That, given that, after nine years, the government has doubled housing costs, taxed food, punished work, unleashed crime, and is the most centralizing government in Canadian history, the House has lost confidence in the government and offers Canadians the option to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.
He said: Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from .
There was a time when every young person in Canada could hope to one day own their own home, a place to call their own, where they could raise a family. There was a time when those young people could dream of a positive future for their children. They could think that one day their children would be able to fulfill the dream of buying a home, that they would live in a country where they could make their hopes and dreams come true and become what they wanted to be, whether here or elsewhere.
Sadly, that is no longer the case. Unfortunately, too often, young families are turning to food banks because they can no longer afford groceries at the end of the month. Today's young families are worried about the safety of their children. That is the case in Montreal, where people are worried about sending their children to day care because supervised injection sites have set up shop next door to schools and day cares. Today, young families are even struggling to find a place to live because the cost of housing has doubled over the past nine years as a result of this Liberal government's policies, which were supported by the Bloc Québécois.
The Canada that most of us here aspired to no longer exists, all because of this 's nine years of inflationary, centralizing and disastrous policies. Now he is being propped up by the Bloc Québécois and the NDP.
Like me, the majority of Quebeckers and Canadians are probably extremely disappointed today. They are extremely disappointed because this Prime Minister is not currently at Rideau Hall, in front of the Governor General, asking for the dissolution of his government. He would have to make that request in English, by the way, because the Governor General still does not speak French.
That is what should have happened. That is what Canadians wanted. That is what Quebeckers wanted. Unfortunately, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois would rather stay the course, to borrow one of the 's favourite phrases. They would rather see Quebeckers and Canadians go further into debt. They would rather watch the cost of everything, from food to housing, keep going up. They would rather implement policies that allow criminals to stay home watching Netflix than put them behind bars. This is the sad reality today, and it is the result of the NDP and Bloc's shameful decision to vote against this motion of non-confidence in this bad government. It is a bad government for Quebeckers. It is a bad government for all Canadians.
It is surprising to see that the Bloc Québécois chose to support this government that is bad for Quebec, considering it was the Bloc leader himself who said on May 23: “The government has two choices then. It can hold off on its aggressive centralization agenda, its abuse of the fiscal imbalance and abuse of spending power until the end of its mandate, which would normally run until late 2025, or it can call an election now to try to obtain that type of mandate”. On May 23, the leader of the Bloc Québécois wanted an election because this government was interfering in provincial responsibilities, because this government was bad for Quebec. Suddenly, yesterday, the Bloc Québécois chose to prop up the most centralist, controversial, spendthrift government ever, a government that is bad for Quebec.
I would like to quote again from the 's May 23 speech. He said the Liberal Prime Minister “has no right to dupe Canadians or the parties in the House. As I said before, if the Prime Minister is so interested in the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces, he can go off and pursue a career in provincial politics, preferably in Ontario.” We certainly do not want him in Quebec.
Yesterday, the Bloc members had the opportunity to send the off to make the leap to provincial politics. Yesterday, they had the opportunity to stand up for Quebeckers and put their money where their mouths are. It is time to walk the talk, as the saying goes. Unfortunately, that is not what they did. The Bloc Québécois made its choice. It saved this bad Liberal government. It had an easy choice to make yesterday. It had a choice between putting Canadians ever deeper in debt, doubling the cost of housing and increasing the cost of food, and calling an election to bring in a common-sense government, a government that will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.
Why do we need to axe the tax? Canadians are earning less and paying more for nearly everything because of this Prime Minister's deficits and inflationary taxes. The costly “Liberal Bloc” has added $500 billion in inflationary spending. The Bloc voted to keep the Prime Minister in place 188 times, and it did it again yesterday. Because of these taxes, Canadians have less money in their pockets and their paycheques are getting weaker and weaker. Canada's per capita GDP has declined for the fifth quarter in a row. It has fallen 3.6% since 2022. By comparison with our neighbours to the south, their per capita GDP has risen 4.5% since 2022. Talk about a gap. To put it more simply, had Canada simply kept pace with the United States over the past two years, our economy would be 8.5% higher. This represents an extra $6,200 per Canadian per year.
It is important to put more money in Quebeckers' pockets while rejecting policies that would cost them more. We know this government is obsessed with making Canadians and Quebeckers part with more and more of their money, including through gas taxes. The Bloc Québécois is fine with Quebeckers paying more in gas taxes. With carbon tax 2, the Bloc Québécois wants Quebeckers to pay an extra 17¢ a litre. There is just no denying that. Bloc members have been very clear. According to them, even that is not enough. They want to radically increase gas taxes for all Quebeckers and Canadians. The reality is that the Bloc Québécois shares the same views, goals and agenda as the Liberals.
The Journal de Montréal reports that food insecurity is no longer a problem that only affects the poor. La Presse reports that one in 10 Quebeckers uses food banks and that Quebec's food banks serve 872,000 people each month. Yesterday, the Bloc Québécois voted to continue down this path. As I said earlier, we need to build the homes. To me, it is mind-boggling that the Bloc Québécois wants to keep standing in the way of young people's dreams of home ownership. Canada's inflation in the house price-to-income ratio is higher than any other G7 country. We need an election so that Quebeckers can put a roof over their heads.
We need to fix the budget and implement measures like finding a dollar of savings for every dollar we propose to spend on a new program. That is common sense. We cannot keep piling debt on our generation and on the next seven or eight generations as well. As for inflation, Quebec leads the pack. Finally, to stop the crime, I think the Bloc Québécois should quit going after law-abiding hunters and try to join the Conservative Party's efforts to target the real criminals and keep them behind bars. The time has come for a common-sense Conservative government.
:
Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this place and join in debate on behalf of the good people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola. I particularly appreciated the speech by the MP for . He made many good points that I hope to follow up on.
Our motion today is a serious one:
That, given that, after nine years, the government has doubled housing costs, taxed food, punished work, unleashed crime, and is the most centralizing government in Canadian history, the House has lost confidence in the government and offers Canadians the option to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.
I have to say that although I did not know about this particular opposition motion until recently, I came to the topic well prepared today. Back home in my riding, I write a weekly MP report to my constituents, as I am certain many others in this place do as well. For the past few weeks I wrote extensively about this particular topic, as I knew, we all knew, it would be coming up in this place.
On September 4, I of course wrote about the 's tearing up his agreement with the Liberal government. When it came to answering a question on what it would mean to have an election, here is what I wrote: “The NDP can, and I suspect likely will, continue to vote with the...Liberal government”. Well, it is almost like I am psychic. Who could have possibly predicted that the NDP leader would continue to stand with the Liberal government after the great theatrical performance of tearing up the agreement?
When I was asked why I thought the staged the theatrical performance, here is what I wrote in response: “In my view, the Leader of the NDP is responding to criticism for what has been his current NDP strategy of bitterly condemning and complaining about things...Liberals do outside the House of Commons that the NDP fully supports when inside the House of Commons.” Once again it was an almost psychic reading of the NDP leader.
Often I like to ask my local citizens a question at the conclusion of my report. The following week I asked the question, “If given the chance to participate in a non-confidence vote on [this Liberal] government, would you opt for an election now or prefer to wait until October 2025?” I suspect it will not surprise any member of this place to learn that an overwhelming number of Canadians want a carbon tax election, and that they want it now. The fact that even the says he no longer stands with a carbon tax speaks volumes. I mention these things because I now can say with complete and total certainty that the good people I represent want a carbon tax election.
Let me go back to the . Imagine for a moment that he broadcasts his own radio talk show. If people ever wanted to know about the incompetent and bad performance of the Liberal government, they could tune in to the NDP leader's AM radio show, as it would be 24-7 talking about just how bad the Liberal government is. It is the same Liberal government about which the NDP leader said, “The fact is, the Liberals are too weak, too selfish and too beholden to corporate interests to fight for people”.
The is clear that the government is the enabler of corporate greed. Let us for a moment surmise that everything the NDP leader says is true. When it comes to the Liberal government's incompetence, he is not really that far off. However, here is the thing. Who is the greatest enabler of the Liberal government? It is, wait for it, the leader of the NDP. I know that is hard to believe. How can someone say that a Liberal government is so incompetent and yet still support the Liberal government every single day?
Once again, this week we learned that after all of the great theatrics, the still stands with the Liberals. It is such a totally nonsensical situation to say, “Yes, I think it is the worst government ever and does not deserve to be re-elected whatsoever, but I will do everything in my power to keep its members of Parliament elected.” It literally makes no sense to anyone, yet it is a “wash, rinse and repeat” tactic for the NDP.
Of course, joining in now is the Bloc Québécois. To some extent, I can sort of see the situation from the NDP's perspective after many years of blindly supporting the Liberal government no matter what. Many people now view the NDP and the Liberals as largely one and the same. When I knock on the doors of many seniors in my riding who were long-time NDP supporters, they tell me that voting NDP used to mean something and that the NDP has lost its way.
I will now go back to the Bloc. The Bloc's suddenly standing with the is something I did not fully expect. After all, the Liberal government has failed to deliver for the people of Quebec just as badly as it has for the citizens of every other province and territory. The Liberal government has literally turned failure into an art form on immigration, foreign interference in our democratic process, softwood lumber and the now $60-million so-called gun buyback program that has not bought a single firearm.
Crime is up massively. There is corruption in the federal program for contracting, complete fiscal mismanagement, and failure with our military and in our foreign policy. Everywhere we look, there is so much failure. That is not good for our provinces and territories. It is not good for Canada.
Worse yet, the Bloc is now supporting a Liberal-NDP coalition that has doubled housing costs, taxed food, punished work and unleashed crime. We know that the has said that there has been “excessive centralization” never before seen in history, and that a government that has difficultly managing it owns missions was starting to get its hands “into the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces.”
There is one quick note I would like to share with the Bloc members in this place. There is a small value-added business in my riding whose owner sources his raw goods from two places. One of those places happens to be Quebec. Every time the carbon tax increases, the shipping bill from the trucking company he uses to get the raw supply from Quebec becomes more expensive. The trucking company literally sent out a note making it clear that it is increasing its shipping rates because of the carbon tax. After the next carbon tax increase, it will be more cost-effective to get those raw goods from outside of Canada. What a shame.
The jurisdictions that do not have carbon taxes and the trucking costs from the border of the B.C. interior are much cheaper than Quebec. The business owner says the carbon tax makes him feel punished for trying to use Quebec-sourced goods or, for that matter, goods from any other Canadian province.
Does the Bloc think that is good for Canada? Why does the Bloc want to become the new NDP and stand with the Liberal government? It is so bizarre. Every Bloc member of this place will have to answer to their own constituents as to why the Bloc is now working for the instead of working for them.
Before I close, I have to come back to something the said recently: “it is the people's time.” I could not agree with him more on this. Why not give the people an election so they can be heard, because we work for the people? I do not know about the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberals, but I work for the people who sent me here. I do not work for the .
Every time they vote against a confidence motion, they are voting against the people and against giving them a say on the Liberal government. It is well past time to give the people their say and have a carbon tax election. It is the people's time. I for one dare the to stand for a change, using his own words, instead of standing for the Liberals.
Canadians want a government that will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. Canada's common-sense Conservatives are ready to do that for them. We believe government should serve the people, not the other way around. Therefore I ask my friends in this place to start putting the pressure on the government and to vote in support of the motion. I do hope that the voices of Canadians will be heard, not just through my words but also through our collective voice as a Parliament.
:
Madam Speaker, it is a little awkward that we are here again today, just a few hours after the House voted non-confidence in the of the Conservative Party of Canada, but here we are. It is a little awkward because there is only one party in the House that does not want to work for Canadians.
Yesterday, after that vote of non-confidence in the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, the Conservatives moved to obstruct debate so that we could not get to a second confidence motion on the ways and means motion. I guess they would be embarrassed to have lost two of those votes in one day. It is the only reason that I can surmise for moving to obstruct the business of the House. Then again, we know that those in the Conservative Party of Canada, its leader and its members, are only here for their own personal political gain. Its members are not here because they actually want to work on behalf of Canadians.
Yesterday, we saw that there are three parties in the House that want to work for Canadians. They are the Liberal members of Parliament, the Bloc members of Parliament and the New Democratic members of Parliament, and they are all here to get work done for Canadians. That is unsurprising to me as we have seen, particularly since this has become the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, that he treats our democratic institutions as a joke. He does not take them seriously.
What I have found interesting is that today, even though they are moving again for non-confidence in the government, there is not the pomp and ceremony. In fact, it feels a little deflated in here. It feels like those Conservative members of Parliament do not have that same energy because they lost that motion yesterday and they are doing it again today. It feels kind of sad and desperate. That is what it feels like to me.
Let us look at the Conservatives' record. When we listened to the speech from the on Tuesday, when he moved that first motion, he asked that we look at his record. He asked that we judge him on his record. There is really only one thing of note that he has ever done when he was in government, and it was not a positive thing. He, when he was minister of democratic institutions, brought forward what was considered to be one of the worst bills when it comes to electoral changes in Canadian history. It was widely panned by experts. It was widely panned by anybody who cares about rights and democracy. The only thing that he was able to accomplish was to make it harder for 500,000 Canadians to vote.
If we want to look at his record, we can see that the only thing he was able to achieve was to limit and decrease the rights of Canadians. He talks about making Canada the freest country in the world, but the only thing he has ever done is to take people's freedoms away. That is not something that Canadians want in a Prime Minister, and it is certainly not something that they want in the . We think about his record as he talks about housing, and it is really cute to hear them talk about housing because of his record as the minister of housing. I can actually count on two hands how many houses he built: one, two, three, four, five, six. There are six in total. That is the record he is putting forward.
Let us take him at his word and look at what his record is for Canadians. The other thing that he did, and he did not do this as a private member, is that he was the architect behind the Conservative plan, when they were in government, to put anti-union, anti-worker, anti-women and anti-abortion private members' bills in place. This is a typical Conservative tactic.
Yesterday in the House, the said that he would not reopen the abortion debate, but then he kind of did a wink, wink and nudge, nudge because that is exactly what Mr. Harper did when he was Prime Minister. He had his members bring those forward as private members' bills, through the back door, so he could pretend that it was not the government that was doing it.
We see that the speaks on one side to say that, no, he is not going to do this, but then he looks at the members of his party who are social conservatives and tells them not to worry, that they can go, all-expenses-paid, down to Florida to anti-abortion conferences to talk about how they are going to bring those American-style politics up to Canada, to limit a woman's right to choose and to limit their ability to access reproductive health care in this country. He says that he will tell everybody that he is not going to do it, but to not worry because they can do it through the back door.
This is the issue that we have when it comes to the : He refuses to tell Canadians the whole truth.
Let me get back to housing because the member who was just speaking talked about the Conservatives' great housing plan. They talk about their great housing plan, but they are not going to provide any funding to municipalities until they build the houses. For anyone who knows how municipalities work, or how development and planning work, are they just going to have a whole bunch of empty houses with no roads to get there, no sewers to use and no electricity? Those development charges, the funding that funds all of the stuff that builds healthy neighbourhoods, are required to get those houses built. The vision that the of Canada is putting forward is a whole bunch of empty homes with nobody able to get there or use them because there will not be any of the necessary services.
He talks about cutting taxes, but taxes pay for the services and programs that we care about as Canadians. They pay for the health care we receive, the education our children receive and the child care our children go to. They pay for the roads, the public infrastructure and everything that makes this country great and gives Canadians a fair shot at success.
Over the past nine years, our government has ensured that people have a fair shot at success and that the Canadian dream is an equal playing field, so that income, family background or where people come from do not matter. All people have an opportunity to succeed because Liberals believe that is the Canadian dream. When we have a who only talks about tearing down the institutions that we have in Canada, the very institutions that have made this country great, that is not leadership. That is not someone who believes in this country or who wants to build a prosperous, successful and equitable Canada where everybody has a chance at success.
Our government is very proud of the record it has had over the last nine years. The Canada child benefit lifted 650,000 children out of poverty. Let us compare that to what the Conservatives did. They had the UCCB, which sent $100 a month to all parents, but it was all taxable. The Canada child benefit is tax-free. That is money in people's pockets that helps with the high costs of groceries, rent and raising a family.
When it comes to senior citizens, what is the record of the ? He was in a Conservative government that raised the age of retirement from 65 to 67. He was in a government that cut seniors' pensions. What have the Liberals done? The first thing we did was increase the guaranteed income supplement by 10%. We increased old age security for those 75 and over by 10%. We also increased the Canada pension plan for future seniors to make sure that everybody would have a dignified retirement in Canada. Our record speaks for itself.
Let us talk about workers' rights. The is going around talking to workers saying that he supports them. He has one of the most anti-worker, anti-union records in Canadian history. He has done everything possible to try to bust unions, limit workers' rights and make sure they do not have the strength they need to continue to support labour rights in this country.
One of the first things we did when we came into office was to reverse those anti-labour laws that Stephen Harper and the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, who was the minister of employment at the time, put forward. His record speaks for itself. He is anti-union and anti-labour. He simply does not care about workers' rights. What Canadians see, when they hear him speaking, is that he only tells half the truth. He neglects the part of the story that does not fit the narrative he wants to put forward, and he is hiding his true agenda. He can tell workers he supports them, but let us look at the facts. Let us look at what he has actually delivered for Canadians workers, and it is anything but pro-union and anything but pro-worker.
Let us talk about the future of the country. Let us talk about the fight against climate change. This is one of the most existential threats that our country, and indeed the world, is facing. If we want to have a country where our children can prosper and grow, and where our grandchildren can prosper, we have to fight climate change. That means we have to have a comprehensive plan when it comes to the price on pollution, the work to do with industry partners and investments in clean technology. We have to have that whole picture because this is a whole-of-society fight that we need to engage in.
The says that he will do things for climate change, but right now, all he has is imaginary ideas that nobody has ever tested. The fact of the matter is that, when he was in government, when Stephen Harper was Prime Minster, we had the worst climate record in the world. Canadians were ashamed of our actions on climate change when the Leader of the Opposition was in government.
We just received news that our climate plan is working. The equivalent of 60 million cars has been taken off the road in climate-emission reductions because of the work we have put forward. Now, let us talk about our international record. Last fall, I thought the House was going to unanimously pass the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement. I thought that would be something that would go smoothly. Instead, we saw obstruction at every single turn, which was led by the .
Canada has stood strong with Ukraine against Russia's illegal occupation and war. Again, we saw obstruction at every moment from the Conservatives. This was apparently because there was something about a price on pollution in the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement, which was an absolute red herring since Ukraine already had a price on pollution. This was simply an update. It was a wink and a nod to the people online who are supporting the Russian occupation. The did not want to necessarily rock that boat because he is one of those people who goes down those conspiracy theory rabbit holes.
He was absolutely against moving forward in support for Ukraine. Finally, he was shamed into doing so, but it took a very long time. It is shameful that he was trying to obstruct and obscure our standing alongside our allies. If we think about it, the very fact that he cannot even get allies in the House to support his little political games makes me wonder how in the world he is going to get allies around the world to support Canada's objectives moving forward.
The takes this place for a joke. He takes Canadians for a joke. Canadians deserve more than that. They deserve more from their political leaders than to be treated as props and to be treated as symbols for political advancement.
On this side of the House, and indeed among the other political parties, the NDP, the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals, we are here to work for Canadians. We will continue to do that. We will continue to advance the important work of the House. The only question we have today is whether the Conservatives will stop playing their silly partisan games, get over these ideas of grandeur and, instead, actually work for Canadians. All we see today is the fact that the Conservatives are only here to work for themselves.
:
Madam Speaker, I think I was a bit hasty in phrasing my question to the leader of the government. We misunderstood one another, but I will come back to this in my speech. I would like her to listen to what I am going to say, and I would like to receive information on Bill .
I would just add that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from .
Getting back to the motion before the House, I would like to start by saying that our Conservative colleagues are not being serious. They are mocking us today. I say that because, two days ago, they moved a non-confidence motion that said the House does not have confidence in the . That is all it said. Our response was that we found it interesting that they thought that. Let me reassure them. We do not trust anyone. We do not have confidence in the current government and we do not have confidence in any Conservative government. My job is to protect the interests of Quebec until we are independent. That is our job. We are trying to make progress every day. We will continue to do so, despite the 's ambitions and his propensity for stamping his feet. He really wants to be emperor, replacing the current emperor. We told them that it was not enough. We will vote on motions with some substance. Two days later, with more theatrics, they come up with the idea of including their slogan in the motion, thinking that we would definitely vote with them. How can anyone take them seriously?
I find it quite sad. I am not making personal attacks, I am talking about the content. As members know, I focus on content, and I want things to move forward. We tell them that it is not good enough and that we are going to vote for things that are important to Quebec. They come back with a motion saying it is time to “axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime”, which they repeat to us ad nauseam, approximately 72 times a day, without ever explaining it. That is what I find interesting. I want to hear them explain what they are going to do.
They tell us in the motion that food has been taxed. I just spoke on Bill , which deals with the carbon tax we keep hearing about. As we in the Bloc Québécois are reasonable people, we agreed to create an exemption for grain drying. The bill already went to the Senate and has come back to the House. All that remains is to vote on it. The first speech I made in the House last January dealt with this, but since then, people claiming to want to make life easier for farmers have been blocking the legislation. They are adding speakers to fill the time and they are not allowing us to vote on the bill. Once we vote on it, it will be settled, provided we accept the Senate amendments, of course. That is the reasonable, intelligent and rational choice that the Bloc team has made, because that is how we operate.
The Conservatives keep yelling at me that the government is taxing food, but I would like them to show me that they do not plan to do the same. Results do not matter to them. What they want is an election. They are scheming for power. Nothing else matters. All they want is to score political points, spout slogans, generate sound bites and rake in money. They are not working for the people.
They talk to us about housing. Many times I have heard government representatives say that the Leader of the Opposition, while serving as housing minister, created something like six affordable housing units. I must confess, I did not check this figure. We hear it often. There must be some truth to it, although we should exercise caution. Everything said in the House is not necessarily true. We have to be careful. There is no proof. We will be careful.
People talk to us about interference and a centralist government, but the opposition leader is directly threatening cities with funding cuts if he does not like the look of the mayor. That is quite something. We are hearing that if a mayor is incompetent, their funding will be cut. First of all, he has no right to do that in Quebec. That has to go through Quebec. There is more to it than that.
They might be angry because they received only 12% of the vote in LaSalle—Émard—Verdun. They are hot and bothered about getting a more positive vote, maybe. Even yesterday, members began saying that the Bloc Québécois was no longer party of the regions because we captured a Montreal riding. That is interesting. We in the Bloc work for everyone.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Mr. Yves Perron: Madam Speaker, we are indeed a party of and for the regions, but if my colleague wants to ask questions, he can do so after my speech. I will be pleased to answer. I have been speaking for five minutes already. It is crazy how fast it goes.
We are here to make gains for Quebec. We have two conditions. We want our seniors to have a decent standard of living. There has been enough dilly-dallying. Seniors aged 65 to 74 need money just as much as seniors aged 75 and up. Let us not create new discrimination. Let us let them make a little more money before taxing them on that income.
The other big thing is the protection of supply management in future trade negotiations. That one is the easiest condition to meet because our bill is already before the Senate, which started working on it yesterday evening. We are very pleased about that, even though we have learned some rather troubling things. I want to point out that the bill is getting a lot of support from senators, but there is also some opposition. I think that we we need to go talk to those people. We really need to put a rush on this. We need to move forward faster. The House passed this bill in June 2023 and now it is September 2024. I would have expected the Senate to examine this bill in September or October of 2023, but it seems as though it was set aside. It is a private member's bill, which means that it less of a priority than government bills.
It is no ordinary private member's bill, however. It obtained official approval from the executive branch of the government via the minister of agriculture and agri-food at the time. It is a serious bill, and the government supports it. If it really supports it, it should support it in the Senate as well, yet that is not what we have seen until very recently. It is good that the subject was raised in the Senate yesterday. The committee chair wanted to reassure us by saying that they had other fish to fry, but now that they had started working on it, it would not take long. We want to believe them, and we are watching. The senators are aware of our deadline here, that is, the end of October. The bill needs to be studied. I do not expect every senator to vote in favour of it, but I expect the bill to be studied on the Senate floor. We are certain we can win the vote, because we got an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons with 262 votes for and 51 votes against. Even a majority of Conservatives voted in favour of the bill, despite all the obstruction. I want to point out that the bill is getting similar support in the Senate. I have people on my side.
Things need to move forward. Why do we need to move forward? Because it is not certain whether we will get another chance to protect supply management in the near future, and because more international negotiations are coming. Yesterday we heard several times that there will be a review of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA. Before reviewing CUSMA, can we clarify our mandates? There is a way of clarifying mandates. In terms of supply management, they did their part. It is almost 10% in every sector. It is even worse for milk at 18%. As someone I know well would say, that is enough, anything more will be untenable. That is what is happening, because people need to understand that supply management is a balancing act. Prices are controlled, market supply is controlled. To be able to do that, we need to control what is coming in from outside. With milk at 18%, that means one quart of milk out of every five will be coming from outside. It has not happened yet, but we are getting there gradually. It will be difficult to maintain a balance. More than that and it collapses. It will not work any more.
If people have no intention of protecting supply management, then they should be honest with the farmers and say so. They should uphold the value of the incredible system they put in place, that preserves family businesses, that preserves the vitality in each of our regions, that allows businesses to run, from the Gaspé to Abitibi and to Montérégie with the same transportation costs. The supply management system is so good, so effective. It provides a very stable ecosystem for all other agricultural production.
I could go on all day, as I am sure you know. Unfortunately, I have only a few seconds left. I have 15 seconds left to tell you that this needs to get moving. My message to my Conservative friends today, whose questions I am looking forward to answering, is let us be serious. Let us be serious and work on the issues. There is going to be an election, do not worry. Our decision not to trigger an election today is not made out of fear.
:
Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to follow my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé, whom I greatly appreciate.
I would like to begin with a bit of background about when Parliament resumed. I will outline what has happened since we returned to the House. Hearing our explanation may help people better understand our reasons for voting for or against the motions moved by the Conservatives. My basic premise is that some people need to have things explained to them for a long time before they understand. I will explain things for as long as it takes.
This fall, at our caucus meetings before Parliament resumed, this was the approach we were taking. We were thinking that, for the first time in about two and a half years, the Bloc Québécois had the opportunity to capitalize on what should have been the norm for the past two and a half years, namely a true minority government.
The people decided that this would be a minority government. However, what we have seen is that it has acted like a majority government with the NDP's help, which means that the government in power did not reflect the will of the people for two and a half years. Today, after the surprise termination of the agreement at the end of the summer, things are back to normal, that is, we have a minority government that is obliged to negotiate with the other parties. The Bloc Québécois now holds the balance of power that had slipped through its fingers in recent years. However, that did not prevent us from making headway. The opposition parties play an important role in both minority and majority governments. We proved that with the bills we pushed through despite everything and which I will address a bit later.
We saw that we had the balance of power and that we had an opportunity we have not had in a while. We were not going to discard it the first chance we got. We decided to take the opportunity to get more for Quebec. In some cases, these gains will also benefit all Canadians, and I say good for them. The Bloc Québécois is not that chauvinistic.
That is why, yesterday, we set out specific goals we wish to achieve, explicit gains we want to make before a set deadline. Unlike the NDP, who tied its own hands for two and a half years, we do not intend to blindly support the government until fall 2025. We do not intend to remain uselessly patient and allow the government to refuse to make a decision for absolutely nothing when it comes to our demands.
Our two main demands concern seniors and supply management. Our deadline for achieving our demands is the end of October, which is reasonable in both cases. It is reasonable in terms of content. The two bills in question are Bill , which was introduced by my colleague for , and Bill , which was introduced by my colleague for and other members, including the member for and the member for , who preceded me. These two bills have already made their way through the House. At worst they are the subject of a relative consensus and, in some cases, they received a large majority of votes.
Bill , progressed so well that it made it to the Senate. We are therefore asking the government to perhaps make it easier, to ensure that there are no useless obstructions so that this bill can get to an irreversible point, as our leader mentioned. We want it to reach the point of no return by obtaining royal assent.
The same is true of the bill for seniors. The bill passed second reading. It was sent back to committee. The committee produced a report that received the unanimous support of the parties. There should not be any problem. This is an absolutely essential matter we are working on. This unanimity did not come out of thin air. It represents more purchasing power for seniors, regardless of their age, starting at age 65. It is the opposite of what the government was trying to do when it created two classes of seniors, when it created a difference between seniors age 65 to 74 and seniors age 75 and over.
Yesterday on Téléjournal we saw some statistics concerning seniors' needs.
It was reported that 59% of seniors aged 75 and over earn less than $30,000 a year, which is not much. In the case of seniors aged 65 to 74, that proportion is 54%. Despite all that, until recently, the government was telling us that seniors aged 65 to 74 do not need as much money as seniors who are 75 and over and that this older group really needs help. As if the cost of living were not the same for both groups. As if groceries cost less when you get to age 75. As if there were an additional discount. As if prescription drugs were less expensive.
The Bloc Québécois could not make any sense out of this and decided it was time to put an end to the discrimination. The argument that one age group has fewer needs than the other does not hold water. That is evident when we look at who is getting the GIS, and we should note that anyone receiving the GIS cannot be that well off: 39% of seniors aged 75 and over are entitled to the GIS, while 29% of seniors aged 65 to 74 qualify to receive it. Our motion will make it possible to enhance the old age pension, the OAS, which will benefit many seniors who need it, despite the arguments we have been hearing from the government that these people are not a priority.
Our measures are reasonable, and so is our deadline. We said October 29, which gives the government almost five weeks to get these bills, which are already at a late stage, passed. In the meantime, we do not intend to lose this opportunity to make gains. That means, and this is no surprise, that we will be voting against today's motion. I hope that the Conservatives understand why, if they are listening at all to what we are saying.
That is how we work. We take a logical approach. We work to make gains for our constituents. That is exactly what we are doing. If, like some people, we were only interested in ourselves, we might be satisfied with our victory in the riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun. We might be satisfied with the polls, which show we are in a pretty good position, and decide that, if we call an election right away, it will be good for the Bloc Québécois.
No, we chose to do what is good for Quebec, as we have always done and as we will continue to do. If, for example, we make gains and obtain results with Bill and Bill , we will not let the government walk all over us by bartering support for interference, for example. We will not vote in favour of something that is bad for Quebec because we managed to achieve something good for Quebec. We will not change who we are in future votes. I hope that both the government and the Conservatives understand that. We are telling them our strategy for the future, in case they missed that. If it is good for Quebec, the Bloc Québécois votes for it. If it is bad for Quebec, the Bloc Québécois votes against it. That will never change.
When we are asked whether we have confidence in the government, the answer is that we do not trust the Liberals any more than we trust a potential Conservative government to look after Quebec's interests. It is a good thing that the Bloc Québécois is here, because the Conservatives and the Liberals are both the same. They both want to attack Bill 21, and neither have any lessons to give in terms of oil subsidies. When it comes to immigration, the war Quebec is waging may have begun with the Liberals, but we have no guarantees about what the Conservatives plan to about another one of Quebec's demands, namely, the distribution of asylum seekers, since this is at a standstill with Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. What do those provinces have in common? They all have Conservative premiers. These are the same people who are unable to respond to Quebec's needs and who are saying that Quebec needs to figure things out itself.
When we are asked whether we have confidence, the answer is no. The only confidence we have is in ourselves and our ability to make gains. That is how we are going to operate moving forward. We are also not worried about an election. We are ready. If we need to campaign in the snow, then we will bundle up and do that. There is not much that scares the Bloc Québécois.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to split my time today with the incredible member for .
Here we are again in the House of Commons debating one of the Conservatives' ridiculous motions that they bring forward time and time again. There are Canadians who are struggling to put food on the table, who are struggling to pay their rent or buy their first home and who are struggling in our country. Imagine what it must feel like for them to see the gamesmanship, the ridiculousness and the baffling behaviour of the Conservatives.
On Tuesday, we had a debate just like this, and every single member of this House, except the Conservative members, voted non-confidence in the . We are doing it again. We will just keep doing it because the Conservatives seem to have no ideas, no suggestions, and no policies to bring forward to help Canadians. They want to have bumper stickers and slogans, and they want to waste our time in the House, when we really should be debating important legislation that could help Canadians right now.
I also want to point out the Conservatives are deeply unserious and they are misleading Canadians. I do not say this lightly: They are a danger to our democracy. They will not speak with media. I do not know if everybody knows, but they will not speak to the CBC and now they will not speak to CTV. Clearly, they do not recognize that media plays an important role in any democracy. Media is allowed to ask questions of the opposition, questions that they clearly do not want to answer. They would rather have their YouTube videos and their 30-second slots where they do not actually have to answer any difficult questions.
What is the Conservatives' actual policy? Do they believe in climate change? Are they homophobic? Are they anti-women? Will they take away women's rights to reproductive health? They do not want to answer those questions.
The member for has come to this House and talked about the fact that he would take away rights for gay marriage and he would take away rights for women. Yesterday, we saw a disgusting display of homophobia from the member for . That it is horrendous and he should be ashamed—
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Madam Speaker, I would just like to very briefly say that, if somebody had said something horrendous and homophobic in this chamber, one would expect that hon. member to have the dignity and bravery to admit what they had done. One would expect them not to have cowardliness. I am not necessarily attributing this to any one person, but I am certainly saying they would probably be able to be much braver and admit they had done that, particularly as it is on film and there are tape recordings of it.
I will now continue with my speech on why this motion and this day, frankly, are so embarrassing. We need to be working to make sure there are things happening for Canadians, that the things Canadians need to make their lives more affordable, easier and better are being done. That is our job in the House. It is what we do here.
Of course I am extraordinarily proud of the way New Democrats were able to push the Liberal government to bring things such as dental care forward. Hundreds of thousands of people across this country will benefit from dental care; I see this as one of the wonderful things that have happened in this Parliament. That the NDP was finally able to get the government to move on pharmacare is important. These are important pieces of legislation, things that will help Canadians across the country. They will help seniors and children, and I am very proud of that.
The reason I will not be supporting this ridiculous motion, or the next five ridiculous motions I assume Conservatives will bring forward, which will be exactly the same as this one, is that the Conservatives are so dangerous for Canadians. I was not in politics when Stephen Harper's government was in power. I was not a parliamentarian then, but I saw the way Stephen Harper cut supports for women and defunded women's organizations. We know the Conservatives will cut supports for women.
There are members on their bench who, time and time again, have been clear. It is not just the member for but also the member for and the member for . They do not believe in a woman's right to choose, and they will try to take away a woman's right to reproductive health care. We have seen it happen before, and they will do it internationally as well. We know they will cut health care.
I live in Alberta, where Danielle Smith is dismantling our cherished health care system.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Ms. Heather McPherson: Madam Speaker, it is shocking to me that there are members from Alberta heckling me right now. They do not understand that 58% of doctors in Alberta have said they are going to leave their practices because of the current provincial Conservative government. The cuts to health care are fundamental, and we cannot allow a Conservative government to take away those things that are vitally important for so many people.
Conservatives have made it very clear that they will cut dental care, pharmacare and health care. I want to talk a little about pensions. The CPP is rated the number one pension in the world. Currently, Danielle Smith is trying to take Alberta out of that pension, despite the fact that there is little support for that in Alberta. The overwhelming message that Albertans are giving their elected leaders is that they do not want Danielle Smith messing around with their pensions.
Right now, in this country, protecting our pension would require the government to implement a private member's bill. I have drafted such a bill, put it on the Order Paper and even sent it to the and said she could have it. The government could copy our homework again; they should just do it to protect pensions. We are seeing an attack on pensions. If the Conservative Party becomes government, we know it will cut the pensions our seniors depend on.
Members should not get me wrong. The Liberals have failed to live up to their obligations to seniors. We have talked about how terrible it is that they have a two-tiered system of OAS, where seniors between 65 and 74 are not given the same support as other seniors.
At a moment when the cost of living is going through the roof, seniors are struggling to pay for rent and for all of their needs, including food and health care. However, the Liberals somehow believe that, in some magical universe, seniors aged 65 to 74 pay less for that. They promised Canadians that they would fix that, and fixing it halfway is exactly why Canadians are tired of the Liberal government. It is one thing to say something; it is another thing to do it halfway. Frankly, these are some of my concerns.
I am also the foreign affairs critic. I want to say that, when I think of the Conservatives, I am deeply worried about their waning support for Ukraine. At this time, Ukrainians need all of us to be working together to support them. What we have seen from some members of the Conservative Party is that they are willing to turn their back on our ally. That could be because of the Russian misinformation that we know is happening; some Conservative social media people have been clearly identified as being in the pocket of Putin and the Russian Federation. Frankly, I know many of those things have been shared by some members of the Conservative Party.
I worry about some things that we have seen and heard from the member for . He says that he accidentally seems to end up in front of Nazi flags. He accidentally ends up at dinners with people who are assaulting the members of my party. He accidentally ends up having conversations with an awful lot of people. It seems strange that no one else accidentally has those things happen to them—
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Madam Speaker, as always, it is a great honour to rise in this House, although I have found in my 20 years here that the House has sometimes not lived up to its standards of credibility. People expect us to come here to be their voice, a voice that brings some kind of hope and direction, and I do not see that here most days. Most days, it has become a very dumbed-down and vicious affair.
Today, the is once again demanding an election. We have not really seen much from him, except that he wants the election right now. Yesterday, he wanted an election right then, and the House voted non-confidence in him because there is no trust in the Conservative leader. This is because we have such serious issues facing us as a nation and as a planet, and the Leader of the Opposition is not a serious leader for dealing with them.
We could be here talking this morning about the homeless crisis, which is a devastating crisis. We know that the Liberals have failed multiple times on their housing plans, but what is the plan of the , who lives very well in a 19-room mansion at Stornoway with his own private chef? He attacks municipalities. He ridicules our mayors. When he comes to northern Ontario, he does not bother to meet with any of the frontline people who are trying to solve the housing crisis. He says he is going to go after them and calls them gatekeepers. That is not a plan; that is a slogan.
We talk about the rising use of food banks. The Conservatives wipe crocodile tears every time they talk about hungry children, yet they voted against a national nutrition plan for schools. The New Democrats pushed the government to address and fill the gaps, but the , who has his own private chef, seems to be out of touch with that.
A huge opioid crisis is devastating our communities. What did the and his MPs do? They viciously attacked medical doctors and frontline nurses, to the point that doctors trying to keep people alive have faced death threats. That is not acceptable. It is not acceptable that MPs face death threats from the mob, whom I see Conservatives patting on the back every day. There are people threatening and attacking indigenous MPs, attacking women MPs and attacking racialized MPs, but to attack and threaten medical doctors is not what a leader does. Those are the tactics of the Leader of the Opposition, and he wonders why we do not have confidence in him running our country.
We have a number of huge international crises. With the situation in Lebanon and Gaza, a humanitarian disaster is unfolding, yet the member for had nothing to say about the threats facing Lebanese Canadians and the Lebanese people. He had nothing to say about it because if those in the Conservative caucus do not repeat talking points, they do not get a gold star and they sit on the backbench. That is not leadership. We are all brought here to represent our communities. In Edmonton Manning, the Lebanese community is living in terror from the Israeli air assaults, and the member says nothing because he wants to get the gold star from his leader, who lives in the big mansion in Stornoway, by repeating and repeating the same dumbed-down slogans. People's lives are at risk. We are watching—
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Mr. Speaker, I invite the member for to come into the House and say it. I do not read his Twitter feed. Who does? Not many do, but I know they read mine.
This shows the lack of seriousness about a horrific humanitarian disaster, the genocide happening in Gaza, with people dying, the targeting of medical doctors, the targeting of civilians and the targeting of journalists. This is something we in the House would deal with, but what we have learned from the is that he has no interest in standing on the international stage. He ridicules the for staying at an expensive hotel. Well, he is the leader of a G7 country. I guess the Super 8 was booked the weekend he went to London. The Leader of the Opposition has to show a vision, but he does not have a vision; he has division.
The opposition could have brought in a motion today on the crisis we are facing in our medical system, but the has no vision on that; he has bumper sticker slogans. His great favourite words are “radical” and “extremist”, and he is now saying that providing diabetes medication to people who need it is a radical idea. No, that is just plain human decency. That is what we should doing in Canada, but decency is not part of this leader's mantra.
What we have is a Conservative leader who has taken the fears and uncertainties of Canadians and pushed them down into dumbed-down slogans, which he has insisted that every member on his team repeat. I have been 20 years in the House and have never seen so many members reduced to caricature rhyming schemes. It is like a toxic Dr. Seuss, and the Conservatives repeat them again and again: “I don't like green eggs and ham. I don't like them, Sam-I-am. I don't like the carbon tax.” That is not leadership.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Charlie Angus: Mr. Speaker, I got a laugh out of them. They smiled and woke up because they are used to hearing these dumbed-down slogans. That is not leadership.
Why is the , whom I have known for 20 years and I feel is fundamentally unfit for public leadership in any capacity, is so desperate to call an election now? There are a number of reasons, and I think he does not want to be questioned about them because he has incredibly thin skin.
Members will notice that to the , it is carbon tax, carbon tax, carbon tax. Well, Ken Boessenkool, who is a long-time Conservative, said that he is not serious about the carbon tax: “I just don't see any government in any future getting rid of that”. He also said:
Look, there’s a huge gap between what Conservatives say and what Conservatives do. And I hate to admit this, but it’s true. Jason Kenney ran on “Axe The Tax” and he beefed up the industrial carbon price in Alberta. Danielle Smith ran on “Axe to Tax” and she not only beefed up the industrial carbon price in Alberta, she said she was going to go to $170 (a tonne).
When we asked the , who lives in the mansion at Stornoway, what his view of the industrial carbon tax was, he said that it did not exist. He does not like to be questioned. No wonder he is so mad at CTV. No wonder he is so mad at CBC. No wonder he attacks Global TV. He does not want the questions. He is trying to stay ahead, which is why he wants to force an election.
I think it is really important to point out that with the foreign interference inquiry, documents have been tabled that say Erin O'Toole believes he was taken down as leader of the Conservative Party by foreign interference. That was in the documents. We know that many in the cabal over there supported the takedown of Erin O'Toole, and the one who benefited is the man now living in Stornoway. Why is he is not willing to be in the House to answer questions about foreign interference in his caucus? Maybe that is why he is trying to force this election. These are really important questions.
Of course, I think the other reason the is trying to force an election is to stay ahead of the extremists in his caucus. The member for went down to Florida to vow that he would end the right of women to make choices for their bodies, while we see in the United States women dying in parking lots from bleeding to death internally because they are unable to get a proper abortion. This is what the member for would say. We know the member for brought, on the Canadian dime, a legislator from Uganda who called for the death penalty for gay people. Let us stop and think about that. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan had Canadians pay to bring someone here who wanted to bring the death penalty to gay people. That is his caucus.
Therefore, when we see degrading and debased behaviour in this House, and these really ugly slurs against the of the country, and not one Conservative will stand up and admit they were the one who said it, it is because they hide behind their hate machine. However, we see them. We have it on tape, we see the footage and we know those who are making the hate. We know that people like the member for can only get away with it as long as the light is not shone on them, and we will continue to shine that light.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House. I am always conscious of the honour that people have bestowed upon us by choosing us to represent them. We must take the people's grievances and aspirations to heart and champion them by all the means available to us in the House.
I would like to note that I will be sharing my time with my wonderful colleague from . I will read the motion first, because it is very important:
That, given that, after nine years, the government has doubled housing costs, taxed food, punished work, unleashed crime, and is the most centralizing government in Canadian history [and that ought to get the Bloc Québécois's attention] the House has lost confidence in the government and offers Canadians the option to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.
This is far from a frivolous, much less capricious, motion or claim by the Conservatives. We are all hands-on people who spend a lot of time in our ridings. We spent the summer criss-crossing our constituencies. Quite frankly, if members of the other parties contradict what I am going to say today, it just shows that they are not hands-on people, that they are out of touch. Almost everyone I met seemed to feel that this government's day is done. The Liberal government may not be happy to hear it, but even long-time Liberals are telling me that enough is enough and that we really need a change of government.
Why do we need a change of government? It is because Canada is no longer the country we have known since its foundation. It is no longer the Canada where dreams are possible, where a couple or a small family can build a home, or where having children, feeding them well and ensuring their well-being and growth is easy, like it was for so many years until now.
Is it right that, today, two million Canadians are using food banks? Is it right that there is so much homelessness in a country as rich as Canada? How can people just pretend that these problems do not exist and say that the Conservatives are being ridiculous with their motion to bring down the government? Things need to change. They have been like this for nine years, and there is nothing that shows me that keeping the Liberals in office longer is going to fix things.
The has been hammering this home for months. He has been voicing the distress of Canadians and Quebeckers. Unlike what various members of the House have suggested, we have outlined the broad strokes of what we want to do, particularly in terms of housing and of getting our fiscal house in order. To support my position and to make sure that everyone knows why we moved this motion, I want to remind the House of a few very important facts that will bring home the reality that we are facing.
Let us talk about the budget. The Liberals have increased the number of public servants by 40% since they took office. There are an extra 100,000 people on the government payroll. Do members recall what was happening last year at Service Canada offices? People who needed passports and other federal government services were lined up out the door and camping outside Service Canada offices. That is not even to mention immigration and the endless delays there.
The debt has increased so much that it has actually doubled since the Liberals took office. Debt charges are now at an all-time high. They cost more than health transfers. They are equal to the amount Canadians pay in GST.
Inflation has reached a level beyond anything we have seen in the past 40 years. Everyone knows it. Everyone is aware. Everyone is experiencing it every day. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, a serious institution, Canada's economic growth is projected to be the worst of all member countries over the next three decades—not the next three years, but the next three decades.
This Liberal has personally increased the debt more than all prime ministers on that side combined. Need I remind the House that, since 2015, nine years ago, the Liberal government has not balanced the budget even once? No father or mother, and certainly no single mother, would ever manage their household budget so irresponsibly. We are the trustees of the public purse. We are entrusted with public finances, taxpayers' money, to use it intelligently. Over the past few years, since 2015, the Liberal government has not balanced a single budget. It has run deficits every year.
No one here thinks that there was no need for any effort to be made during COVID-19. That is not what we are talking about. Before COVID-19, our economy was flourishing, things were going well. The government said it would run small deficits, but that it would not matter. The Liberals made a lot of promises that they never kept, especially when it came to housing. The Liberals promised us housing. Does anyone how many homes will have to be built between now and 2030 to meet all of Canada's housing needs? A whopping 8.5 million. The cost of housing has doubled, rents have doubled, mortgages have doubled. There is not one young person left who can afford to buy a house. Young people can barely afford a two-bedroom apartment.
I will remind members of what the leader of the Bloc Québécois said recently about the federal Liberal Party. He said, “The government has two choices then. It can hold off on its aggressive centralization agenda, its abuse of the fiscal imbalance and abuse of spending power until the end of its mandate, which would normally run until late 2025, or it can call an election now to try to obtain that type of mandate, which I strongly doubt that Quebec will consider.”
That was on May 23, 2024. The leader of the Bloc Québécois rose in the House to speak on behalf of his party. Today, the Bloc leader is so filled with hubris he reminds us of Louis XIV, who used to say, “I am the state”. He is telling us that things will no longer work like before and that the Bloc Québécois will not support the Conservatives.
I do not have enough time to thoroughly demonstrate this government's negligence, as I wanted to do. The Premier of Quebec, who is the head of the Quebec government and who represents all Quebeckers, says that he no longer has confidence in the government. Everyone knows that this is the most centralizing government ever. The Bloc Québécois voted against our motion last Tuesday. Then they unabashedly say that they will not vote for our motion next week. What country are they living in? They are living in Canada, where children are hurting and where people cannot find housing. It is high time that we got a new government.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a tough act to follow after a great intervention from my colleague from Quebec.
As a proud son of immigrants, I have seen that struggle at home personally. My parents chose Canada about 40 years ago. They came to this country a blue-collar, working-class family with not much in their pockets. My dad worked at the same factory for about 30 years. Growing up, I did not get a chance to see him at home. He would leave at two in the morning and he would come back at 8 p.m.
As a young father myself, I understand now how hard that sacrifice is. He made that sacrifice for me, for that next generation, because Canada had a promise that if people worked hard and played by the rules, they could achieve that Canadian dream, that dream of home ownership, of buying a decent home in a safe neighbourhood, of going on a vacation once in a while.
That sacrifice my dad made, Canadians are making that every day. They are working harder and harder in the hope that the next generation will do better than the previous. Sadly, after nine years of the Liberal-NDP government, we are starting to see that hope slip away. That Canadian dream, that Canadian promise that so many have fought hard for, is starting to leave our country.
We have the worst economic crisis in my lifetime, in the last 40 years. Two million Canadians are lining up at food banks and 1,400 tent cities are popping up across our province alone, 25 in Oxford county. That was never the case. That never happened before. Two million food bank visits in a single month is not the Canadian dream my parents came to. That is not the Canadian dream Canadians want to live today.
The Liberal policies are making it worse. The Liberals brought in the carbon tax, a carbon tax that punishes our farmers who are feeding our families. They are punishing our truckers who ship our food and product in our country. It is going to cost our farmers a billion dollars. It is going to cost our truckers $4 billion. It is going to be a blow of over $30 billion to our GDP and our economy. It is simple. When we tax the farmer who grows the food and we tax the trucker who ships the food, we punish all Canadians who buy the food.
Now the Liberals have this new capital gains tax hike. They are taxing our farmers; we have a food crisis. They are taxing our doctors; we have a doctor shortage crisis. They are taxing our home builders; we have a national home building crisis. Just yesterday, Jack Mintz put an article out projecting that the Liberal capital gains tax hike would take away 414,000 jobs from our Canadian economy and blow $90 billion from our GDP. That is devastating.
These tax policies are hurting our housing policies. Housing costs have doubled. Mortgage payments have doubled. Rent has doubled. The amount needed for a down payment has doubled. More and more young Canadians, that next generation I spoke about, are now being forced not to buy homes. They are staying with their parents in their basements. That dream of home ownership is starting to fade away.
In 2022, we built fewer homes than we did in 1972, and we had half the population. The Liberals' plan is not working. Even if we manage to buy a home or rent a home, look at the neighbourhoods and what is happening in our streets. There is crime, chaos, drugs and disorder right across our communities. After nine years of the Liberal-NDP government, we are seeing a 50% increase in violent crime. Extortions are up. Auto theft is up.
A few weeks ago in Woodstock, a safe family neighbourhood with a lot of parks and children, there was a drive-by shooting at a home. We have never seen that before. We have seen 47,000 Canadians die from opiate drug overdoses since the Liberals took power of our country.
The Liberals have unleashed a wave of crime, chaos and drugs in our streets. Instead of investing in treatment and bringing our loved ones home drug-free, they are supporting radical drug policies, like giving government-funded meth, crack and other drugs out in vending machines to the public. That is not the Canadian dream my parents came to this country for. The sad thing is we have been seeing this every single day now. The NDP partners—
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals' catch-and-release policies, like Bill and Bill , have released criminals back on to the streets. It is a revolving door that they created. My constituents tell me every single day that because of the violent crime, they are not safe in their communities anymore. They are afraid to walk on their streets and go to the park with their families. That is not the Canadian dream that my parents came here for. The sad thing is that the NDP, and the Bloc now, continue to prop up the government.
In my riding, we have a great auto plant, GM's CAMI, and great union workers work there. I met one of the workers last week. He said he has voted for the NDP his whole life. He thought the NDP was the party for workers, but he said it is not anymore. He will be voting Conservative for the first time because he knows the NDP sold out Canadians when it voted 24 times for the carbon tax. The NDP is killing the jobs of our workers and has sold out our workers. Our common-sense Conservative team will always stand with workers and ensure that we put more food on the table for their families so they can live that Canadian dream.
Canadians are now losing hope. We hear it, we see it and we feel it. The stories we share today are stories of many Canadians. They are stories of our friends, our neighbours, seniors and single mothers. They are everyday Canadians trying to survive, to make the sacrifice, like my dad did, to get ahead in this country, to build a better life for the next generation.
The Liberals have tried extremely hard to divide Canadians. They are pitting one region against the other. They are trying to divide our communities by spreading misinformation and disinformation. I know that Canadians see through this. There is hope in our country. We know Canadians are resilient. Our country is strong. I believe in our country and the Conservatives believe in our country. We know that, with the right leadership, we can get our country back on track and restore that Canadian promise that my father came to this country for.
That is why the Conservatives are calling for a carbon tax election now. There is a very clear choice between the NDP-Liberal costly carbon tax coalition that will tax our food, punish our work and take our money, or a common-sense Conservative plan, led by our great , that will axe the tax so Canadians can heat, eat and house themselves. We would build homes so Canadians can have a roof over their head. We would fix the budget so we can drive down inflation. We would stop the crime so our families can live in safe neighbourhoods.
We would be a government that would stand with the farmers who feed our families. We would be a government that would stand with lawful gun owners and go after real criminals who destroy our communities. We would be a government that would put Canadians first. We would be a government that believes in the prosperity of Canada, that believes better is possible and believes in Canada. For nine years, we have not seen that.
However, Canadians will have a choice and I call on all parties to call an election. What are they afraid of? Let Canadians decide; that is democracy. Every single day, we will do our job and hold the government accountable, unlike the other parties that have sold out their constituents. We will fight for Canadians every single day.
:
Mr. Speaker, it is great to rise this afternoon in this most honourable House and see many of my colleagues here today fighting and debating for their constituents. Earlier this week, I had the chance to rise and speak about a similar type of motion presented by the official opposition party. Let me simply start by saying this. Canada is the best country in the world, in my humble opinion. I am so delighted to be raising three daughters in Vaughan and to be fighting for them day in and day out.
I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for , my dear colleague and friend. The hon. member mentioned earlier that his mother came from Italy some 50-odd years ago. My father here came via Australia first, and my mother directly through Pier 21. It was a fascinating story. She took the train from Halifax all the way to Prince Rupert, from one end of the country to another, and brought us to a promised land. Canada chose us. Canada chose my parents, and I am so happy that Canada did and gave us this opportunity.
Canada is the best country in the world, not by accident. Yes, it is a work in progress, but Canada is the best country in the world because we do what is right. We take care of the most vulnerable citizens. We allow those who wish to create wealth and generate jobs to do so. We are blessed with bountiful natural resources and human capital. Peace, order and good government is our mantra. We have delivered for Canadians. I think of the Canada child benefit, a monthly tax-free benefit that goes to 15,000 families in my riding. I think of the Canada dental care plan, and how 7,200 residents, the majority of whom are seniors, are now receiving affordable and accessible dental care thanks to the Canadian dental care plan in my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge.
I think of the early learning and national day care plan, something that all economists, right, left, centre, say is a great thing for female participation in the labour force and for affordability. It is a win for the economy, for families and for affordability. It is reducing costs. An average family in Ontario right now is seeing almost a 53% reduction in their child care costs and is saving nearly $10,000 in after-tax savings. That is real money in the pockets of my residents.
We put in place the Canada workers benefit that is helping lift literally hundreds of thousands of working Canadians out of poverty so that they can pay rent and afford groceries. We are helping Canadians. Canadians, including those in my riding, have gone through a lot. We went through COVID, a global pandemic. Our government was there with the CERB, the wage subsidy and rent subsidy. We helped businesses. We helped Canadians, because it is the Canadian thing to do.
I know my hon. colleague on the opposite side mentioned earlier that when we first came into power, we had to remove two of the most anti-union, anti-worker bills, Bill and Bill . We removed those bills because we support Canadian workers. We have never been a chameleon when it comes to that. We have always stood beside Canadian workers of all stripes, in all industries and in all careers.
On seniors, we were the government that returned the age of retirement for eligibility for old age security and the guaranteed income supplement to 65 from 67. If that had been fully implemented, that would have cost retirees, at about $780 a month, times 12, by two years, over $15,000. Someone went off to Davos, Switzerland, and announced that they were going to be changing the retirement system, arbitrarily, with no consultation and no studies, and said that this was going to be right for Canadians. They themselves benefit from a very generous pension system, much like the official opposition does, who, by age 31 or 32, from what I have read, receives a beautiful pension and benefits. It is incredible.
We think about our economy, the investments our government has made in partnering with electric vehicle manufacturers, including Honda, Stellantis and Volkswagen. Those are real investments creating real jobs in Ontario and across this country.
I think about the partnership with the steel industry, having the steel industry workers' backs, the aluminum workers in Quebec, in Kitimat, in Trail. We have their backs and we have always had their backs.
We are not johnny-come-latelies to a party, like some of my hon. colleagues. I think of the investments in artificial intelligence and the things that are happening. Our support for Ukraine is undeniable. One does not flinch and one does not stop when dealing with a dictator, and we are dealing with one. One does not say they do not like the price on carbon so they are not going to vote for a free trade agreement with Ukraine. It is shameful.
Let us talk some matters. We had to respond to the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States and also to the European green deal. We responded with a number of tax credits and investment tax credits that have been put in place to help grow our economy and keep us competitive. That is what real leadership is about.
We all know that Canadians love their homes. Homes are not just people's greatest investments but are also places where we create memories with our family. I have three daughters, aged 13, 11 and three; and a beautiful wife who supports me in this endeavour. A person's home is their home, and we know that Canadians love to purchase a home. It is maybe not for everyone, but most Canadians want to be homeowners.
Changes have been taking place in the mortgage market. The mortgage industry has applauded the change by the OSFI, the removal of the stress test on non-insured mortgages. There was an announcement last week by the regarding a homebuyers' bill of rights and a renters' bill of rights. The mortgage cap is going from $1 million to $1.5 million. There is also 30-year amortization, which is in line with the OECD countries for first-time homebuyers. There are new builds: green builds and all other new builds. These are real changes.
I was happy to announce in the city of Vaughan $59 million through the fund we established to accelerate building, and it has been put to use. I have already made an announcement with the mayor of Vaughan. It is happening; houses are being built.
An hon. member: It's another announcement.
Mr. Francesco Sorbara: Mr. Speaker, we made an $8-million announcement for Jane Street, which is going to be a key regional corridor. Work is happening, including in the heart of my riding, at Rainbow Creek Park. I was canvassing on Woodbridge Avenue, where there is a big sign about another investment by the federal government in partnership with federal investors.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
:
Mr. Speaker, I always have time for the hon. member for . I am always happy to chat with him.
On the trade front, there is the renegotiation of CUSMA, getting CETA over the finish line and reinforcing our trade relations with Europe and with other parts of the country.
I do wish to talk about small businesses as well, because small businesses are the backbone of our communities and the backbone of our economy. The city of Vaughan has 350,000 residents, and 20,000 SMEs operate in our city. We are blessed with an entrepreneurial and generous spirit second to none in any of the ridings. We did lower the tax rate from 11% to 9%. We also increased the investable capital, where one qualifies for the small business tax rate. This is generating hundreds of millions of dollars of tax savings. It was in budget 2022 if I remember correctly.
On October 19, we will celebrate and mark again the lowering of credit card fees for small businesses. The first time we did, it meant a billion dollars in savings for small businesses. We are helping small businesses grow. We had the backs of small businesses during the pandemic. We were there for them. They went through a tough time. I know that the restaurants in my riding went through a tough time, as well as the small businesses, when they were shut down by the provincial government and with the imposition of measures, but we were there for them.
In my concluding remarks, I go back to my comments at the beginning of my speech. We live in a blessed country. We are all of different faiths in this place, and we all attend church. I have my favourite psalms, psalms 91, 35 and 36, which I say to myself on a daily basis. We live in a beautiful country and a blessed country. My kids are growing up and I see their interactions with their friends, and there is an optimism, I think. We have gone through a lot with COVID, a global pandemic, the war in Ukraine, supply shocks and global inflation we had not seen in decades. However, our future is bright, and no one can take that away.
I look forward to questions from my hon. colleagues.
:
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak to the motion. I did not have the opportunity to speak on Tuesday to a very similar motion, and I am really glad to be able to do it today because I think that a lot of my comments will be the same.
My speech today will definitely focus on the issue through which the Conservatives are requesting no confidence in the government. Then I would also like to talk a little bit about the NDP and where I see some hypocrisy, unfortunately, that has been coming out of our former colleagues in a supply and confidence agreement.
Conservatives have set up a narrative, and we have heard it many times today already, based on the price on pollution and trying to blame everything on that. I know why they did it. It is easy to do it, and, quite honestly, they have been effective at doing it. They are trying to sell Canadians on the idea that the reason we have higher inflation and have cost of living issues is that they are a direct result of the carbon tax. That has been their objective.
However, I will just point out very quickly that inflation is back where it should be, at 2%, yet we still have the price on pollution, the carbon tax. Therefore the whole narrative has lost a lot of steam, particularly in the last few weeks and months since inflation numbers have been coming down. That does not stop the continual narrative. We heard it again this morning from Conservative members.
The reality is that more people get back more than they pay. This is the way the system is set up. For people in a backstop province, all the money is collected and then equally distributed back to households based on household size. Eight out of 10 households in backstop jurisdictions get back more than they pay. That is a given fact.
What is even more important is that 94% of households that have an income of less than $50,000 a year, which for a whole household is not a lot, get back more than they pay. Again, this is just a fact. When Conservatives try to argue to axe the tax because then suddenly people are going to be instantly better off, it is just not true. A majority of people are better off with the Canada carbon rebate.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Mr. Speaker, I know I am touching on the truth and hitting a nerve when Conservatives heckle me on this point, because they always do that. However, it is a fact.
I have said to the House before, and I will say it again to those who might be listening at home and to those who are in the House, that I did the math myself for my own family. I looked at our Enbridge gas bill, which is the only thing we pay a carbon tax on. I added up all the carbon taxes for 2023. My wife and I drive electric hybrid vehicles, but I asked what the average Canadian uses in gas per year. I assumed we were using gas, as I did not want to throw off the equation by not having to pay the carbon tax on electricity that we are powering our cars with.
When I did that, I came to the conclusion that in 2023, I paid about $805 or $810, if I remember my calculations correctly, on the carbon tax. My rebate, not what the government told me I was going to get but what I saw when I actually looked at my bank statement, the four deposits in 2023, added up to about $865. Right off the bat I knew that my household was better off. We got back more than we paid.
A lot of people will ask how that is possible. How can the majority get back more than they pay? It is because the two out of 10 households, which might have many more vehicles, boats or other luxury items, are definitely going to be paying more than they get back. That is who the Conservatives are protecting. That is who they are really looking out for. They are looking out for the two out of 10 Canadians who are getting back more. The Conservatives will sell it as though who they are really looking out for are the lowest-income Canadians, but that is simply not the truth.
I really started to feel a sense of disbelief, but not when the decided that he wanted to get out of the supply and confidence agreement, because I think that we all knew that would happen at one time or another, although I thought it was premature. I thought we still had a good year left to solidify a lot of these social programs that we had to make sure that they were there for a long time. What really bothered me was when, a few days later, he started to backtrack on the price on pollution, the carbon tax, basically saying that it was hurting Canadians.
What it showed me in that moment, and what I think it showed a lot of Canadians, is that the does not have the ability to stand up to the . He did a great job standing up to a protester outside of these doors just last week. I just wish he could stand up to the Leader of the Opposition like that. I know that the leader of the NDP believes in a price on pollution. I will prove in a moment that he and his colleagues definitely do not believe that the price on pollution has contributed to inflation and the hardships of Canadians, even though the leader of the NDP said that. Why can he not stand up to the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Carleton, the same way that he was able to stand up to a protester outside, to stand up for what is right?
I will tell members what I recall. I went around and did some digging as soon as I saw the NDP start to flip-flop on the price on pollution. On June 13 of this year, just before the House left for the summer break, the member for said, “the carbon tax does not impact the price of food to nearly the extent the member is saying. It is minuscule.” She goes on to say, “economists, journalists and members of Parliament have made it very clear that the carbon tax is not what is responsible for the cost of food increasing so much.” My question to the member from Edmonton Strathcona, and I hope she asks me a question after I am finished, is this: How did she respond when the suddenly said the price on pollution is negatively impacting Canadians?
I have pages and pages of examples, but since I am talking about the member for , I will tell the members something else that she said. On May 30, she quoted an economics professor who said, “‘A clear majority of households do receive rebates that are larger than the carbon taxes they pay for.... If we got rid of the carbon tax and the rebate, then this would harm a much larger fraction of lower- and middle-income households than it would higher-income households.’” That is right. She basically said, on May 30, what I just said the Conservatives are doing.
They are trying to appease the two out of 10. They are selling it as though they are appeasing the eight out of 10, but they are really trying to put more money back in the pockets of the two out of 10. The member for knows that. She agreed with it and spoke to it. Then she had to watch her party's go out and say that he came to the conclusion that the carbon tax and the rebates are not actually helping Canadians more than they are hurting them. This is position that we find ourselves in. I am very glad to see that the NDP and the Bloc are continuing to be the adults in the room, recognizing the stunt that the did.
Did members notice the fanfare that existed on Tuesday when the Conservatives had their opposition motion? It is so dead now. It is totally deflated because of what happened yesterday with the vote. They do not have nearly the energy as they did then. We have not heard from the on this motion yet. I do not even know if he will speak to it at some point today. The point is, it is all a game for them. I know the NDP knows it was a game for them, yet somehow they caved to the pressure. I want to understand how the NDP got to that point.
:
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for .
Today, we are debating the following motion:
That, given that, after nine years, the government has doubled housing costs, taxed food, punished work, unleashed crime, and is the most centralizing government in Canadian history, the House has lost confidence in the government and offers Canadians the option to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.
Here is a motion that is asking the House to say it does not have confidence in the government. On behalf of my constituents, I do not have confidence in the government. The easiest way to describe why I do not have confidence in the government is that it is very clear that the government has broken the promise that it has provided to people from around the world to our citizens of Canada. There is a promise of Canada that the government is honour-bound and duty-bound to uphold, and the government has broken it. More importantly, the Liberals have no plan to unbreak that promise. They really do not. I have been listening to the debate, and as the member for said today, the government also lacks moral clarity on many issues. Therefore, at this point, it is case closed. The House should not have confidence in the government, and here is why. I want to go back to the broken promise of Canada.
One of the things that has really impacted me and how I look at things in this place is that, in my time here, I became a mom. I am a stepmom to three kids, and I am a grandmother as well, which ages me a little bit. I am now Meemaw. Here is the thing: Much like many other people across Canada, I married somebody from a different country, from the U.S. I love my kids so much. I have watched them grow up. I have watched them go through college and trade school. I am so proud of my oldest stepdaughter. She just graduated and is an emergency room nurse now. My middle stepdaughter graduated from the University of Oklahoma. She is part of the reserve corps in the army, and she is brilliant. My youngest stepson pursued a trade and is essentially running the shop floor of a big manufacturing company in the city where he lives, and he is young.
Because my kids have been able to watch me stand up for my constituents in this place and be part of my work, the one thing that we always talk about as a family is that they have seen first-hand the promise that Canada offers. I can say to them as Americans, and this might get a little testy at Christmas dinner sometimes, that I do believe Canada is the best country in the world. When I look through my community, I see the diversity and our pluralism. What I have always seen is the promise that, if people come to Canada or are in Canada, they can do anything.
Frankly, for me right now, one of the most heartbreaking realizations I have had to come to understand is that my children cannot afford to come to this country, and I am in a position of privilege. That is just the reality. I do not say that to be partisan. I say that with absolute reality. My kids cannot afford to buy a house or rent in Canada. They just cannot. We have always talked about it. I have wanted to lure them, especially one of them who is thinking about grad school, to come here to live with us. The reality is that they just cannot afford it. For me, I am living that broken promise in a very deep way.
It is not just my family. It is so many other people in my community who have moved into Calgary Nose Hill from around the world. I had a heartbreaking conversation. I will not say exactly where, just so as not to blow her cover, but an employee from Air Canada came to me in tears, and this conversation absolutely broke my heart.
Her husband had recently passed away, and she has two children and cannot afford her rent. She is in a good job, and she said she does not know what to do. She asked me, “Where do I go?” I do not have an easy answer for that. The reality is that government members do not have an easy answer for that, in spite of doubling the national debt and increasing taxes. They do not have a plan going forward.
We all know that the government does not have a plan. We all know that the 's head is not in the game of trying to fix the promise of Canada that he broke. He is trying to figure out what his next gig is. Is he going to lead his party through defeat or is he going to have some sort of other job? It is not me saying that. It is virtually every columnist across the country. I am just putting on the record here what the reality is in every newspaper.
The House cannot have confidence in somebody who cannot even be bothered to think about how he is going to fix the promise that he broke. It is the reason that my children do not have a clear line of sight on how they can live here, and why millions of other Canadians who are already here cannot afford to live. Is that not enough to say it is over for the government and we should not have confidence in it?
As the member for said, the government does not have moral clarity. I do not have a lot of time in my speech, but let us just go through some of the top scandals.
For the billionaire trip to the Aga Khan's island, the was found in breach of the rules by the Ethics Commissioner, found guilty, in 2017. Former finance minister Bill Morneau did not disclose his French villa. Would it not be nice to have a French villa? He also did not declare a conflict with Morneau Shepell. The former defence minister apologized for exaggerating his military record. The Prime Minister, as we all remember, had a disastrous trip to India in 2018, where he invited a convicted attempted murderer to a reception. The former fisheries minister broke the conflict of interest rules with the clam scam issue.
Then we can fast-forward to 2019, when we had the preposterous SNC-Lavalin and Jody Wilson-Raybould issue. The former environment minister gave $12 million to Loblaws for fridges in direct cash subsidies. The in 2019 made a sarcastic comment to a first nations woman at a fundraiser. In 2019, in the middle of the campaign, he could not tell reporters how many times he had worn blackface. He appointed a governor general who eventually resigned because of such poor vetting.
Then we had the WE Charity scandal of a billion dollars, a massive scandal and massive waste. There was a man implicated in a multi-million dollar illegal casino bust in Markham, Ontario, who had rubbed shoulders with the on two occasions before being arrested by police. The former defence minister was censured by MPs over a sexual harassment case in the military. The former public safety minister was unaware of the transfer of notorious murderer Paul Bernardo. The former public safety minister spent $62 million on a firearms buyback program that bought back exactly zero firearms.
I have pages more, but I only have a minute left. I will just say this. The government has lost its “why”. It has lost its ability to communicate why it is functioning outside of holding onto power, and it does not have the “how” of how it is going to fix the broken promise that was made to Canadians.
I implore colleagues to see that it is time. The House environment is deteriorating rapidly. We need an election. We need an election now.