every few years. Another switch, I am sure, is coming pretty soon.
The approach is just as relevant when it comes to matters of conscience such as prayer. On top of that, we are required by our own rules to conduct a review of our procedures after every election. The motion would have been a natural suggestion to raise then.
Standing Order 51 requires the House to hold a day-long discussion sometime between the 60th and 90th sitting day of the Parliament. The results of that conversation are then referred to the procedure and House affairs committee to consider.
Today is the 68th day the House has sat since the election. Based on our calendar, the 90th sitting day will be on June 16. Quite literally, we are going to be holding a comprehensive discussion about changes to our procedures sometime within the next five weeks.
A member of the Bloc could have used a few minutes of his or her 10-minute speaking slot to make the suggestion and then seen where the committee goes with that idea. Perhaps a consensus would form around the proposal in today's Bloc motion. Maybe the consensus would back the status quo, or possibly even recommend some third approach we have not thought of yet. That speaks to the power of parliamentary committees and of consensus-based rule-making, and it should be happening in this case, as well.
Therefore, I will be voting against the Bloc motion, because I sincerely believe that permanent changes to our procedural rules, and especially on a subject matter like this, really ought to come from a Standing Order review process, be deliberated upon by a committee and be implemented as the result of a consensus-based recommendation coming from that committee of MPs, as they always have been.
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- Mar/31/22 3:55:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Calgary Centre.
Far too often, it is easy for us to sit in this symbol of democracy and lose perspective on what is happening within our constituencies. The affordability factor is real right now. What many people were saying was a transitory inflation period has actually become a state of permanent inflation, and it is affecting everything from gasoline to home heating.
The impact it is having on Canadians is very real, specifically in my constituency of Barrie—Innisfil. A little later I am going to be talking about some of the impacts that were told to me directly from people so that not only this place but Canadians can understand the real impacts inflation and the affordability crisis Canadians are facing today are having on my constituency.
Canadians have been resilient for the past two years dealing with COVID. There have been many government programs that have been implemented. As a result of that, we have seen increases in debt and deficit. The latest figures I heard were $400 billion in deficit and $1.3 trillion in debt. What we are saying, through this motion, is that there needs to be some semblance of getting back to a fiscal framework where we are not seeing those levels of increase in debt and deficit through unsustainable government programs.
There is no question some of these measures that were implemented needed to be implemented. They needed to be targeted. In many ways, Conservatives supported some of those measures, especially at the beginning of the pandemic. We are getting to a point right now where many Canadians, young Canadians, seniors and families, are losing hope that there is a prosperous future for them because of the fiscal situation they are in. This is a fiscal situation that has been exacerbated by government debt and deficit, which is leaving us vulnerable. We are starting to see increases in interest rates and the service level of that debt is going to have a profound effect on families with mortgages, lines of credit and credit cards.
However, it is even going to have a more profound effect on government as this debt piles up and the cost of servicing that debt increases. I would argue there is an attack on many aspects of revenue in this country. We have seen certain sectors of our economy, like the natural resource sector, the fisheries over the last several weeks and other sectors, attacked through legislative and regulatory burdens. Traditional sectors that normally create revenue for the government have been attacked, and that is increasing the vulnerability of not just government revenues but the ability to pay for those increases in servicing costs.
Canadians are struggling more than ever as a result of inflation, which is now at 5.7% and is the highest inflation in a generation. It is the highest inflation rate in over 30 years. Canadians are being burdened not just by the inflation but by the level of debt. We saw just recently a Statistics Canada report that showed $1.86 of every household income coming in is going toward servicing debt. Think about that. Just a year ago or two years ago we were at $1.70. That number is steadily increasing and it is causing a problem. The amount that households have added to their debt burden has amounted to $50 billion just over the last quarter. These are staggering numbers that really put at risk those working-class, middle-class and lower-class households in this country that have been struggling and will continue to struggle under this burden of debt.
What we are talking about today is at least attempting to get this fiscal house in order. History in this country has shown that previous Liberal governments like the Martin and Chrétien governments were very good at fiscal responsibility and social Liberal tendencies. This is where I would classify my politics. I believe we need to be responsible in our finances, but we also need to look after the most vulnerable.
It is the most vulnerable who are at the greatest risk as a result of this debt increase, this debt burden and this out-of-control government spending, debt and deficits. The social safety net programs that many Canadians rely on are at risk as a result of the servicing costs of debt. We really need to get to a point where we are focused on this fiscal framework and getting things aligned. It does not have to come from austerity and it does not have to come from cuts. I will speak about that in a couple of minutes.
We know that the government's spending is certainly out of control. Two-thirds of Canadians say that inflation and an affordability crisis are their top economic concerns. Canadians are requiring real solutions to skyrocketing inflation and the cost of living.
This is not just hitting households; it is hitting businesses. I just had a meeting with the Barrie Chamber of Commerce, and the increase of costs is a very a real and serious threat and concern to the economic recovery of businesses. A friend of mine who owns a local business just got his carbon tax bill, for example, and that bill alone was $1,384. Businesses with tight margins of, say, 10%, have to come up with 13,800 dollars' worth of sales just to pay for the carbon tax. Again, businesses are getting to a point right now where they are becoming uncompetitive.
Gas price is another significant concern. It is up 30% since last year. The price of gas in Barrie today is 167.9¢. Tomorrow the carbon tax is going to see a 25% increase, which means that the price of fuel is going to go up by 11¢. This may not be a problem in downtown Toronto, downtown Montreal or downtown Vancouver, but it is a problem in Barrie—Innisfil, where there are a lot of people who drive to the GTA. They drive for an hour and are filling up their tanks for over $120. I have heard stories that it is costing $120, whereas a year ago it might have cost $65 or $70. This is how much of an impact it is having on affordability for families, and it is taking away from other things. There are seniors who are no longer driving to places for fear that they will have to put gas in their cars, so they are limiting their social interaction at a time when they should be increasing it after the COVID crisis. It is becoming a real problem.
There is a story about the Innisfil Food Bank. It is seeing an increase in demand, but it is also seeing an increase in the costs of servicing that demand because of grocery prices. Here is what happens. When the prices increase and the carbon tax increases, the manufacturers and wholesalers pass that on and we end up paying a price for it at the grocery store. We are already seeing that day in and day out every time people go to the grocery store. The Innisfil Food Bank says that more donations will not be enough because as prices skyrocket, more people can no longer afford to buy groceries.
Just a month ago, I took advantage of the resources available to me through the House. I sent out a householder to my residents and asked this question: “How concerned are you about the rising cost of groceries, gas and heating your home?” I will give a sample of some of the responses that I heard from Barrie—Innisfil.
“I fear my children in their 20's will never be able to afford a home of their own. It's quite heartbreaking”, says Christine of Barrie.
“The price of living makes things extremely hard to live. The amount of taxes we pay is ridiculous. If you don't save while you're young, by the time you retire how will you survive? You work for 30 years in a job and just have a Canada pension”, says John of Innisfil.
In another one from Innisfil, Garry says, “$6.00 increases in OAS. It's time to get something for seniors. We are staving.”
Robert from Barrie says it is “$1.50 per a litre of gas”. That was last month. It is $1.67 this morning. He says it is “$255.00 for 1 month's heating bill. Housing prices + rent [are] out of control.”
Monica from Innisfil says she is “finding it difficult to advance and afford an adult life (kids) and keep up with bills even on a teacher's salary”. She is worried about inflation and says, “a recession will happen”.
Those are examples of what I am hearing.
How do we recover from this? We do not attack those sectors that produce. We make sure that it is about the power of businesses, the people who they employ and the products and services they produce in every sector and region of this country, and that Canada becomes competitive, not just domestically but internationally, so we have the confidence for domestic investment and foreign investment. Let us make sure that we are firing on all cylinders. We have focused on the expense side of the ledger for the last two years. It is time we focus on the revenue side of the ledger, have a budget that Canadians expect, with no wild, out-of-control spending, and make sure that we do things right in this country.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, which he tells me is the number one riding in all of Canada. I happen to think Barrie—Innisfil is.
Let me begin by noting how profoundly disappointed I am with the results of what I thought was a reasonable request on the part of the opposition, through our opposition day motion, to ask for a plan from the government, by February 28, for coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic and limiting or cancelling all of the restrictions and mandates. We are seeing a cascading effect across the country in the provinces, with premiers coming out and telling their people that by a certain date, this is going to happen. This is causing any cynic to be concerned that perhaps the Liberal government does not want to end the federal restrictions and mandates, does not want to unite Canadians and does not want to provide hope to Canadians. After two years of lives and livelihoods being lost and businesses being decimated, somehow they cannot support this, and it only speaks to the fact that the Prime Minister and Liberal Party want this to continue, for whatever reason. I am profoundly disappointed that we are at this point in this country.
I rise today to speak to the Liberals' latest attempt to run roughshod over Parliament. Today the House is considering government Motion No. 8, which sets out draconian terms by which the House would dispose of Bill C-10. The bill is laudable in that it would give the Minister of Health the ability to purchase 2.5 billion dollars' worth of COVID-19 tests, the majority of which would be rapid tests. It would also grant the minister the power to start distributing those tests on April 1 of this year.
Throughout the pandemic, the Conservative Party has consistently and persistently called for greater access to rapid tests for all Canadians. In fact, in April 2020, I was approached by a rapid test distributor and he told me that he was being bogged down at Health Canada and that the approvals process for these rapid tests was not moving as quickly as it should, despite the fact that they were approved by the U.S. FDA on an emergency-use basis and also by CE bodies in the European Union. Arguably, these blue-chip regulators are the best regulatory agencies in the world. That is not to discredit Health Canada, but it was a problem in April 2020 that I was highlighting, and I know that my colleagues were as well.
In the election, we promised to break down the bureaucratic delays that were preventing the approval of rapid tests in Canada, and at that time, tests approved for use in the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union were not approved in Canada. Why was this so, when these blue-chip regulators were already approving them? We promised to make at-home test kits readily available to all Canadians, to deploy rapid tests to the border and other points of entry and to provide provincial governments with enough tests to keep schools open. Our support for the widespread use of rapid tests has been unwavering, and our support stands today.
Despite the fact the Liberals did drag their feet in getting these essential tools into the hands of Canadians, they can count on our support for this legislation. We are not trying to stop the legislation. We are just trying to get some oversight, because we believe this bill could be strengthened and we would like to propose three common-sense amendments.
For starters, if the minister has the ability to deploy the tests sooner, we would support an amendment that would allow him to do so. That is reasonable.
Second, we would propose an amendment to require the contracts for these tests to be tabled in the House. That is another reasonable request. Let us remember why we are asking for this. These are the same Liberals who found time, at the height of a pandemic, to hand $900 million in a contract to their friends at WE charity and another $237-million sole-sourced contract to former Liberal member of Parliament Frank Baylis. I do not think it is unreasonable to expect there would be some oversight and scrutiny on these contracts. The government, and indeed these Liberals, should not enjoy the blind trust of the House. They have proven in the past that this trust needs to be questioned. As such, we should require the highest level of transparency, especially when it comes to urgent spending related to COVID-19.
Third, the Conservatives would propose an amendment that would require the minister to report on the deployment of these tests to ensure they are being used as part of a plan to ease COVID restrictions. In short, we want to ensure that this investment of taxpayer money is used to help Canadians get back to their normal lives.
I would love nothing more than to debate the merits of these amendments, but the Liberals and their coalition partners in the NDP are teaming up to ram this bill through the House. Government Motion No. 8 provides for a shortened debate at second reading and a single vote that would be applied to the remaining stages of the legislative process. If the Liberals get their way, there will be no further debate, no ministerial accountability at committee, no testimony from stakeholders and no opportunity for the opposition parties to make amendments.
The government House leader is offering the House a binary choice, and under this motion, we can either take the bill as it is or leave Canadians with fewer available COVID tests. The government House leader is trying to deny the House a third option: to support a strengthened bill by incorporating amendments from the opposition. Instead, without as much as one word of debate on the bill, the House leader has moved to pre-emptively shut down debate. This motion is a flagrant abuse of power, and the Liberals are being aided and abetted by a hapless coalition partner.
That said, I recognize the need to pass this legislation quickly through the House, and on Friday, I sent a letter to all House leaders proposing a plan to dispose of Bill C-10 by Wednesday of this week. The proposal would have provided for a debate at second reading today, an abbreviated committee study tomorrow and final passage on Wednesday. It also included an order for the Minister of Health to appear at committee and for the amendments to be proposed during the usual clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. My proposal would allow the opposition to apply appropriate scrutiny and to propose improvements to the legislation without sacrificing the government's overall timetable to turn the bill into law.
The House should also be made aware that the Senate agreed to a government motion to adjourn the other place for the entirety of this week. As a result, whether the bill passes in the House today or Wednesday, it will not be considered in the other place until next week. Any due diligence that we apply to this legislation in the House this week will do nothing to delay it from receiving royal assent.
I will now take a couple of moments to address our colleagues in the NDP.
I am calling on them to remember that they are the party of Jack Layton and Tommy Douglas. Back in the day, theirs was a party that stood for workers, for low-income Canadians and for the democratic rights of members of the House of Commons. It is not so anymore. The NDP have abandoned their first principles. Perhaps it is because they have a leader who is more interested in his own social media than he is in social policies and how they impact Canadians.
For example, the NDP openly fights against jobs for unionized pipefitters and steelworkers every time they oppose new environmentally safe pipelines. They applaud the Prime Minister every time he talks about phasing out the jobs of hard-working Canadians in the oil and gas sector. In recent days, they have refused to defend the minority rights of workers who lost their jobs to discriminatory government mandates. They support the Liberal carbon tax that disproportionately hurts the poorest in our society. They support hikes in payroll taxes that make it harder for low-wage earners to make ends meet. The list goes on.
Inside the House of Commons, they have allowed themselves to be the moderate wing of the Liberal Party, and they should be ashamed for that. The Liberals can count on the loyal support of the NDP whenever they move to ram their agenda through the House. Since 2019, when the Liberals were reduced to a minority government, the NDP has supported the shutting down of debate on 14 different occasions. It is high time that the NDP distances itself from the tired Liberal government that is demonstrably anti-working class and increasingly anti-democratic. Perhaps its members can start by standing against this undemocratic motion in the House today. In June 2019, the NDP House leader argued against the Liberal majority government when it moved to curtail debate. Back then, he said the Liberals “promised to work with the opposition parties and all members. Instead, they are imposing gag orders”.
At a time when tensions are rising in this country, let us take the opportunity to demonstrate to Canadians that their elected officials can collaborate in the national interest. We can and should stand together to get the best results for Canadians.
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- Dec/16/21 1:14:05 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-2
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Calgary Shepard.
The ask in Bill C-2 is $7.4 billion, and the bill is being rushed through the House, with little time at committee to deal with another $7.4 billion expenditure. A lot of these types of situations have happened over the last couple of years, since the pandemic started. I recall that back in early 2021, there was a $52-billion spending bill, and the government wanted Parliament's approval in literally four hours, with little opportunity for oversight and little opportunity to provide any sort of transparency or accountability on that spending. Now, here with Bill C-2, we are being asked to approve $7.4 billion.
I want to focus on a couple of points today. Number one is who is left out in Bill C-2. I think it is very important that we recognize who is being left out in the bill. Second, I want to focus on the issue of accountability, transparency and oversight, which are severely lacking in the bill. The member for Carleton asked finance department officials where this money was coming from, and all we heard were crickets. He suggested that maybe there is a money tree in this country that the government is picking money from, but there was no answer. These are the types of questions we could deal with if we had more time.
I am really fortunate to come from the riding of Barrie—Innisfil, which is also known as “Terminal 4”. There are a lot of Pearson airport employees and airline, travel and tourism employees who live in my riding. Many of them have felt anxiety not just over the past 18 months in trying to pick up the pieces of their lives as the travel and tourism industry has been decimated, but also over the fact that in the last couple of days, we have seen advisories from the Government of Canada on travel. They are really curbing back some of the decisions that Canadians have made to travel over the holidays, to travel internationally to warm destinations, which typically Canadians do, or to travel to simply visit family in the United States. A lot of that is not happening, and it is having a serious impact on our travel and tourism industry, particularly the airline sector, which we know has been hard hit over the course of the last 21 months, and those in the travel adviser business, such as travel agents, many of whom have been left out over the course of the last 21 months from many of the benefits the government has provided for relief. Now they are being left behind again.
I heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Tourism say that they will have to apply just like everybody else, but from the discussions I have had with the Association of Canadian Independent Travel Advisors, applying simply does not work. These people did not qualify because many of them are independent travel advisers. They do not have brick-and-mortar properties and do not have storefronts. They work out of their homes. However, they provide $2.4 billion in revenue, at least they did in 2019 before the pandemic hit.
Many of the 12,000 independent travel advisers in this country, like Heather Kearns and Charlene Caldwell from my riding, did not qualify for any of the pandemic benefits. As a result, they have seen a drop, like a drop off a cliff, in their businesses. Oftentimes, they are paid for bookings when those trips happen, so members can imagine what it would be like if we booked travel and that travel got cancelled and clawed back, or if we did not get paid for anything we thought we would be booking.
It has been an awfully difficult 20 months for travel advisers, and it is going to continue that way. What Bill C-2 does not address directly is the demand from the Association of Canadian Independent Travel Advisors, which is for some sort of bridge financing to make it much easier for them to access government programs. I think that is a failure of Bill C-2.
The other thing, which we have heard about from seniors, is the GIS clawback. Many seniors are suffering right now. There is an affordability crisis going on this country, and the cost of home heating, gas, groceries and hydro is disproportionately affecting seniors not just in my riding but right across this country. Many seniors thought to apply for the CERB, and as a result of receiving it, they are now finding out there are GIS clawbacks. The government does address this, but not until May 2022, so many of those seniors will continue to suffer as a result of the affordability and “just inflation” crisis that is going on right now.
Those are a couple of what I think are serious faults in this piece of legislation.
Over the last couple of days, I have heard, as I expect many colleagues in the House have, from travel advisers and other people in the travel and tourism industry about how worried they are over the latest travel advisories, particularly at a time when Canada will be seeing its busiest period of travel. Many of those travel advisers will simply lose more income, so we should have broader supports available in Bill C-2 for the travel and tourism industry. They are not addressed in this piece of legislation, and those independent travel advisers will be severely impacted by this.
The other thing we want to see in Bill C-2, and this to me is extremely troubling, is the level of accountability and transparency that was requested by members of the Conservative Party at the finance committee, in particular for oversight. A FINTRAC report was done, and I will remind Canadians that FINTRAC stands for the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada. Its job is to monitor literally every financial transaction that happens in this country. It issued a report, and it was not until an ATIP request made by Mr. Ken Rubin, who is an Ottawa researcher, was received that the extent, scope and scale of the CERB fraud occurring in this country was known. What the Conservatives were looking for, as part of the amendments to Bill C-2 that were not included in the latest iteration of the bill, was an audit, based on the FINTRAC report, by the Auditor General, a review of some of the CRA actions that have gone on to investigate this simply to pursue the fraudsters.
I will provide some examples of what was in the FINTRAC report, and why this is so disturbing and should be disturbing to Canadians, given the scale, scope and amount of fraud. Who was involved in the fraud is also important.
This report was first published in 2020 by FINTRAC. Do members know how many investigations have been done by the Canada Revenue Agency since? It is zero in 21 months. That in and of itself is disturbing. What the Conservatives were trying to do was bring amendments to the bill so we could investigate that on behalf of Canadians, or at least allow the agencies responsible for investigations to look into the issue of fraud.
The FINTRAC report is an interesting read, and I encourage everybody to read it. I will certainly post it on some of my social media sites. There is a great summary in it, but a lot of the information is redacted. I know my time is short, so I will quickly summarize some of the challenges that went on with FINTRAC and why it was important that they be investigated. It states:
Reporting Entities indicated that criminal organizations, using stolen IDs and individuals recruited via social media, are operating "CERB scams" in certain cities....
This was in 2020, so it is in the present tense. It continues:
...prepaid cards are loaded with CERB benefits and other laundered funds.
Reporting Entities indicated that clients who do not meet the CERB eligibility requirements, or who are fully employed, still apply for, and receive CERB benefits....
A Reporting Entity noted that scammers are using stolen personal identifying information to apply online for CERB/GST refunds and arranging for funds to be deposited onto prepaid/reloadable cards.
We also heard about the gangs and criminal organizations that were using the CERB to fund the purchase of guns.
This is critically important to Canadians. The government shovelled billions of dollars out the door with no oversight, accountability or transparency. We as Conservatives think it is important to investigate this.
There is one other thing I will say. The other day at the ethics committee I asked for members to consider a motion to look into the over $600 billion in pandemic spending that has not been accounted for by the government. That motion was rejected at committee by the Liberal members.
We need to get to the bottom of this so that Canadians have confidence and trust in the government and to make sure we understand where the money is going. It is disappointing to see that amendments on accountability and transparency were not part of the amendments accepted for Bill C-2, and it is difficult to understand why.
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- Dec/2/21 5:22:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today. I will be sharing my time with the member for Hastings—Lennox and Addington. We are very excited to be here in the House.
If you will indulge me for a couple of minutes, there are a couple of people I need to thank, but first let me recognize that the member for Hastings—Lennox and Addington is the cousin of the mayor of the town of Innisfil, one of the towns I represent. Mayor Lynn Dollin will, I think, be watching tonight.
There are so many people to thank. This is the first time I have been able to rise, in debate, in the House of Commons in the 44th Parliament. This is the third time the people of Barrie—Innisfil have sent me here to be their representative. I am very humbled by this. Since 2006, I have served publicly, first as a city councillor for nine years in the city of Barrie, and now for six years as the member of Parliament for Barrie—Innisfil. I am very, very honoured and humbled to be that member.
No one can do this without a team, a big team of not just campaign volunteers, but also friends and families. I would like to acknowledge a few of them right now, if I can, such as Rob Decker, who was my campaign manager, who worked with a group of people that really organized terrifically during the campaign. Then there were Robin McClennan and some of my “big sign guys”, as I call them: Al, Richard, John, Kevin, Barry and, of course, my dad, who has been there since the start of my being here politically. There were numerous “little sign people”. There has not been an election that I have been involved with since 2015 where I have had more signs placed. There were more requests coming in and it was just awfully difficult to keep up with them.
Of course, it has been a hell of a 20 months, frankly. My constituency staff have been there consistently on the front lines, dealing with issues related to the pandemic. I really want to acknowledge them: Susan, Sara, Brandon and Jennifer, and former staff Rhea, Andrea and Chelsea, and of course my family. There is no way any of us could have placed ourselves in this symbol of democracy to work on behalf of the people we represent, not just within our ridings but across this country, if not for the strong support of family. I thank my mom Doreen, my dad Jean-Guy, my sister Cathy, my sister Linda and, of course, my family: my wife Leanne and my four kids. They have been there since the beginning, not just of my previous career as a firefighter but also of my current career as the member of Parliament for Barrie—Innisfil. I cannot do this without them, particularly my wife, Leanne.
Oftentimes, when we run locally within our ridings, we fail to recognize those people who run against us, but I want to recognize them: Lisa-Marie Wilson, who ran for the Liberal Party, and Aleesha Gostkowski, who ran for the New Democratic Party. I also want to acknowledge Corrado Brancato, who ran for the People's Party. I want to acknowledge them, because it is difficult to run and put one's name on a ballot.
Shortly after the election, I sat down with Aleesha Gostkowski of the NDP. I had a coffee with her. We talked about the issues that came up during the election. On many of the issues we talked about, we found we had similar concerns. Those issues were housing affordability, housing attainability and food security for people who are finding it hard right now because of the financial pressures they are facing. I would add one more, which would be energy security.
Right now, we are seeing the cost of everything go up and an inflation crisis that is impacting broadly many people in my constituency, particularly in the area of affordable housing. Rents have been increasing. It is becoming harder and harder for people not just to put a roof over their head, but also to maintain a roof over their head, and no more so than with young people. There is a housing crisis that is happening in this country that we have not seen in several generations.
It is not just housing. It is the cost of everything. The cost of the necessities of life is going up as a result of what we are seeing with these inflationary pressures. Gas, food, heat and hydro are all going up, and it is becoming increasingly difficult. The anxiety that exists today among the people I represent, affordability anxiety, is real. I know that throughout the course of the speeches in response to the Speech from the Throne, we have heard about that, not just from the opposition side but from the government side as well.
The House of Commons is a place where we come as the people's voices. I have been receiving, and I am sure my colleagues have, numerous emails about the affordability crisis that is happening and how it is directly impacting people. I will make them short, but it is important to read them into the record to hear that it is not just me talking about this. These are, through me, the people I represent.
A young man named Justin emailed me. He said, “People my age are” for lack of a better word, it is unparliamentary, but he said “screwed when it comes to housing. We are done for. We will be paying rent of $3,000 a month or more forever, unable to save anything for a home and barely making ends meet.”
“I was distressed when I found out that developers are buying up detached houses with the aim of renting them at inflationary prices,” wrote Sherry.
“I see Barrie is now the highest rent in the country. I am a homeowner. I know that rent is tied to the value of the house, but this is getting out of hand. There are many people in my age group, 25-35 and lower, whose dreams of owning a home have been dashed with the current situation,” wrote Sean.
Speaking about the first-time homebuyers assistance, Greg wrote, “It is awfully difficult to access and it is time for a little non-partisan politics for the benefit of the country.”
Kim wrote to me, “I have been trying to help two friends look for different places to rent in Simcoe County, and I cannot believe how difficult it has been for both of them. This is a serious issue.”
This one is particularly troubling. Steph and Christie wrote, “We are a family of seven. Rent was $800 a month just two months ago, but the landlord sold the house to a new owner and now our rent is over $1,500 a month.”
This is the kind of stuff that is happening not just in the riding of Barrie—Innisfil but right across the country. People are anxious. They are worried about affordability and how they are going to pay not just to put a roof over their head, but for the necessities of life.
In the throne speech, little mention is made of the issue of agriculture. There was nothing of any substance in agriculture. In the large rural area I represent, the producers are concerned about the increasing costs, not just of the products they need to farm but also of heating, dryers, barns, etc., and in particular the impact the carbon tax is having on those.
There is very little mention of guns and gangs. I know we have been talking about that over the course of the last week, the difficulties that are going on and how there is not enough being done to deal with that issue.
There is nothing about the military. One of the things that concerned me as well is that there is nothing about veterans either.
As I said at the outset, it has been a hell of an 18 months. We have really been focusing on the expense side of the ledger through the different supports and programs that have been put in place, but we need to start looking at the revenue side of the ledger and how we are going to pay for this. The only way we are going to pay for this is through the power of the Canadian economy, and it will be led by business: the people they employ, the products they produce and the services they provide in every sector and every region of this country. It does not need big government intervention. We have to be competitive both domestically and internationally, and big government intervention will not allow for that to happen. We need to be focused and tactical in our approach to the way the economic recovery will happen.
Lastly, as I conclude, this Christmas season businesses need our support more than ever. They have been devastated over the last 20 months, and I encourage everyone, not just in Barrie—Innisfil but right across this country, to make sure they shop local and support local as well.
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