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Results: 76 - 90 of 1884
Marc-André Viau
View Marc-André Viau Profile
Marc-André Viau
2020-12-11 14:51
This will have a concrete impact in downtown Montreal and on the lives of Montrealers. If this can also be done elsewhere, so much the better. There won't be a global impact. However, each government and each administration must implement increasingly ambitious measures.
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
BQ (QC)
In your second recommendation for this area, you said that electric trucks and cargo bicycles, ideally electric, would be needed. Does the technology currently exist, or does it need to keep developing in order to meet these standards by 2030? Where do things stand?
What can the federal government do to support these types of initiatives?
Marc-André Viau
View Marc-André Viau Profile
Marc-André Viau
2020-12-11 14:52
The technology will continue to develop. The existing technology is enough to begin the transition. There are several manufacturers, including the Quebec company Lion Electric, which makes trucks for long-distance transportation.
The technology required for electric cargo bicycles already exists as well. However, companies that want to develop zero-emission fleets would need financial assistance. Senior levels of government can step in to help municipalities reduce their carbon footprint in the transportation of goods in urban areas.
Let's also remember the long-distance transportation of goods, which must be addressed. The technology already exists, as I said when I spoke about Lion Electric.
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
BQ (QC)
Okay. I'll be very quick.
Thank you for all your answers, Mr. Viau.
In terms of your fifth recommendation, which you often talk about, do you have an example of an inefficient fossil fuel subsidy that should be eliminated by 2025?
If not, thank you.
Marc-André Viau
View Marc-André Viau Profile
Marc-André Viau
2020-12-11 14:54
In 2019, there was $600 million in subsidies in Canada.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Like Mr. Ste-Marie, I find it unfortunate that we couldn't reach an agreement this week to continue the committee meetings over the holidays. As a result, all pre-budget consultations will wrap up in a few minutes. In early fall, the government filibustered the committee. It has now rejected the agreement.
That said, I want to thank all the witnesses here today. I hope that their loved ones remain safe and sound during this pandemic.
I'll start with you, Mr. Viau. This week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer released an important report on the financial and economic considerations of the Trans Mountain pipeline. You spoke about the investments that the government should make, including investments to help the environment and fight climate change.
For Équiterre, does it make sense for the government to invest $14 billion to build the Trans Mountain pipeline instead of focusing on all these environmental priorities?
Marc-André Viau
View Marc-André Viau Profile
Marc-André Viau
2020-12-11 14:55
I can easily answer your question. No.
As I said at the end of my presentation, we must start the transition and pick up the pace. We must find other solutions for workers instead of waiting and always having to compensate for the fund managers' increasing withdrawals from certain investments, as we've seen in several cases.
As long as we're headed in this direction, and investors continue to withdraw, we must bridge the gap. In this specific case, Canada has only expenses. There's no revenue, which is an issue.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you.
I'm going to go to Ms. Eaton.
Thank you very much for being here.
I come from British Columbia. The B.C. government has put in place the first provincial ministry for mental health and addictions, and I want to ask whether you and the Canadian Mental Health Association believe that the federal government should be setting up a ministry that is devoted to mental health and addiction issues so that it gets a higher priority in the health care system?
Margaret Eaton
View Margaret Eaton Profile
Margaret Eaton
2020-12-11 14:57
I think that would be extraordinary. As we know, depression was at epidemic levels prior to the pandemic, and we know this issue is top of mind for Canadians.
I think seeing the federal government play a stronger role in this area, calling it out and putting a minister in charge and a department, highlights and spotlights the important role that the federal government has, and that could lead to real change. Thank you for that idea.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you very much for your answer. Of course, that would stimulate other provincial governments to follow the lead of the B.C. NDP government as well, so thank you for that.
I'd like to go to Mr. Morrison now.
We have seen unprecedented levels of what the government and federal agencies call “liquidity supports” for the banking sector. Some $750 billion was provided.
In the banking industry, we've seen profits so far during this pandemic of $29 billion among Canada's big banks. A big part of that was as a result of the CMHC, which put in place the IMPP program. The $150 billion that could have been provided in liquidity for co-operative housing, for public housing, and for the affordable housing that your organization is such a strong advocate for, went instead went basically to pad Canada's big banks and their bottom line.
You've talked about an important investment of $5 billion. Do you feel that the government's priorities, rather than bailing out the big banks, should really be focused on using all of the incredible resources of the federal government—$14 billion thrown at Trans Mountain, $750 billion in liquidity supports—to be tackling priorities such as housing and providing the $5 billion that you feel is vital as a first step in meeting housing needs in this country?
Second, I want to ask how you felt about the refusal of Parliament to pass the indigenous-led housing strategy that the NDP brought to the floor of the House of Commons a couple of weeks ago.
Jeff Morrison
View Jeff Morrison Profile
Jeff Morrison
2020-12-11 14:59
The $5 billion I was referencing was only in regard to an expansion of the rapid housing initiative that was just announced in September. We believe and think that there can be considerably more—although a great amount of that could be in the form of loans rather than strictly grants.
As I said in my opening statement, housing is health care. Housing is, as reflected by Parliament in 2019, a human right. Therefore, ensuring that every Canadian has housing that is affordable and meets their needs, which is the goal of CMHC to enact by 2030, absolutely has to be a priority.
With respect to indigenous housing, your colleagues at the House of Commons committee on human resources are currently undertaking a study on this very issue of urban, rural and northern indigenous housing. We really hope that this committee will review their report once it's completed and that the report will feed into your recommendations and ultimately into the budget, because, absolutely, as I said, an urban, rural and northern indigenous housing strategy in particular was the massive missing piece in the national housing strategy.
We hope that both of your committees will intersect and that we will ultimately get a strategy that has proper amounts of funding for supports, for capital, and it is also governed and overseen by indigenous people themselves, because that's really key—not just for housing but for reconciliation as well.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
Yes.
My question is for Chief Jules, who I am a great admirer of . I'll read a wonderful quote he published in a book recently: “Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself”.
Unfortunately, Chief Jules, you and your people have been deprived of these basic freedoms for far too long in a system that imposes paternalistic and colonial powers from Ottawa, powers that remain to this day. You've just given an example of whereby the federal government in Ottawa is taking $700 million of taxes from your reserves...sorry, from your communities across the country, not just reserves, and then requiring that you come to Ottawa and ask for permission to have some of it back.
Can you comment on this nonsensical idea that politicians and bureaucrats in Ottawa believe they can take your money away and then tell you how, and under what conditions, you can have it back?
C.T. (Manny) Jules
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C.T. (Manny) Jules
2020-12-11 15:02
I think this goes to the heart of not only talking about UNDRIP but actually the whole colonial era under which Canada still operates. You need look no further for systemic racism than the Indian Act. It's one of the earliest pieces of Canadian legislation. It governs the majority of communities right across the country. In 1927, because here in British Columbia we were struggling to have a fair and just settlement to the land question, the federal and provincial governments took away our ability to raise money through taksis. That's the fundamental way in which all governments in this country provide services.
When you look at the fiscal relationship that we have, we're beggars in our own land. What we want to be able to do is share in the bounty of this land so that we can be major contributors, and not only to deal with all of the issues that have been outlined. COVID has exposed the fact that we're the most dependent people in this land. That's led to mental health care issues. That's led to the shortage of housing, health care and all of those aspects.
The only way to change that is through the work of your committee. The finance committee has to give recommendations to the federal government on fixing this imbalance. First nations shouldn't be funded on the basis of programs but should be part of the fiscal makeup, therefore getting the tax revenues that are collected on our lands and within our traditional territories.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
Right. The bounty you seek to have is your own. This is not a gift from the government in Ottawa that you're seeking. You're seeking the power to benefit from the bounty that is on your land and produced by your people. Yet all of these years later, we've learned so little that we require your people to come here to Ottawa to ask for what is already yours and what was always yours before the arrival of Europeans.
You had another amazing quote where you were talking about the achievements of indigenous people in the Americas prior to European arrival. You wrote, “Do you think this was all achieved through divine intervention from the gods? Or was it because we somehow evolved into a 'natural' socialist system that lasted thousands of years? Both of these ideas are nonsense.” You also explained how the first peoples of this continent had marvellous systems of free trade and commerce that allowed pipestone to be discovered by later archeologists in places it had never existed. Clearly, your people were engaged in trade well before trade was introduced to the continent by Europeans.
Do you think part of the challenge here is to empower first peoples to have the kinds of economic freedoms that will allow them to prosper without the paternalistic powers of the government in Ottawa?
C.T. (Manny) Jules
View C.T. (Manny) Jules Profile
C.T. (Manny) Jules
2020-12-11 15:06
Well, it's obvious that when people say, “Well, I'll pass legislation recognizing first nations people as a result of implementing UNDRIP”, UNDRIP is just one piece of legislation. We have to look at a myriad of legislative changes that have to take place. We have to be a fundamental partner in the fiscal make-up of Canada, not only from an economic standpoint, but a political one.
What COVID has exposed, again, is the dearth of jurisdiction within our communities. We're so dependent on the federal and provincial governments for the provision of services that we have to be beggars.
What we need is not a program, but we need the jurisdiction to be able to look after ourselves. The more we're able to look after ourselves, the less liability the federal and provincial governments will have over this notion of looking after us. We're the best caretakers of ourselves.
Results: 76 - 90 of 1884 | Page: 6 of 126

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