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View Jagmeet Singh Profile
NDP (BC)
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
2021-06-23 14:32 [p.9050]
Mr. Speaker, in a couple of weeks, the Prime Minister is going to cut the help that families need by $800 while we are still going through this pandemic. On the other hand, the Prime Minister has not prosecuted a single case of fiscal evasion of the ultrarich. It is clear who the Prime Minister is defending.
The Prime Minister has often said he has got the backs of Canadians. It is not having their backs to cut the help they need while we are still in this pandemic.
Will the Prime Minister reverse this callous cut to the help people need while we are still in the pandemic?
View Justin Trudeau Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Justin Trudeau Profile
2021-06-23 14:33 [p.9050]
Mr. Speaker, despite the rhetoric of the NDP, we had a very simple and straightforward focus for Canadians from the beginning of this pandemic that we would have their backs. That is exactly what we have done, with billions upon billions of dollars of supports for workers, for families, for seniors and for young people.
To help Canadians get through this pandemic, budget 2021 proposes to extend the Canada recovery benefit to up to 50 weeks and the Canada recovery caregiving benefit to up to 42 weeks. That is why we thank the parties in the House that are working with us to pass budget 2021 so we can continue to support Canadians, as long as is necessary, into the fall and beyond.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Madam Speaker, I am speaking from the traditional, unceded territory of the Qayqayt First Nation and of the Coast Salish peoples.
I am rising today in the context of the final days of Parliament. This is perhaps the final speech that I will make in this Parliament. The Prime Minister has made no secret about his deep desire to go to elections as quickly as possible, and the rumours appear to show that by the end of the summer we will be in an election.
In this pandemic Parliament over the last 15 months, it is important to review what the NDP has been able to achieve, where the government has clearly fallen short and where I believe Canadians' aspirations are in building back better after this pandemic.
We pay tribute every day to our first responders, our front-line workers and our health care workers who have been so courageous and so determined during this pandemic. Whenever we speak of it, we also think of the over 26,000 Canadians who have died so far during the pandemic. We know that it is far from over. Although health care workers are working as hard as they possibly can, some of the variants are disturbing in their ability to break through and affect even people who have been fully vaccinated.
We need to make sure that measures continue, because we need to make sure that people are protected and supported for whatever comes in the coming months. It is in that context that the NDP and the member for Burnaby South, our leader, have been so deeply disturbed by the government's plan to massively slash the emergency response benefit that Canadians depend on.
Hundreds of thousands of Canadian families are fed through the emergency response benefit, yet in budget Bill C-30, the government slashes a benefit that was above the poverty line to one that goes dramatically below the poverty line. This is something that the Prime Minister wanted from the very beginning. We recall that 15 months ago, the Prime Minister was talking about $1,000 a month for an emergency response benefit. He talked about $1,000 a month for supports. It was clearly inadequate. That was why the member for Burnaby South and the NDP caucus pushed back to make sure that the benefit was adequate to put food on the table and keep roofs over their heads of most Canadians, raising it to $2,000 a month or $500 a week.
We did not stop there, of course. We pushed so that benefits would be provided to students as well. Students were struggling to pay for their education and often struggling to find jobs. We pushed for those supports. We pushed for supports for seniors and people with disabilities. Regarding people with disabilities, I am profoundly disappointed that the government never chose to do the work to input every person with a disability to a database nationally. When they file their tax returns, they should be coded as people with disabilities. The government refused to do that, so the benefit to people with disabilities only went to about one-third of people with disabilities in this country, leaving most of them behind.
We pushed as well to ensure that the wage subsidy was in place to maintain jobs. This is something that we saw in other countries, such as Denmark and France, always with clear protections so that the money was not misused for dividends or for executive bonuses. We pressed for that to happen in Canada with those same protections. We succeeded in getting the 75% wage subsidy. The government refused to put into place the measures to protect Canadians from abuse so, as we know, profitable corporations spent billions of dollars on dividends and big executive bonuses at the same time as they received the wage subsidy from the federal government.
We pushed for a rent subsidy for small businesses as well. I know the member for Courtenay—Alberni, the member for Burnaby South and a number of other members of the NDP caucus pushed hard to make sure that those rent subsidies and supports were in place. The initial program was clearly inadequate. We kept pushing until we eventually got a rent subsidy that more Canadian businesses could use.
We are proud of that track record of making sure people were being taken care of, and this is part of our responsibility as parliamentarians. Some observers noted that NDP MPs are the worker bees of Parliament. We take that title proudly, because we believe in standing up and fighting for people.
Where did the government go then by itself, once you put aside the NDP pressure and the fact the government often needed NDP support to ensure measures went through Parliament? We were able to leverage that to make sure programs benefited people, but there were a number of programs the government put forward with no help from the NDP, most notably the $750 billion in liquidity supports for Canada's big banks, which was an obscene and irresponsible package.
The $750 billion was provided through a variety of federal institutions with absolutely no conditions whatsoever. There was no obligation to reduce interest rates to zero, as many credit unions did. I am a member of two credit unions: Vancouver City Savings and Community Savings in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. Both of these dropped interest rates to zero at the height of the crisis.
Many of the credit unions that are democratically run understood the importance of not profiting or profiteering from this pandemic, but the big banks did not. They received $750 billion in liquidity supports with no obligation to reduce interest rates to zero and no obligation to remove fees or service fees.
We have seen unbelievable amounts of profiteering through this pandemic. Those massive public supports were used to create the space for $60 billion in pandemic profits. To ensure the profits were increased even more, the big banks increased service fees. Often when they deferred mortgages, they tacked on fees and penalties and increased interest. They acted in a deplorable way with free agency from the federal government, because the federal government refused to attach any conditions to the massive and unprecedented bailout package.
We know from history that past federal governments acted differently. Past federal governments put in place strict laws against profiteering. They made sure there was a real drive to ensure the ultrarich paid their fair share of taxes. We got through the Second World War because we put in place an excess profits tax that ensured companies could not benefit from the misery of others. This led to unprecedented prosperity coming out of the Second World War.
This is not the case with the current government. It is not the case with this Prime Minister. Instead of any measures at all against profiteering, it was encouraged, and we have seen Canada's billionaires increase their wealth by $80 billion so far during the pandemic. We have seen $60 billion in profits in the banking sector, largely fuelled by public monies, public supports and liquidity supports.
We have also seen the government's steadfast refusal to put in place any of the measures other governments have used to rebalance the profiteering that has occurred during the pandemic. There is no wealth tax and no pandemic profits tax. When we look at the government's priorities when it acts on its own, with the NDP removed from the equation and all the measures we fought for during this pandemic, it is $750 billion in liquidity support for Canada's big banks with no conditions. It is no break at all from Canada's billionaires reaping unprecedented increases in wealth during this pandemic. It is no wealth tax, it is no pandemic profits tax and it is also a steadfast refusal to crack down on overseas tax havens.
Let us add up where the government went on its own over the course of the last 15 months. There was $750 billion in liquidity supports for the banks and $25 billion that the Parliamentary Budget Officer tells us goes offshore every year to the overseas tax havens of wealthy Canadians and profitable corporations. There was $10 billion in a wealth tax that the government refused to put into place: That is $10 billion every year that could serve so many purposes and meet so many Canadians' needs.
However, the government steadfastly refuses to put in place that fiscal measure that so many other countries have put into place. It is a refusal to put in place a pandemic profits tax that would have raised nearly $10 billion over the course of the last 15 months.
We are talking about a figure of close to $800 billion in various measures that the government rolled out, or refused to in any way curb, that could have been making a huge difference in meeting Canadians' needs. When Canadians ask, as they look forward to a time, hopefully soon, when we will be able to rebuild this country in a more equitable way that leaves nobody behind, we need to look at why the government steadfastly refuses to put these measures into place. It is not because there is not the fiscal capacity. We have surely seen that.
I need only add the incredible amount of money the government has poured into the Trans Mountain pipeline: According to the PBO again, it is $12.5 billion so far and counting. It is an amount that keeps rising, with construction costs that are currently either committed to or will be committed to in the coming months. It cost $4.5 billion for the company itself, which was far more than the sticker price. Add those numbers up and we are close to $20 billion that the government is spending on a pipeline that even the International Energy Agency says is not in the public's interests or in the planet's interests. That is nearly $20 billion. We have to remember that the government and the Prime Minister came up with that money overnight, when the private sector pulled out of the project because it was not financially viable. Within 24 hours, the Prime Minister and the finance minister at the time announced that they would come up with the purchase price to buy the pipeline. Subsequently, they have been pumping money into this pipeline without any scant understanding of or precaution to the financial and the environmental implications.
The government has proved that it can come up with big bucks when it wants to, but Canadians are left asking the following questions.
Why can Canadians not have public universal pharmacare? The government turned down and voted out the NDP bill that would have established the Canada pharmacare act on the same conditions as the Canada Health Act. The Liberal members voted against that, yet we know that nearly 10 million Canadians have no access to their medication or struggle to pay for it. A couple of million Canadians, according to most estimates, are not able to pay for their medication. Hundreds die, according to the Canadian Nurses Association, because they do not have access to or cannot afford to pay for their medication. The Parliamentary Budget Officer tells us that Canada would save close to $5 billion by putting public universal pharmacare into place. Of course, the government has completely refused to implement its commitment from the 2019 election. The Liberals will make some other promise in the coming election that the Prime Minister wants to have.
Why can we not have public universal pharmacare? The answer, of course, is that there is no reason why we cannot. It is cost effective. It makes a difference in people's lives. It adds to our quality of life, and it adds to our international competitiveness because it takes a lot of the burden of drug plans off of small companies. The reason we cannot have pharmacare is not financial: It is political. It is the Liberal government that steadfastly refuses to put it into place. The Liberals keep it as a carrot that they dangle to the electorate once every election or two. They have been doing that now for a quarter century, but refuse to put it into place.
Why can we not have safe drinking water for all Canadian communities? The government members would say it is complicated and tough. It was not complicated and tough for the Trans Mountain bailout. It was not complicated or tough for the massive amounts of liquidity supports, unprecedented in Canadian history or any other country's history, that the government lauded on Canada's big banks to shore up their profits during the pandemic. It certainly has not been a question of finances, with $25 billion in tax dollars going offshore every year to overseas tax havens.
Therefore, the issue of why we cannot have safe drinking water I think is a very clear political question. There is no political will, as the member for Nunavut said so eloquently in her speech a few days ago.
Let us look at why we do not have a right to housing in this country. We know we did after the Second World War. Because an excess profits tax had been put into place and we had very clear measures against profiteering, we were able to launch an unprecedented housing program of 300,000 public housing units across the country, homes like those right behind me where I am speaking to the House from. They were built across the country in a rapid fashion. In the space of three years, 300,000 units were built because we knew there were women and men in the service coming back from overseas and we needed to make sure that housing was available. Why do we not have a right to housing? Because the Liberals said no to that as well. However, the reality is we could very much meet the needs of Canadians with respect to affordable housing if the banks and billionaires were less of a priority and people were a greater priority for the current government.
Let us look at access to post-secondary education. The amount the Canadian Federation of Students put out regarding free tuition for post-secondary education is a net amount of about $8 billion to the federal government every year. I pointed out that the pandemic profits tax is about that amount, yet the government refuses to implement it. Students are being forced to pay for their student loans at this time because the government refused to extend the moratorium on student loan payments during a pandemic. Once again, banks, billionaires and the ultrarich are a high priority for the government, but people not so much.
Let us look at long-term care. The NDP put forward a motion in this Parliament, which the Liberals turned down, to take the profit and profiteering out of long-term care and put in place stable funding right across the country to ensure high standards in long-term care. We believe we need an expanded health care system that includes pharmacare and dental care. The motion to provide dental care for lower-income Canadians who do not have access to it was turned down by the Liberals just a few days ago. It would have ensured that long-term care would be governed by national standards and federal funding so that seniors in this country in long-term care homes are treated with the respect they deserve. The government again said it could not do that. Once again, the banks, billionaires and the ultrarich are a high priority, yet seniors, who have laboured all their lives for their country, provided support in their community and contributed so much are not a high priority for the government.
Let us look at transportation. The bus sector across this country is so important for the safety and security of people moving from one region of the country to the other, yet we saw the bus and transportation services gutted, and the federal government is refusing to put in place the same kind of national network for buses that we have for trains. In a country as vast as Canada, with so many people who struggle to get from one region to the other for important things like medical appointments because they do not have access to a vehicle is something that should absolutely be brought to bear, yet the government refuses to look at the issue because banks, billionaires and the ultrarich are a high priority.
Finally, let us look at clean energy. We know we need to transition to a clean energy economy. We have seen billions of dollars go to oil and gas CEOs, but the government is simply unprepared to make investments into clean energy. I contrast that vividly with the nearly $20 billion it is showering on the Trans Mountain pipeline, which is for a political cause rather than something that makes good sense from an economic or environmental point of view. It is willing to throw away billions of dollars in the wrong places, but we believe that money needs to be channelled through to Canadians to meet their needs. That is certainly what we will be speaking about right across the length and breadth of this land in this coming election.
View Denis Trudel Profile
BQ (QC)
View Denis Trudel Profile
2021-06-21 12:46 [p.8831]
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his remarks. He accurately pointed out which sectors of the economy have been hardest hit during the pandemic and discussed seniors, people with disabilities and the housing crisis. In Quebec alone, 40,000 people are waiting for social housing, for low-income housing, and 450,000 people have urgent housing needs. It is a big deal.
During the pandemic, the government rolled out its big Canada emergency wage subsidy to help people working for struggling businesses. The Conservative Party, the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party all claimed the subsidy, which I find scandalous. The Liberals and the NDP have not said anything about reimbursing the money. We will be campaigning in two months, and the NDP is going to use government money, which was supposed to go to struggling workers, to pay for lawn signs. Is my colleague not the least bit embarrassed by that?
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Madam Speaker, we fought for non-profits to be eligible for the wage subsidy to ensure that organizations would not have to choose between laying off employees or keeping them on staff.
As the member just said, the member for Burnaby South and the NDP caucus pushed the hardest for this initiative which, as the member knows, already existed in other European countries, for example. This was important for Canada. The government initially refused, but the NDP continued to push for it, as we normally do, being the workers' party. We want people to stay employed.
We were successful, as everyone knows. The subsidy allowed for workers, including Quebec workers, to remain employed.
View Lenore Zann Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Lenore Zann Profile
2021-06-22 0:11 [p.8924]
Mr. Speaker, I guess we have just heard the platform speech for the next election. While I admire the member's voice and can see that he has training and background in delivery, I have to ask what he has against Canadian performers being paid properly for their work online?
View Kerry Diotte Profile
CPC (AB)
View Kerry Diotte Profile
2021-06-22 0:11 [p.8924]
Mr. Speaker, that is the old divert-the-eye trick. It is like a slight of hand. It is not about Canadian performers. I know many of them, and some of my best friends are performers. It is about freedom of speech.
The government and the Liberals keep going back to try to shame us, but this is about freedom of speech. It is not about anything else. If members talked to any average Canadian at a Tim Hortons, now that we are open in good old Alberta, they will say they do not like this bill.
View Alexandre Boulerice Profile
NDP (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate this evening on such an important issue.
I just complimented my colleague from Drummond, and I also have some kind words for my colleague from Edmonton Strathcona. She did a masterful job on Bill C‑10 at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. Her assistant, Laveza Khan, also worked very hard on it, and my assistant Samuel Fortin-Pouliot worked very hard too. I commend everyone. They truly put in the work, as they say.
I agree that we absolutely needed to amend the Broadcasting Act. It has been 30 years since that act was passed. It had become completely archaic and obsolete, and it still is. It does not fit with today's reality and the current context with the new digital broadcasters. I think we need to keep that in mind when we debate this bill.
That is why the NDP has always worked and remained in touch with various actors and stakeholders in Quebec's cultural sector, in particular the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and also ACTRA, Unifor and Music Canada. They have always counted on us. We worked with them to try to improve this very important bill.
Since the Yale report was released a few years ago, we have come to understand how necessary it is to update the Broadcasting Act and bring it into the 21st century. As progressives and New Democrats, we agreed with the broad strokes of the Yale report. It is so important, because it is a matter of cultural sovereignty. What we need to do is ensure that major new digital broadcasters participate, invest and contribute to the production of original Canadian and Quebec content. That is not what is happening.
It is vital to understand the ecosystem that we have been dealing with and continue to deal with, in the hope that it can change, and why the principle of this bill is so important in the first place. We have a system based on conventional broadcasters and cable companies that contribute to a fund to ensure we can invest in telling our stories on television, in film and other media.
However, big players, new players who are no longer quite so new today, had not contributed at all. It is great to be able to bring them to the table and force them to contribute to the growth and development of Quebec, Canadian and indigenous culture in general, just like conventional broadcasters.
Unfortunately, the bill that was presented to us was botched from the beginning. The NDP was prepared to collaborate. We have always been prepared to collaborate, to make amendments and improvements, to resolve the problems with the bill so that it best meets the needs of the cultural industry and our artists, artisans and technicians. We also want to make sure it best meets the needs of the public, because we need cultural content that brings us together and that we have some control over so that we can tell our stories, which our fellow citizens in Quebec and Canada love to hear. Think of all of the big television, movie and music success stories that we know of.
Unfortunately, we had to deal with very bad communication from the Minister of Canadian Heritage, who on numerous occasions could not for the life of him explain his own bill.
He was attacked under various pretexts by the Conservative Party and was unable to reassure the public and to continue in a constructive and positive direction for this bill.
Obviously, there has been a lot of talk about freedom of expression. It is an important issue, and we are not going to sweep it under the rug and say we do not care about it. As members of the NDP, as New Democrats and progressives, if there were a bill on the table that called into question the freedom of expression of people, of Canadians, we would obviously be very concerned.
The NDP has a strong track record when it comes to protecting freedom of expression and the rights of Canadians. This is not something we take lightly. We did our work in committee, as well as in the media, in the public sphere and in the House, to raise these issues and to take the time needed to get legal opinions, to hear from experts and to get the notices of compliance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms from the Department of Justice. Those notices actually came twice, before and after the removal of clause 4.1.
We have always been in favour of the principle of the bill. We hope it will pass because our cultural sector will benefit when Internet giants contribute to and help fund the production of original works that tell Canadian and Quebec stories.
We did our work. We were open to arguments because we wanted to be absolutely sure we were protecting freedom of expression. That is what we did, and the NDP is committed to supporting the cultural sector and our artists, artisans and technicians. At the same time, we wanted to be absolutely sure everything was charter compliant and would in no way interfere with individuals' right to keep expressing their opinions and posting whatever videos they wanted on social media. Doing that work was very important, and we did it in a reasonable and responsible way. Unfortunately, there were some closure motions that prevented debate in some cases and violated our rights as parliamentarians.
The way the Liberals have been managing this bill strikes me as rather strange. They imposed closure on a committee, which has only ever happened three times. Despite this gag order, they had to resort to a supermotion. The Liberal government treated this bill as if we had neglected it and taken it lightly, while it was too important for equity in our Canadian programming ecosystem and for the defence of programming and content in French, as well as in indigenous languages.
We want our television, film and musical artists to have the chance to pursue their activities and be properly paid for the work they do, especially musicians on YouTube, and we want them to continue to tell our stories. It is a question of jobs and a very important economic sector. The cultural sector accounts for tens of thousands of jobs across the country.
What is more, culture is what defines us. It says who we are, what our vision of society is, how we approach the issues, social discussions and debates. It also gives us a chance to change our perspective and world view, and a chance to change the world.
I find it sad that on June 21, we still have to talk about this. The Liberals should have managed their agenda better.
However, I think that this bill does ultimately achieve the objectives that matter to our cultural sector, our artists and our artisans. The NDP will always be there to defend them.
View Gord Johns Profile
NDP (BC)
View Gord Johns Profile
2021-06-18 10:27 [p.8759]
Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for touching on the importance of more investments for seniors, which is absolutely necessary.
As the critic for small business and tourism, I will focus on small businesses because they have been very clear that they want to see an extension of the wage subsidy and rental program into next spring, especially for those in the tourism industry. Many of them cater to international tourists, and we know that they are not going to see international tourists this year.
Does my colleague agree that those programs should be extended to ensure that those businesses survive into next year given the border will not open any time soon?
View Robert Morrissey Profile
Lib. (PE)
View Robert Morrissey Profile
2021-06-18 10:28 [p.8759]
Madam Speaker, my colleague has a valid question.
I will simply respond by telling the member that the Prime Minister has been very clear that we will have the backs of Canadians and businesses for as long as it takes to get us successfully through the pandemic.
View Daniel Blaikie Profile
NDP (MB)
View Daniel Blaikie Profile
2021-06-18 11:44 [p.8772]
Madam Speaker, ever since the Liberals announced a significant cut to the Canada recovery benefit in their budget, New Democrats have been pushing back against that cut and challenging the government to undo it.
The answer the Liberals give in the House is completely disingenuous. They pretend that there is a choice between voting for their budget and voting for the cuts, or voting against the budget and voting against extending the benefit. They know that there is a third option, which is to extend the benefit and maintain the current benefit level.
I am just looking for some honesty here. Will the government acknowledge that this is an option and finally explain why it is choosing instead to cut the budgets of Canadians who are struggling to make ends meet?
View Carla Qualtrough Profile
Lib. (BC)
View Carla Qualtrough Profile
2021-06-18 11:45 [p.8772]
Madam Speaker, the CRB is part of a comprehensive suite of emergency and recovery measures to support Canadian workers and businesses. Through the CRB, if opposition parties support Bill C-30, Canadians can have access to up to 50 weeks of benefits. They could also have access to more flexible EI benefits, businesses could continue to have access to the wage subsidy, and we could help Canadians reenter the labour market by creating 500,000 new training and work opportunities and launching the Canada recovery hiring program.
We will continue to do whatever it takes, but we implore opposition parties to help us put Bill C-30 through.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
View Matthew Green Profile
2021-06-18 14:56 [p.8803]
Madam Speaker, I would like to begin my remarks on Bill C-30, the budget implementation act, with a solemn reflection of my time in the House.
When I first began, I had the opportunity to reply to the Speech from the Throne. At that point in time, we were all hopeful that in a minority government, we could work through in a way that would be of the greatest benefit to Canadians. Then, with the next Speech from the Throne after prorogation, I rose in this very spot and talked about the regret I felt, that we could have done better by Canadians in this time of crisis.
I want to take this moment of solemn reflection and centre the conversation back to the 25,000 people who have died from COVID in our country. We heard the remarks from the previous speaker about our agricultural sector. I want to note the recent passing of a migrant farm worker, someone who was left without the basic protections that most Canadians seem to take for granted. I want to think about the key question of what a budget implementation act is meant to do in a time of crisis, in this time of COVID. We have heard the term “unprecedented” time and again.
The last time I rose in the House, I talked about the opportunity we had before us and how, as New Democrats, we could fight for what could be in Canada and not what was. I wish I could suggest today that we have somehow found that dream, but I continue to point to the promises made, but not kept, by the Liberal government to the working-class people of the country. We know this crisis was not experienced equally.
During the pandemic, inequalities have increased. There was not an all-hands-on-deck approach. This has not been a team Canada approach. While everybody else was $200 away from insolvency, while 25,000 people perished, many of them living in deplorable conditions in long-term care facilities that had been privatized and carved out of our so-called universal health care, the ultra wealthy among us acquired close to $80 billion in wealth.
We have learned a lot about the Liberal government over the last few years. It talks a really good game and chases those headlines, but has no intention of delivering. Even elements of its own budget announcement have been left out of this budget implementation act. There is no wealth tax. There is no excess profits tax. The government talks about consultations, so it can report back to the House at a future date, and all the while the ultra-wealthy in the country continue to profit from the misery.
There is a choice to be made each and every time a budget is presented. It is ultimately a choice of which side one is on, that of the ultra-wealthy 1% or the rest of us. Since the beginning, people in my community of Hamilton Centre, noting the chuckles in the House from the Liberal side, are worried about whether they will be able to keep their job or pay rent. Let us forget about them ever being first-time homeowners. That dream is long gone for the people in my city, because the working-class wages have been suppressed. while the ultra-wealthy gained incredibly obscene amounts of money.
This crisis has revealed the fragility of the social safety nets we tout and for which we have so much pride, those measures that supposedly distinguish us from the rest of the world. The whole system has been set up on the backs of working-class people. We only have to look at the way the EI program, which had been raided by previous Liberal governments to balance the budget, completely fell apart and left out part-time workers and people who were self-employed. During this crisis, it was the workers who experienced the direct consequences of years of austerity and underfunding from successive Conservative and Liberal governments.
In this moment of historic crisis, when we stood here fighting for greater benefits for workers and pushing to ensure people had some kind of security, we heard people in the House bemoan the fact the average everyday Canadian may have received a meagre $2,000 a month. All the programs and social spending combined, at about $100 billion, pales in comparison to the $750 billion that was transferred to Bay Street and the big banks.
When were talking about a guaranteed livable income and about increasing CERB supports for people, I remember the hon. member for Winnipeg North asking “What are we going to do, click our heels to support Canadians?” The Liberals certainly did that for Bay Street. This represents the largest transfer of wealth from the general public, the working-class people, to the ultra-wealthy in the country. Main street was absolutely mugged by Bay Street.
We were fighting for workers and tried to find that balance. One of the mistakes made over the course of COVID was the fact that rather than ensure the direct supports for wage subsidies went directly for workers, we allowed it to go to businesses. The Liberals did it in such a way they knew had significant holes and gaps, loopholes almost as big as their tax haven scams. What did that result in?
There were $18 billion that went into oil and gas in 2020. Imperial Oil took $120 million in the Canada emergency wage subsidy, while paying out $324 million to its shareholders. Chartwell received $3 million and paid out 11 times that amount, $33 million, to its shareholders.
Yesterday, in debate, I recall one of the hon. members from the Liberal side tried to challenge the hon. member for Burnaby, suggesting somehow he was not doing enough as an individual to contribute to his community.
I put a question to the House, to all the members who are watching in the Canadian public. When I talk about the theft of corporate Canada from taxpayers in the country, the question is cui bono, who profited from that crime? Who in the House holds stocks and shares that may have been paid off the dividends and off the back of our Canada emergency wage subsidy?
Air Canada was given $6 billion, yet Greyhound leaves and the government does not see fit to support northern and rural communities by expanding government as a service, a national passenger bus transit strategy that would have ensured people had the ability to move around the country. We can look at the close to one billion dollars given to pharmaceutical companies. We have no preferable procurement. We are giving money away to the private sector and getting nothing in return.
Why do we not have in this moment, in this budget implementation act, the ability for us as a nation to procure our own life-saving vaccines? Because the government would rather kowtow to pharmaceutical companies, to allow them to set the agenda, the prices and the market, the global market.
Nobody is safe in the country until the entire world is safe. The government continues to tout how many vaccines it has taken in, while simultaneously taking from the COVAX facility. At the very same time, with absolutely zero moral authority, it blocked the patent waivers for which the international world is calling.
My city was just named a Delta variant hot spot this week. This budget does not deliver on the ability for us to adequately respond to how this could potentially have mutations and could potentially make all our vaccination efforts useless.
I want the Liberals to reflect on the things they have said over the last two years versus what they have actually delivered. At the end of the day, I want them to be accountable for all the people they have left out in this implementation act.
View Louise Charbonneau Profile
BQ (QC)
View Louise Charbonneau Profile
2021-06-18 15:09 [p.8804]
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Hamilton Centre for his speech. He spoke a lot about the Canada emergency wage benefit. I would like to hear his thoughts on the political parties that received the wage subsidy.
What does he think about that?
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
View Matthew Green Profile
2021-06-18 15:09 [p.8805]
Madam Speaker, in a moment of candour, I personally do not think it was appropriate. I will say that on the record. At the same time, particularly those parties that were flush have to significantly account for it.
All of our efforts in this House should have been directed at everyday working-class Canadians.
View Xavier Barsalou-Duval Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, I seem to have gotten cut off for a moment. I think a member had their microphone on, and a meeting host put everyone on mute to turn the member's sound off. I think that probably put me and the Chair on mute. I could be wrong. I am not a tech expert, but that would be my guess.
What I was saying was that we would have expected the government, upon winning a minority, to make an effort to negotiate with the parties, to present a budget and to make concessions. Instead, it dragged things out and took advantage of the pandemic to avoid presenting a budget, to avoid being held accountable and to do whatever it wanted. Once the pandemic arrived, the government came to us with piecemeal legislation that we always had to vote on quickly. We then noticed all of the holes and all of the problems these programs had.
It is now June 2021 and we are hearing all kinds of rumours about a possible election. Meanwhile, we are still on this government's first budget. That speaks volumes. We agree that that is not much of a record, that it is not very impressive.
Let us also talk a little bit about the way this crisis was managed, the way we experienced it as parliamentarians and the way the population saw it. I am not sure that the Liberals were the great champions they sometimes claim to be.
In fact, when looking at the situation, we see that they took advantage of the crisis to try to give contracts to their friends. They arranged for a nice wage subsidy and included a special stipulation saying that political parties would be eligible. That is about it. They arranged things and no one seemed to be aware of it. However, at a certain point, we realized what was happening. We wondered how the Liberals could take advantage of the wage subsidy when their coffers were already full. It was the same for the other parties. The Bloc Québécois is the only party that refused to take advantage of the wage subsidy.
The Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, two political parties that are far from lacking in funds, took advantage of the pandemic to get rich and fill their coffers, at the expense of people who were in need and who needed the support of the government.
We will not stop reminding the House of this, even though the government may not like to hear it. We are going to repeat it because we know that the public is eventually going to have to vote and pass judgment.
We also saw a company being incorporated and, practically the very next day, magically receiving government contracts at prices that were frankly pretty high. First of all, the company did not manufacture equipment or respirators. Second, the people linked to this company were former Liberals.
We saw the WE Charity program brought in, again in a rush. The government claimed it did not have the expertise or staff to run a program. In the end, we realized that this charity had dubious practices. For example, it might get four or five different donors to fund the same project and just change the name on the plaque out front. We discovered that some people in the organization were particularly close to the Liberals and that the government was going to put the group in charge of distributing about $1 billion in grants for “paid volunteer work” without a competition and without consulting anyone. It is a weird story, and I think that many people had a hard time following the government's reasoning, the Liberals' reasoning. It is so hard to explain. We still have a hard time explaining it. The whole thing was called off when the parliamentary committees started looking into this infamous program, which seemed tailor-made for a group that had ties to the Liberals.
There were other problems that may not have bothered people in the rest of Canada very much, but that certainly bothered people in Quebec. In the middle of the health crisis, when people were a bit worried and stressed out, we sometimes wondered if we would be able to get all the products we needed. Some products on the shelves were dangerous and came with no instructions. Some products had no information on them.
In times of crisis, governments show their true colours, and we certainly saw the Canadian government's true colours. As it turns out, French is a frill for the Canadian government. It is a cute little language that the government likes to trot out from time to time to placate francophones whenever we make a fuss, but when the rubber hits the road, French gets tossed aside. That is exactly what happened with product labelling during the crisis.
We also found out how the federal government was managing its medical equipment. When the emergency supply warehouses were opened up, it turned out that the masks were past their expiry date, and lots of the gear in the federal stockpile was no longer usable. Panic ensued, and the government scrambled to bring in equipment from all over the world.
A similar fate befell our vaccine production capacity. We realized it had become all but impossible to make vaccines here. It is possible, but our capacity is greatly diminished. Why? Because Canada has chosen to outsource everything over the years, often at the expense of our local industries.
As I mentioned earlier, some programs had some deficiencies, like the CERB, which created disincentives to work. Many people decided to stay at home instead of going to work, even though there was a need on the ground.
The government decided not to close the borders, even though it was well known that the virus was entering from other countries. It did not come from within Canada. Some people were getting cheques to quarantine after going on holiday, while others had no access to any assistance.
The government felt sorry for the airlines. Yes, they needed help, but ordinary people were not getting refunds for their plane tickets. Their rights were completely violated.
On top of that, the government has taken to lecturing Quebec on how it has handled the crisis. After everything I just pointed out, in my opinion, that is the worst. There is nothing worse than a government that comes along and tells Quebec what to do in its areas of jurisdiction, that gives lessons on how Quebec should manage its health care system when it is incapable of managing its own jurisdictions.
I will conclude there.
View Yves Perron Profile
BQ (QC)
View Yves Perron Profile
2021-06-18 15:52 [p.8810]
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. We do not often agree, but it is a pleasure to work with him, especially in committee.
I really like the part of the Conservatives' discourse on effective spending and the need to target the right people. My colleague spoke of big companies that sought out financial aid, while small businesses, especially travel agencies, did not receive adequate support.
I would like to know my colleague's opinion on the Canada emergency wage subsidy. What does he think about the fact that political parties benefited from this support, while the small businesses it was originally intended for could not benefit from it? What does he think of the amounts his party received from the wage subsidy, and does he think that money should be paid back?
View Warren Steinley Profile
CPC (SK)
View Warren Steinley Profile
2021-06-18 15:53 [p.8810]
Madam Speaker, the member is correct. I do enjoy working with him on the agriculture committee, and that is why I was very proud of our leader when he said that we would stop receiving the wage subsidy immediately when he became leader and that we would pay it back slowly.
That is what Conservatives believe in. We put our money where our mouth is. I am not sure if the Liberal Party is going to buck up and pay the money back that they got from the wage subsidy, but Conservatives believe that money should be paid back. That is why I was proud to support the member for Durham when he made that announcement during his leadership race.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
2021-06-18 16:12 [p.8813]
Madam Speaker, if people are tired of working hard and getting nowhere, while watching others who contribute next to nothing get fabulously wealthy, then they should stop whatever they are doing. I am about to tell them five easy tricks that will allow them to get fabulously rich in today's Liberal economy, while contributing less than everyone else.
I know people are skeptical. In today's modern, progressive, altruistic, state-controlled era there is no such thing as greed and profit anymore. Let me quote Liberal luminary Mark Carney, who recently said:
The state embodies collective ideals such as equality of opportunity, liberty, fairness, solidarity and sustainability.
In this collective state, of course, there is no greed and, of course, no one wants to get rich and no one can, except for using these five tricks, so tune in and listen carefully.
Quick trick number one: Apply for a grant claiming it will be used to pay workers, when in fact it will be used to fund CEO bonuses, dividends and share buybacks. Air Canada, for example, used this trick to pay $10 million to its executives.
I can quote The Globe and Mail about the wage subsidy. Remember how the wage subsidy was supposed to be for companies that were so poor they could not pay their workers' wages? Here is what The Globe and Mail said about that:
In some cases, companies have yet to lay off workers, increase shareholder dividends and distribute bonuses despite collecting hundreds of millions of dollars in government money. In the wealth management industry, The Globe found that at least 80 asset managers, including some of the top performing hedge funds of 2020, received the grant.
The rich are always very good at getting money. In fact, remember all of those cash payments that were supposed to be for families in need? The top fifth of households got, on average, $6,700. The poorest households got $4,000, so the rich got almost two-thirds more than the poor, even though the poor are the ones who lost their jobs. People should be rich and apply for government money, then use their connections, consultants and accountants to maximize their take. That is trick number one.
Trick number two: Offer the Prime Minister's cabinet and family fees, expenses and luxurious trips. For example, the Kielburger brothers gave vacations, expenses and fees to the Prime Minister's team worth about half a million dollars. For that they got a half-a-billion dollar grant. Then the Aga Khan gave the Prime Minister a quarter-of-a-million dollar vacation, and he got a $15 million grant. These kinds of returns on investment would make Warren Buffett blush. A pro tip: People must have connections in the RCMP because, of course, much of this is illegal and even criminal, and they might get charged without having friends in law enforcement.
Get-rich-quick trick number three: When central banks are throwing money out the window, stand next to the window. That is what the financial institutions have been doing. The Bank of Canada has created $3 billion and has used it to buy government debt. This is debt that the government sells to the banks on a Monday, and the Bank of Canada buys it back on a Tuesday, only at a higher price and at a profit to the financial institution. The trick here is also to own a mansion, gold, land, stocks or bonds, all of which will be inflated in value, increasing people's net worth. This trick worked for Canada's 20 wealthiest Canadians who, in the first six months of this money-printing scheme saw their net worth rise by a staggering 32%, while our waitresses, airline stewardesses and small businesses got clobbered and $100 billion vanished from our economy. Somehow, the very rich with all of their assets managed to get richer still. The lesson is the next time the government is printing money, start off by being rich, because then people can be richer still. When the Bank of Canada is printing money and throwing it out the window, stand next to the window.
Get-rich-quick trick number four: Get into one of the fastest-growing industries in Canada. Yes, the economy is collapsing, but there are two industries that are on fire. The first is to become a consultant for the government. Since this Prime Minister took office, the federal government consulting budget has grown from $8 billion to $16 billion. For those Liberals over there who are missing their calculators, that is a 100% increase. People can get in on some of that cash.
These are the kinds of jobs people can do these days, working from their living room, in their pyjamas, on Zoom: consulting; writing, for example, presentations that nobody ever sees; making up buzzwords that nobody even understands; doing PowerPoint presentations that no one will ever look at. It is 100% growth, and they can get in on some of that $16 billion too.
Get-rich-quick trick number five is the fastest-growing industry in Canada, in fact, faster than the consultants. This industry is lobbying. Under the previous Harper government, there were 9,300 lobbying interactions in 2015. Last year, there were 28,000, a 200% increase in paid lobbying interactions.
What is a lobbyist? People have heard of stockbrokers, real estate brokers and insurance brokers. A lobbyist is a power broker. For the most part, it is someone whom people can hire. They can pay them and turn their money into power and that power into even more money. If people want a loan, a grant, a handout, a regulatory protection or some other political favour to get rich, they hire a lobbyist.
This industry is on fire for a very specific reason. Why? Because it is a product of government. The bigger a government gets, the more lobbyists it needs. Therefore, as government has almost doubled in size over the last five years, so too has the lobbying industry grown. Why? Because businesses want a return on investment. If there is money in software, they invest in technology; money in copper, they invest in mining; money in government, they invest in lobbying. The correlation between lobbying and government spending is almost a perfect match, not just here but also in the United States. As the government in Washington grosses a share of the GDP, so too does the amount corporations spend on lobbying that government.
They go where the money is, and you should too, Madam Speaker. That is why I am letting you in on these five secret tricks. I am not asking for anything in return, except from time to time you might let me speak a bit more than otherwise would be allow. That is a small price to pay for the kind of big money you are going to be making with these five easy tricks that I am sharing here and now.
How does any of this make sense? We were told by Mark Carney that greed would be gone. We just needed to replace that nasty free market economy, which is motivated only by self-interest, with the altruistic power of the state. What, in fact, is the state? The state is just legalized force. It is the only entity that can apply force. Would they not think that someone who is greedy and self-interested would be less greedy and self-interested if they were acting through a creature that operates by power and force? It means that socialists have been trying to teach us for all these years that if we expand the power of the state, all of a sudden we will bring out altruism, that the weak and the poor will be advantaged. In what relationship of force have the weak and poor ever been advantaged? Of course, the weak and poor are disadvantaged and the powerful and strong get ahead when force is applied.
We know that the same base instincts will exist when the state gets big. As Macaulay wrote:
Where'er ye shed the honey, the buzzing flies will crowd; Where'er ye fling the carrion, the raven's croak is loud; Where'er down Tiber garbage floats, the greedy pike ye see; And wheresoe'er such lord is found, such client still will be.
I notice how he used flies and honey, not bees and honey. Why? Because flies do not make honey. They consume it without producing it. They are the same parasitical creatures that those who get rich off the state are. They do not produce anything. They do not contribute anything. They take without making. If they were bees, they would be contributing. A free market economy is sort of like bees. They cross-pollinate, an aspect of trade and exchange that we see between a customer and a small business, between a worker and an employer, between an investor and an entrepreneur.
That voluntary exchange is coming back, and that is why my five tricks are a limited-time offer. Soon, this state-run economy will be eliminated and replaced with a free enterprise system where everyone will go back to getting ahead by helping others and by improving their country by engaging the voluntary exchange of work for wages, product for payment and investment for interest, a system that makes everybody better off; a system where people have to be truly empathetic because, as entrepreneurs, they cannot improve their own lot unless they sell something to somebody that they want to buy, in other words, unless they make someone else's life better off.
That is the way people will get rich in the future, but for the time being, they have my five quick tricks for getting rich.
View James Bezan Profile
CPC (MB)
Mr. Speaker, I hope this is the final time I will have to address the House virtually. I look forward to being in Ottawa next week and hope very much that we will be back to normal sessions come the fall.
I will be splitting my time with the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.
I just have to say that this is a rare measure that we are requesting of all members of the House of Commons to censure the Minister of National Defence. The last time anyone was censured in the House was back in 2002, and it has come to this point, because the Minister of National Defence has refused to do the honourable thing and resign, and the Prime Minister has refused to do the right thing and fire the Minister of National Defence. Essentially, that leaves it up to us in the House of Commons to censure the minister going forward, until the voters of Vancouver South have an opportunity to express their displeasure in the upcoming federal election.
I also just want to say to the Speaker, who has stepped into the chair, knowing that he has announced that he will not be running in the next federal election, how much I have appreciated his strength in the chair and his friendship over the years as we served together. I wish him all the best in his future endeavours, enjoying more time with his family.
When we look at this motion, we have to look at the litany of misleading comments made by the Minister of National Defence over his tenure since 2015. I think all of us are all too familiar with the travesty of the wrongful accusations and the decision by the minister to go on a witch hunt to stop the procurement of the Asterix for the Royal Canadian Navy, and how he threw retired Vice-Admiral Mark Norman under the bus. We know that through 2017 and into 2018, this escalated to a ridiculous level and ended up in the courts. The case, of course, was thrown out by the judge, because there just was not any evidence for it. It was an unnecessary attack on the honourable service and great reputation of a strong military leader, Vice-Admiral Mark Norman.
However, we have to go back to the very beginning of the minister's tenure and look at what happened with his politically motivated withdrawal of our CF-18s from the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The minister was over there meeting with the Government of Iraq, as well as Kurdish officials in Erbil, and he told CBC on December 21, 2015, that he had not had one discussion about withdrawing our CF-18s from the fight. However, an access to information request on the record of a wire message in reference to the Minister of National Defence's meeting with the Iraqi minister of defence on December 20, 2015, just the day before he made that statement, says, “the Iraqi Minister of Defence was clearly focused on Canada's decision to withdraw its CF18 fighter jets from the coalition air strikes, asking [our Minister of National Defence] to reconsider this decision on numerous occasions”. That was the very first step in the minister's very misleading comments to the media and to Canadians.
We should not be surprised, because we also know that the minister, back in July 2015 when he was running to be a member of Parliament for the first time, claimed on a local B.C. program, Conversations That Matter, that he was the architect of Operation Medusa in Afghanistan. He reiterated that in April 2017, when he was at a conference in New Delhi on conflict prevention and peace keeping in a changing world. He again said that he was the architect of Operation Medusa.
Of course, he was a major back then and had numerous members in the command chain above him who were making the decisions, and there is no doubt that he provided great input and intelligence into how Operation Medusa was conducted, but to claim that he was more than the team is something that is not well regarded within the Canadian Armed Forces or by veterans across this country, and the minister had to apologize.
We also saw the minister take a shot at me back in 2017 over the cuts to tax-free allowances for forces members serving in Operation Impact while stationed in Kuwait at Camp Arifjan at that time. He claimed that it was the Conservative government that had taken away the tax-free allowance. I was able to get up on a question of privilege to point out that the initial assessments were made under the current Liberal government, and those cuts were made by this minister to hardship pay that was in effect back in 2014-15. Again, there was a finding that he misled the House.
Now, the most egregious of all of this, and the one that is really rocking our Canadian Armed Forces right now, is, of course, the crisis of sexual misconduct. I will point out and ask the question: What do the Somalia affair, the decade of darkness and the crisis of sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces today have in common? It all comes down to weak Liberal leadership.
We know that when the news broke that retired General Jonathan Vance, the former chief of the defence staff, had issues of sexual misconduct raised in March 2018, the Minister of National Defence said at committee on February 19 of this year that he was “as shocked as everyone else at the allegations that were made public two weeks ago”. He was surprised to learn about these allegations, but then at the defence committee on March 3, 2021, the former ombudsman for national defence and the Canadian Armed Forces, Gary Walbourne, said at committee that “I personally met with [the minister] to address an allegation of inappropriate sexual behaviour within the senior ranks of the Canadian Armed Forces, specifically, against the chief of the defence staff, and to discuss my concerns about this allegation. This meeting happened on March 1, 2018.” That was three years before the story became news, when the minister was briefed by Gary Walbourne.
Gary Walbourne went on to say at committee that:
I did tell the minister what the allegation was. I reached into my pocket to show him the evidence I was holding, and he pushed back from the table and said, “No.” I don't think we exchanged another word.
The minister refused the evidence, and we know that, at the defence committee on March 12, 2021, he then admitted that, “I did meet with Mr. Walbourne”. The ombudsman brought up the concerns, but “He did not give me any details”, is what the minister was claiming. Yet, if we look at all of the information that flowed between the minister's chief of staff, Zita Astravas at the time, up into the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office on March 2, 2018, it all talked about this being a matter of sexual misconduct, which they actually described as “sexual harassment”. Elder Marques, Michael Wernick and Katie Telford, the chief of staff to the Prime Minister, all knew that this was an issue of sexual misconduct.
Therefore, as the minister continues to dodge this and refuses to do the honourable thing and resign, and as long as the Prime Minister continues to back this inept behaviour by the Minister of National Defence and refuses to fire him, it falls upon us as the House of Commons to censure this minister since he has consistently and repeatedly misled the House.
I call upon all members of the House of Commons in all parties to censure this minister for his continued casual relationship with the truth.
View Heather McPherson Profile
NDP (AB)
View Heather McPherson Profile
2021-06-17 19:12 [p.8711]
Madam Speaker, I appreciate the frustration that my colleague has shared regarding the government's response.
A company in my riding of Edmonton Strathcona is using the wage subsidy program to pay for scab labour so it can lock its workers out. Like her, I have brought up many times to the Deputy Prime Minister that I would like the government to close this loophole, and I have heard nothing.
Could the member comment on why she thinks the government refuses to close loopholes, refuses to make the plans that need to happen and refuses to do its work?
View Stephanie Kusie Profile
CPC (AB)
View Stephanie Kusie Profile
2021-06-17 19:13 [p.8711]
Madam Speaker, I know the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona, like myself and the leader of the official opposition, share a commitment to Canada's workers. She is right that the government, in not coming up with a reopening plan for the nation, is leaving all of Canada's workers in the lurch.
I stand beside her in the hopes that the government soon will pay attention to Canada's workers and come up with a plan, not only for the workers of Canada but for all Canadians.
View Yves Perron Profile
BQ (QC)
View Yves Perron Profile
2021-06-17 19:48 [p.8717]
Mr. Speaker, even though I always run out of time, I will allow myself the luxury of taking a few seconds to extend a personal greeting to you. I will take advantage of the fact that I am delivering a speech in your presence to say that, during the brief time that we have worked together, you have been very pleasant and very efficient. I really enjoy your creative way with the French language.
Now to the matter at hand. I really have a lot to say about the main estimates and the supplementary estimates. I will try to be efficient.
First of all, we need to talk about how this money is being spent. We need to talk about how this money comes in from across the country and is being taken out of the hands of levels of government that are closer to the people. Case in point, health transfers to Quebec and the provinces. I simply cannot rise in the House to talk about expenditures and budgets without talking about that injustice. The provinces are unanimous in their demand for $28 billion, but that is not in the budget. The federal share has to go up to 35%. That is essential.
I will also talk about old age security. How could anyone possibly sleep at night after voting for a budget that, with a deficit of nearly $400 billion, does not improve the quality of life of those who built our society? I can still hardly believe it, and every time I talk about it in the House, I get a feeling of revulsion that turns my stomach. It is outrageous, and I urge the government to act quickly on this.
Some may think no one is talking about this anymore, but we have people calling our offices and commenting on social media every day, asking us what we are doing, why they are not hearing about this issue anymore, and whether we are still discussing it. I always reply that we still are, and that is what I am doing here tonight.
Now I would like to talk about the securities regulator. In this budget implementation case we want to pull back spending. Fortunately, my favourite MP, who spoke before me, was very effective in committee and managed to reduce the funding. We must be vigilant, and I invite the members of this Parliament, especially the opposition, to be vigilant with us and block any possible return of this odious attempt to further dispossess and weaken Quebec. This is unacceptable. We cannot accept losing control of our economic institutions.
A provision in the budget implementation bill states that companies that received the Canada emergency wage subsidy may not pay bonuses to their senior executives. Someone should have mentioned that to Air Canada. Fortunately, public pressure did the job. I think measures like these are appropriate.
However, I cannot help but draw a parallel with the fact that the wage subsidy was used by almost everyone here except us. Every party in the House benefited from that subsidy, or rather abused it; I am not sure which word to use. It is a measure that we voted in favour of in good faith to help our businesses, but people will use that money for their election campaigns in the coming months. If that is not scandalous, I do not know what is. Not only do the parties need to stop receiving the subsidy, they also need to pay it back. That money does not belong to the parties.
I could speak at length about what was done during the COVID‑19 crisis, including the Canada emergency response benefit, CERB, which discouraged people from working. We rose many times in the House to have CERB help people get back to work. CERB harmed our businesses. It has left a mark and it is not over. The topic comes up every time I meet with my municipalities. This is a crazy situation knowing that we have a labour shortage. Earlier my colleague mentioned that using foreign workers was one way to overcome the labour shortage. These foreign workers are essential in many sectors.
The Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship is in chaos right now. Nothing is moving. Visa processing has been suspended and businesses are not getting answers. They are calling us and are desperate. Even we have a hard time getting answers for them. It is unbelievable.
There are certain changes that could reasonably be made right now, for example to the percentage of temporary foreign workers authorized to work in the agri-food industries. This has been discussed a lot at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, and the members unanimously agreed that the percentage must be doubled at least. Let us do it. Let us make it easier for these people to integrate as well. The Bloc Québécois has made some concrete proposals, such as offering three-year visas; doing fewer market impact assessments because they are not really necessary since the job market does not change that quickly; and allowing for flexibility.
I spoke about the agri-food sector, but I also want to talk about the hospitality and tourism industries. They are really struggling. Restaurants are shutting down in my riding. It is heartbreaking to see, since these institutions have been around 25, 30 or 40 years. They are so good that they put towns on the map. These establishments have put up signs saying that they do not have the staff to reopen. We need to find solutions. One way to get more workers for our businesses is to vote for smart measures that encourage people to find work. I am talking about incentives rather than disincentives.
I would be remiss if I talked about temporary foreign workers without mentioning that, on June 9, the Union des producteurs agricoles du Québec, the Association des producteurs de fraises et framboises du Québec, and the Quebec Produce Growers Association urged the Liberal government not to abandon them, but that is precisely what is happening.
Let us remember when the mandatory quarantines were established. Would anyone here have dared to say that a foreign worker need not quarantine for 14 days? No one would have. Let us remember that the Bloc Québécois has always clearly stated that quarantines are a federal responsibility. The government did not carry out its responsibilities. It downloaded them onto our farmers. Yes, farmers are capable of carrying them out. Yes, they managed this in an extraordinary way, but it was not up to them to do it, and it was especially not up to them to pay for it. Not only were they forced to manage the quarantines and to provide multiple housing units, but, in addition, they have to pay the workers when they are here, which is only right.
The government introduced a measure, namely a $1,500 support. In their letter, which I believe and hope was acknowledged, they ask that this program be maintained. Yesterday, June 16, the amount was cut in half to $750. Why? Does it cost less to quarantine now than it did two weeks ago? Is it not as necessary now as it was two weeks ago?
I am going to read the last sentence from the minister's announcement because I do not have the time to read more. “This program will be available as long as the Quarantine Act is in force and the isolation protocol is followed.” Is that not currently the case? The government and the minister must keep their word and not abandon our producers before the war on COVID‑19 is over.
On top of that, there is also the Switch Health saga. They have calculated the costs. A standard 14-day quarantine costs $1,750 per worker, but $3,000 if the worker has to quarantine at a hotel. With all the chaos caused by Switch Health, it costs $113 more per worker per additional day, and $223 more per worker per additional day if the worker is quarantining at a hotel.
What is the government telling farmers about that? The government is saying that it is sorry that it has put farmers in dire straits but that it took two months to work things out. That is unacceptable. We need to support our farmers. We need to think about the people on the ground when voting on all of these expenditures. I want to briefly mention what has been happening in the House over the past few days and invite members of this Parliament to work constructively in the few days we have left. We have a pile of fundamental bills that we need to vote on.
View Stéphane Lauzon Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé for his speech.
I am saddened to hear that several businesses in these picturesque villages, like Saint‑Élie‑de‑Caxton, Charette and Saint‑Paulin, had to close their doors due to labour shortages.
I would like to ask my colleague a fairly specific question. He says that CERB was too much, that business subsidies were mismanaged, and so on. However, for 15 months, the Bloc told us that it was not enough, not fast enough, never enough. Today, he says it was too much.
Did his riding benefit from CERB?
Can he look his constituents, the businesspeople and all the families that were saved by CERB in the eye and tell them that CERB and the subsidy were not necessary?
View Yves Perron Profile
BQ (QC)
View Yves Perron Profile
2021-06-17 20:02 [p.8718]
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his questions and his knowledge of my neck of the woods. I am touched.
He misunderstood part of my speech. I did not say that it was too much. I said that it was mismanaged. There is a big difference.
He asked whether I can look my constituents in the eye, and the answer is of course. I mentioned the municipalities. When I meet with them, people tell me that CERB is no good. I start by telling them that honestly, we in the Bloc Québécois agreed to adopt it quickly in March 2020. However, at the end of April 2020, we did not say to end CERB. We said that it needed to incentivize work. There is a nuance here that is important to grasp.
The wage subsidy was one of our proposals, and we are proud to have maintained the employment relationship between businesses and employees. It was a good idea. In fact, it needs to keep going. I am not saying we need to reduce spending. I am saying that we need to spend wisely.
During the summer, we made a pact here with the Deputy Prime Minister. I get a little upset when I get questions like that. I need to calm down. We pushed for a measure that would get people back to work, but the Liberals did not go ahead with that. They said the machine was too big to do it. I have some choice words to say about that, but I cannot say them here. Seriously. Students who worked more than 18 hours lost their whole benefit. They would have had to work 43 hours to earn that same amount. Students are not lazy, and they are smart.
Governments need to bring in measures that make sense and get people back to work. For that to happen, there has to be collaboration. The government has to listen to the opposition. Things were going well at the start of the crisis, but before long the government stopped listening.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that I am coming to you from the traditional unceded territory of the QayQayt First Nation and the Coast Salish peoples. I thank them for this privilege.
I would like to start off by paying tribute to frontline workers, health care workers and emergency responders across the country. We have seen over the last 15 months, as our country has entered into this unparalleled health crisis, incredible bravery and incredible dedication on behalf of all those Canadians who have tried to keep us alive and well, and who continue to serve us during this pandemic.
Now, we can look, and there is a potential light at the end of the tunnel, as we start to see, slowly, the number of infections going down. We still have much work to do, there is no doubt, but we can start to envisage what kind of society we can actually build post-COVID.
I do that from my background as a financial administrator. As members know, I started out my adult working life as a factory worker and eventually was able to save up enough money to go back to school and learn about finances and financial management. I was able, fortunately, to use that in a variety of social enterprises and organizations.
The one thing I learned that is fundamental, when we talk about financial administration, is that we have to follow the money to see what the priorities of a social enterprise, business or organization are. What the priorities are is often dictated by where the flow of money goes. In this debate and this discussion around the main estimates and where we are as a country, it is fundamentally important to ask the question “Where is the money flowing to?” That is why this main estimates process and this debate tonight are so fundamentally important.
As members well know, in our corner of the House, and this dates back to the time of Tommy Douglas, within the NDP we have always believed that it is fundamentally important to make sure that those who are the wealthiest in society pay their fair share. Tommy Douglas was able to, in the first democratic socialist government in North America, actually put in place universal health care. He was able to do that because he put in place a fair tax system.
We can look at the NDP governments since that time. I am certainly not telling tales out of school. As members are well aware, the federal ministry of finance is not a hotbed of New Democrats. However, the federal ministries of finance have consistently, over the last decades, acknowledged that NDP governments have been the best in terms of balancing budgets and providing services for people. That is the same approach that we will take, one day, to provide the type of stewardship that we believe is fundamental to renewing our country, providing the supports, and building a society where everyone matters.
Let us look at where the current government stands, in terms of that flow of money. Prior to the budget, we put forward, and it should have been reflected in the estimates process, a variety of smart ideas that other countries have already incorporated as we go through this pandemic. We believe that we should be putting into place, as other countries have done, a wealth tax. We should be saying to the billionaires and the ultrarich of this country that they have to pay their fair share. They benefited from this pandemic and their wealth has increased, and now they have to give some of that back, to make sure that we all have the wherewithal to move forward.
We also proposed a pandemic profits tax, because we have seen in previous crises, like the Second World War, that putting that type of practice into place ensures that companies maintain the same profit levels but are not profiting unduly from the suffering that so many people have experienced through COVID-19.
We have also been foremost with regard to cracking down on overseas tax havens. As members know, I have spoken out about this. The member for Burnaby South, our national leader, the member for Hamilton Centre and the rest of the NDP caucus have been vociferous in this regard because these lose an astounding amount of taxpayers' money every year. They are the result of both Conservative actions and Liberal actions.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer pointed out two years ago that Canadians lose $25 billion every year to overseas tax havens. That $25 billion could meet an enormous amount of need. It could serve in job creation or the transition to a clean energy economy. All of those things could be accomplished, but what we see is an intricate network of tax havens that has built up over the years because of both Conservative and Liberal government decisions. The cost to Canadians is profoundly strong when we think of $25 billion a year in taxpayers' money being lost to overseas tax havens.
When we couple that $25 billion with a pandemic profits tax, which the Parliamentary Budget Officer evaluated at $8 billion, and a wealth tax, which would bring in $10 billion a year, we start to see what financial underpinnings could be put into place to actually meet the needs of Canadians across the country. We often see that there is a flow of money to the ultrarich: the wealthiest banks and billionaires in this country. At the same time, we often see that those who have the most critical needs do not even get a trickle of that financial flow.
At the beginning of this crisis, where did the government decide to flow its money? We know this now. This is no secret. In fact, the Liberal government seems to be proud of this fact. Within four days of the pandemic hitting in Canada, an astounding, unbelievable, record amount of $750 billion was made available in liquidity supports to Canada's big banks through a variety of mechanisms and federal institutions: OSFI, the CMHC and the Bank of Canada. That is $750 billion. It is unparalleled in our history and unprecedented.
If we go back to the Harper government, there were criticisms at that time because during the global financial crisis $116 billion in liquidity support was provided to the banking sector. Of course the banking sector prospered enormously from it, but $750 billion is so difficult to get our minds around. It is a vast amount of money. It is a colossal flow of an unprecedented amount of cash in liquidity supports to the banking sector.
The banks have responded accordingly. There were no conditions attached. They jacked up their service fees, as so many Canadians know. They did not reduce their interest rates to zero, as we saw in the credit union movement. Credit unions, such as Community Savings Credit Union in Vancouver, reduced their line of credit interest to zero and their credit card rates to zero because they knew Canadians were suffering. Canadians had to struggle to put food on the table, and the credit union sector in many respects responded to that, but the banking sector did not. It just kept seeing that money roll in. During the pandemic, its profits have been $60 billion so far. It is unbelievable.
I pointed out earlier that there is no pandemic profits tax and there is no wealth tax. Canada's billionaires have increased their wealth during this pandemic by an astounding $80 billion, yet there are no measures for any sort of fairness or to make sure the ultrarich pay their fair share. We can follow the money and see, with the Liberal government, that as we went through an unprecedented crisis its first and foremost thought was for the banks and billionaires of this country. This is unique in the responses of governments through crises in the past.
During the Second World War when we needed to win the battle against Nazism and fascism, the federal government put into place an excess profits tax and wealth taxes to ensure that we had the wherewithal to win the war effort. After the Second World War, we were able to build an unprecedented amount of public housing, hospitals and educational institutions across the country and to build the transportation sector. The country boomed in so many respects because the investments were there starting with a fair tax system, but not this time. There is no wealth tax, no pandemic profits tax and no cracking down on overseas tax havens.
What did the NDP do? We hear rumours that the Prime Minister desperately wants to call an election, and we will all be asked what we did during the pandemic.
Under the leadership of the member for Burnaby South, the NDP went to work immediately. We saw the huge amounts of money that were made available to the banking sector right off the bat, and we started pushing for an emergency response benefit that could lift people above the poverty line. We forced and pushed because we had seen from the best examples of other countries that we needed to put in a place a 75% wage subsidy. We pushed hard, as members know, to make that a reality.
The track record is very clear. We pushed in the House of Commons for supports for students, seniors and people with disabilities, with the big caveat that the Liberal government never put in place wholesale supports for all people with disabilities. It has now asked them to wait three years before there is any hope of support. People with disabilities will have to wait three years while banks had to wait four days in the midst of a pandemic. That is the national tragedy we see with the flow of money going to the ultrarich, the wealthiest, to make sure that banks and billionaires benefit first.
New Democrats fought those fights and won many of them over the course of the past year. I know that has made a difference. We still see suffering. We still see people lining up at food banks in unprecedented numbers. Tragically we still see people with disabilities who are barely getting by. Tragically we still see people closing, for the last time, the doors of businesses that they may have devoted their lives to building up. These are community businesses that served the public and created jobs in communities across this country, but in so many cases those small businesses have had to close their doors. Nothing could be more tragic.
As we come out of such a profound crisis, we see many people being left behind; however, the government has put forward a budget that slashes the CERB benefits even more. The CRB was slashed from $500 a week to $300 a week, which is below the poverty level. We see the government responding to the economic crisis of seniors by saying that those over 75 get a top-up on their OAS to lift them up to the poverty line, but those under 75 are out of luck with the government.
That contrasts vividly with the government paying out money through the wage subsidy to profitable companies that then paid huge executive bonuses or often paid dividends to their investors. The government says that is okay, despite the NDP's warnings from the very beginning that it had to put measures into place. It is not a problem: It will recover money elsewhere, but then it slashes the CERB benefits for people who need them the most.
What does this mean, in terms of an estimates process, and how would the NDP approach the issue of making sure we meet the needs of Canadians and respond to the crisis that so many people are living through in this country? As I have already mentioned, New Democrats would tackle it from the revenue side. We would make sure that the ultrarich pay their fair share. We would crack down on overseas tax havens. The government never introduced a single piece of legislation that adequately responded to the crisis in financing we see with the hemorrhaging of $25 billion a year to overseas tax havens.
The CRA was before the finance committee last week. The year before, I asked who had been prosecuted in the Panama papers, the Bahama papers, the Paradise papers and the Isle of Man scam. A year ago, CRA was forced to say it had never prosecuted anybody. This year I asked the same question, and the result was exactly the same. No company and no individual has ever been prosecuted. We have thousands of names of people who have been using these particular strategies to not pay taxes, yet the CRA has never had the tools in place to take them on.
New Democrats would make sure that everyone pays their fair share, that the ultrarich actually pay their fair share, that billionaires do not get off scot free and that the companies that try to take their earnings overseas have to pay income tax and corporate tax. We would make sure of that.
What would we do in the estimates? What would an NDP estimates process look like? We have already seen signs of that over the past year. We have been tabling legislation, bringing forward bills and making sure that we actually put into place the programs Canadians need.
Members will recall I tabled Bill C-213, the Canada pharmacare act, ably supported by my colleagues for Vancouver Kingsway and Vancouver East. We brought that to a vote with the support of 100,000 Canadians who had written to their members of Parliament. Liberals and Conservatives voted that down, even though we know pharmacare is something that will make a huge difference in the quality of life for Canadians. It is estimated that 10 million Canadians cannot pay for their medication. Hundreds die every year because they cannot afford their medication. For thousands of others, families are forced to choose between putting food on the table and paying for their medication. We can end that suffering. At the same time the Parliamentary Budget Officer, that independent officer of Parliament who can tell us with such accuracy what the net impacts of policies are, has told us we would save about $4 billion overall as a people. We would be able to reduce the costs of medications, so the estimates process would include universal public pharmacare in this country.
As we saw with the member for St. John's East just last night, we would be bringing in dental care for all those who do not have access to dental care. Why is that important? We heard yesterday about a person in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, who passed away because they did not have the financial ability to pay for the dental work that was vitally important for them to be able to eat. These are tragedies that are repeated so often in this country.
What else would we see in the estimates? The guaranteed livable basic income was brought to the House of Commons by the member for Winnipeg Centre. We have seen how so many members of our caucus have fought for the rights of indigenous peoples. It should be a source of shame for the government that dozens of indigenous communities still do not have safe drinking water, six years after the Prime Minister's promise. As the member for Burnaby South said in response to a question from a journalist, how would we ever accept the cities of Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal not having safe drinking water? It is simply astounding, yet we have no wealth tax or pandemic profit tax in place. We have no set of priorities that allows us to ensure that all communities in this country have safe drinking water.
We saw the incredible tragedy of the genocide in residential schools. There are first nations communities that do not have the funding to find their missing, murdered, dead and disappeared children. This has to be a national priority as part of reconciliation. It cannot simply be pretty words. We have to act, and that means ensuring that when we say “follow the money”, it is no longer the very wealthy or ultrarich who receive the vast majority of federal funds, but the people across this country, indigenous peoples, who get the supports that they need and the quality of life they deserve.
There is the issue of the right to housing. Again, it would be part of our estimates to ensure that all Canadians have roofs over their heads at night. This is not rocket science. It takes investment. Other countries have had the right to housing instilled. In a country with a climate as cold as Canada's, housing should be a fundamental right of every Canadian.
We would provide supports to peoples with disabilities, students and seniors. People have been struggling through this pandemic, yet students are still paying their student loans, seniors are being denied the increased OAS if they are under age 75 and people with disabilities are being asked to wait three years. The Prime Minister wants to pump $20 billion into the TMX pipeline instead of investing in clean energy that would result in hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
The estimates process with an NDP government would be different and better. We will continue to fight for a country where no one is left behind.
View Jenny Kwan Profile
NDP (BC)
View Jenny Kwan Profile
2021-06-17 20:31 [p.8722]
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for his hard work. I know he works day and night on these issues.
One of the issues that I know he cares deeply about as well is that the government intends to cut the CRB in the last eight weeks, from July to September, for members of the community. I know the member has been trying to bring these issues to the attention of the government to get it to walk this back. I wonder if he can update the House on what he has done on this issue, and what the response has been from the government.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, the member for Vancouver East is just an extraordinary member of Parliament, speaking out on behalf of not only her constituents but also people right across the country.
The member points out that so many people are concerned about this dramatic cut the Liberal government wants to bring in. Five hundred dollars a week is certainly not a sinecure. Five hundred dollars a week is just getting by. It is making sure they have a roof over their head, hopefully, and food on the table. Slashing it to below the poverty line at a time when Canadians desperately need it is simply the most mean-spirited cut that one could possibly imagine at this time.
The NDP tabled amendments and tried to push them through the finance committee. The Liberals have continued to say no. Their thinking is that they have taken care of banks and they have taken care of everything. Canadians' voices need to be heard. These cuts should not take place. The government should roll back on that and ensure that Canadians can get through the pandemic. We will continue to fight to make that so.
View Soraya Martinez Ferrada Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Soraya Martinez Ferrada Profile
2021-06-17 20:34 [p.8723]
Mr. Speaker, on June 9, the member for Calgary Midnapore submitted a notice of opposition regarding Vote 1, “Operating expenditures”, in the main estimates, under Department of Transport, in the amount of $741,693,237.
The notice of opposition calls on Nav Canada executives and managers to pay back $7 million in bonuses they received in the last fiscal year, supposedly during the pandemic, while the private not-for-profit organization was receiving government assistance and issuing layoff notices. To protest those bonuses, the member is suggesting that $7 million be cut from the Transport Canada budget.
Let me begin my remarks by discussing what such a cut would mean for Transport Canada's programs and, by extension, for Canadians. A $7‑million reduction to Transport Canada's main estimates funding for 2021-22 would significantly reduce its ability to deliver on its commitments. This reduction would have undesirable consequences, such as weakening the implementation of monitoring, testing, inspection and subsidy programs across all modes of transportation, including air, marine, rail and road. It would also result in reduced enforcement activities that could increase the potential risk to the safety and security of Canadians.
Furthermore, reduced surveillance of equipment, operations and facilities in the transportation industry could lead to accidents, malfunctions and loss of life. It would also have a negative impact on the department's efforts to support the economic recovery of the air sector and other transportation sectors affected by the pandemic. This reduction would set a precedent for departments to pay for organizations that operate at arm's length from the Government of Canada.
Allow me, for greater emphasis, to reiterate some of these points in English.
The impact of a $7-million reduction to Transport Canada's 2021 main estimates funding would significantly reduce its ability to deliver on its commitments. Undesirable consequences could include reduced levels of inspections across all transportation modes: air, land and marine. It could include reduced enforcement activities and reduced surveillance of the transportation industry's equipment, operations and facilities.
How would these cuts impact ordinary Canadians? I will give some examples. Transport Canada recently announced the funding of $7 million in Lethbridge for the rehabilitation of runways, $5 million through the national trade corridors fund to improve the efficiency of rail logistics in Alberta's industrial heartland; $2 million to the remote air services program to British Columbia to ensure essential air services to remote communities in the province; a combined $8 million to the communities of Smithers and Terrace in the riding of Skeena—Bulkley Valley to rehabilitate airport infrastructure; and $11 million to the community of Mont-Joli in the electoral district of Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia to rehabilitate the airport.
Which of these projects would the opposition cancel in order to recuperate the $7 million it is purporting to cut?
The cuts also negatively impact the department's efforts to support the economic recovery of the air sector, as well as other transportation sectors affected by the pandemic. It would also set a precedent for government departments to pay for organizations that are operating at arm's length from the Government of Canada.
In short, this would be a very unwise way to protest Nav Canada's financial decision, which again has nothing to do with the supply vote in front of us.
I would like to say a few words about Nav Canada. Nav Canada is a private, not-for-profit corporation tasked with managing Canada's air navigation services. This model was introduced for the first time in 1996 to replace the air navigation services that were previously provided by Transport Canada. All subsequent governments kept that model in place.
Nav Canada oversees air traffic in Canada through a sophisticated network of area control centres, air traffic control towers, flight service stations, maintenance centres, flight information centres and navigation aids across the country.
Its customers include airlines, business aviation and air cargo operators, air charters and air taxis, helicopter operators and general aviation pilots and owners.
Nav Canada is independent from the Government of Canada because it does not report to the Minister of Transport or Parliament. Nav Canada is not part of the Minister of Transport's main estimates. As a result, it is not included in Transport Canada's Vote 1 estimates of $741,693,237 for 2021-22. What is more, Nav Canada's financial statements are not included in the Government of Canada's main estimates process.
As a not-for-profit corporation, Nav Canada invests directly in its operations, people and infrastructure to keep Canada's air navigation system as safe, efficient and innovative as it can be.
Nav Canada's governance structure is composed of federal government representatives, users and unionized employees. In turn, these representatives select the members of Nav Canada's board of directors.
Now I will turn to the bonuses paid out to Nav Canada executives. Nav Canada bonuses are paid to senior executives and exempt staff, who are managers. Bonuses are usually between 5% and 20% of an employee's total compensation. They are accounted for in Nav Canada's vision, which is to pay wages equivalent to the market average.
Bonuses are normally paid to about 550 employees, but they are not distributed evenly. The average amount paid out from that $7 million would be $13,000, but the amount varies from one person to the next.
Recent media reports stated that Nav Canada was planning to issue layoff notices to 49 employees. Those notices have since been rescinded. Nav Canada chose not to publicize its senior executives' compensation because of its policies stating that disagreements with the unions are not resolved immediately.
Now I would like to talk about Nav Canada's independence from Transport Canada. Once again, there is no connection between the payment of Nav Canada bonuses and Vote 1 of the main estimates for Transport Canada in the amount of $741,693,237. Nav Canada receives no direct funding from Transport Canada and is not accountable to either the Minister of Transport or Parliament.
Nav Canada is primarily funded by the fees it receives for managing more than 18 million square kilometres of airspace. Additional revenue is generated through technology sales and other related business activities. The company operates with a break-even business model, balancing costs and revenues by borrowing to meet cash flow requirements.
I want to make a few points about the $7 million in bonuses paid by Nav Canada while the company was receiving government assistance and issuing layoff notices. The bonuses reported in the news were paid for the first half of the company's fiscal year, from September 2019 to February 2020, before the industry suffered significant negative impacts from COVID‑19. Budget 2021 proposed requiring that publicly listed corporations repay the wage subsidy for any qualifying period after June 5, 2021. The Nav Canada bonuses were paid outside of the period set out in budget 2021.
In response to COVID‑19, Nav Canada executives agreed to significant reductions to salary and benefits, and there is no immediate plan to restore them before the airline industry recovers.
Note that salaries were reduced by 3% to 5%. Pensions were restructured and became less generous. The annual salary review for senior executives to reconsider possible raises was cancelled. The management team was also cut in half and, during that time, the company issued layoff notices to 49 employees. As I was saying earlier, these notices were rescinded.
Like other Canadian companies, the employees at Nav Canada can receive wage subsidies through the Canada emergency wage subsidy, or CEWS. Nav Canada noted that its employees had benefited from the CEWS and that the company had not received the large employer emergency financing facility, or LEEFF, nor had it received any special financing under favourable terms.
As far as the rule around the wage subsidy is concerned, budget 2021 stated that the wage subsidy should be paid back in certain cases where senior executives' compensation increased.
Budget 2021 proposes to require a publicly listed corporation to repay wage subsidy amounts received for a qualifying period that begins after June 5, 2021, in the event that its aggregate compensation for specified executives during the 2021 calendar year exceeds its aggregate compensation for specified executives during the 2019 calendar year.
For the purpose of this rule, a publicly listed corporation's specified executives will be its named executive officers whose compensation is required to be disclosed under Canadian securities law in its statement of executive compensation.
This generally includes its chief executive officer, chief financial officer, and three other most highly compensated executives. A corporation's executive compensation for a calendar year will be calculated by prorating the aggregate compensation of its specified executives for each of its taxation years that overlap with the calendar year.
The amount of the wage subsidy required to be repaid would be equal to the lesser of the following: the total of all wage subsidy amounts received in respect of active employees for qualifying periods that begin after June 5, 2021, and the amount by which the corporation's aggregate specified executives' compensation for 2021 exceeds its aggregate specified executives' compensation for 2019.
This requirement to repay would be applied at the group level and would apply to wage subsidy amounts paid to any entity in the group.
I hope that my remarks have clarified some of the questions about the bonuses paid to Nav Canada executives. I think that what should be quite clear is that the proposed $7‑million reduction to Transport Canada's operating budget is an ill-advised and irresponsible way to protest these bonuses. The funds used to pay these bonuses did not come from Transport Canada's budget.
Furthermore, the cuts would hurt Transport Canada's ability to carry out its mandate. As I mentioned earlier, this would weaken the implementation of monitoring, testing, inspection and subsidy programs across all modes of transportation. It would also result in reduced enforcement activities that could increase the potential risk to the safety and security of Canadians.
In addition, reduced surveillance of the transportation industry's equipment, operations and facilities could result in accidents, malfunctions and, of course, loss of life.
I will give the member who proposed these cuts the benefit of the doubt and assume that she did not consider some of their potential consequences.
It is very easy to fan the flames of anger about executive compensation, and in some cases, this is often completely justified. However, as legislators, we must also act responsibly when making decisions and ensure that we do not inadvertently hurt Canadians.
I urge all members to vote in favour of Vote 1, “Operating expenditures”, in the main estimates, under Department of Transport, in the amount of $741,693,237.
Transport Canada worked very hard to maintain the safety and security of our transportation system throughout the COVID-19 crisis. This work must continue, and the department needs the resources required to do that.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.
I know there are people in her riding who still need the Canada emergency response benefit, which is set at $500 per week. The NDP lobbied hard for that amount. The government is about to reduce it from $500 to $300 per week. That means the people still receiving it will dip below the poverty line.
I have a simple question. How will this drastic reduction in the CERB affect her constituents, especially at a time when variants are spreading and COVID‑19 is still with us?
View Soraya Martinez Ferrada Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Soraya Martinez Ferrada Profile
2021-06-17 20:54 [p.8726]
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question because it gives me a chance to talk about my riding.
What I can tell him is that I recently spoke with someone at the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve community kitchen who told me that if not for the government her organization would not exist.
Thanks to the many programs we brought in during the pandemic, several organizations like the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve community kitchen and Chic Resto Pop, to name just a couple, survived the pandemic. The Canada emergency benefit has helped people in my riding pay their rent and buy groceries. We provided the social safety net that was needed. People in my riding thank us for being there for them.
View Sherry Romanado Profile
Lib. (QC)
Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology entitled, “Wage Fixing in Canada: And Fairness in the Grocery Sector”.
I would like to take a moment to thank all members of the INDU committee for their collaboration and a special shout-out to the clerk, the analysts and the IT team.
I also want to thank the interpreters for their hard work.
Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.
View Don Davies Profile
NDP (BC)
View Don Davies Profile
2021-06-16 16:22 [p.8539]
Mr. Speaker, the second petition is e-petition 3282, which has signed by over 750 citizens.
The petitioners point out that the CERB requirement of a minimum of $5,000 in earnings was arbitrary and that, perversely, it prevented some of the poorest Canadians from receiving benefits. It has been estimated that 175,000 workers did not get benefits because they earned under $5,000 in income. The petitioners call for the removal of this arbitrary and punishing standard, and to have retroactive compensation.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, if I may be permitted, I would like to wish a happy birthday to my lovely wife, Sheryl, who turns, I will not say how old, today.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate hearing from my colleague and friend from Niagara West. He knows I have a lot of respect for him.
I have two questions that I think are very relevant. The member spoke of the tourism industry. We know that the pandemic continues to have economic impacts, yet the Liberal government is cutting the CRB within a matter of weeks, from $500 a week to $300 a week, which is far below the poverty line.
What does the member think the impact of that will be, when people are trying to put food on the table and have almost 50% less to do it with, even though they still cannot get back to their jobs because of the ongoing impacts of the pandemic?
Also, many profitable companies used the wage subsidies for dividends and for big executive bonuses. Does the member believe that those profitable companies should be paying back the wage subsidy? In that way, we could afford to make sure that the CRB continues at the rate of $500 a week.
View Dean Allison Profile
CPC (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I have had the pleasure of working with the member over the years, on trade in particular. We have not always agreed, but the member is a huge champion for his constituents, and I have always appreciated that.
Originally, how fast the programs came out was a good thing. There was a lot of discussion amongst all opposition parties about how things and people had fallen through the cracks. People are still falling through the cracks, as the member mentioned.
It is important for the government to listen and realize that small businesses and people who are dependent on some of these programs still need them when the only option is lockdown and these people cannot actually go to work, through no fault of their own.
I believe we need to constantly push the government to do better when they are rolling out programs. I know there has been lots of great input from all opposition parties here in the House.
View Francesco Sorbara Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, if I could add to the glowing comments on your forthcoming retirement, it has been a pleasure to get to know you these last several years in the House of Commons. You have always been kind. It has always been a pleasure to chat and I wish you the best. I am sure your family will be very happy to have you home on a much more full-time basis.
Good evening to all my colleagues and to all Canadians who are watching, including the wonderful residents I have the privilege to represent here in Vaughan—Woodbridge.
This evening's debate on Bill C-30 is not only to ensure that Canadians who remain impacted by the pandemic are supported but also to put in place a number of measures that grow our economy and ensure that the economy is inclusive and lifts all individuals. Prior to the pandemic, we knew Canada's unemployment rate was at a multi-decade low and that literally hundreds of thousands of Canadians had been lifted out of poverty. We were, and we are, going in the right direction.
I would like to take a moment to thank the residents of Vaughan—Woodbridge and all residents of York Region for their desire to get vaccinated and allow us to safely return to normalcy. As of today, 76.8% of York Region residents above age 18 have received a single dose of a vaccine and over 22.7% a second dose, including me. I am happy to report that this afternoon I received my second dose of vaccine from Moderna. Millions of vaccines are arriving, and Canadians can rest assured that our government is laser focused on protecting them and their families and on ensuring a strong economic recovery.
I am pleased to rise tonight to participate in the continuing debate on Bill C-30, the government's budget implementation act. Budget 2021 is a historic investment to address the specific wounds of the COVID-19 recession and to grow the middle class. The bill is therefore an important one. It would enact the government's plan to finish the fight against COVID-19, create jobs, grow the economy and ensure a robust economic recovery that brings all Canadians along. We truly want an economy that works for all Canadians and that is inclusive.
Among other important measures, the bill would enable funding to establish a Canada-wide early learning and child care system. It would extend the Canada emergency wage subsidy, the Canada emergency rent subsidy and lockdown support for businesses until September 25, which would keep an important lifeline available. It would extend important income support for individuals, such as the Canada recovery benefit and the Canada recovery caregiving benefit, and it would enhance employment insurance sickness benefits from 15 weeks to 26 weeks.
The bill also proposes to establish a $15 federal minimum wage and to increase old age security for seniors aged 75 and older to provide them with better financial security. It would significantly expand the Canada workers benefit and invest $8.9 billion over six years in additional support for low-wage workers, extending top-ups to about a million more Canadians and lifting nearly an additional 100,000 Canadians out of poverty.
I have been a great proponent of the Canada workers benefit since day one, when I arrived on Parliament Hill in 2015. I am seeing it expanded for the third time since we have been in office. It is great to see we are ensuring more Canadians are lifted out of poverty while incentivizing Canadians to remain in the labour force and increase their number of hours of work.
Bill C-30 would also provide an emergency top-up of $5 billion for provinces and territories. Specifically, $4 billion would go to the Canada health transfer to help provinces and territories address immediate health care system pressures, and $1 billion would support vaccine rollout campaigns across the country. As well, the bill proposes to provide $2.2 billion to address short-term infrastructure priorities in municipalities and first nations communities. The funds would flow through the federal gas tax fund, which is proposed to be renamed the Canada community building fund.
There is one aspect of Bill C-30 I would like to discuss in particular. It is a clause that would amend the Canadian Securities Regulation Regime Transition Office Act. This clause would authorize the government to provide an additional $12 million to fund the continuation of the Canadian Securities Transition Office, or CSTO, for a further two years. For those who may not be familiar with this body, the CSTO is a small federal office that was established in July 2009.
Since 2013, the CSTO has supported federal efforts to establish the co-operative capital markets regulatory system. Today, the principal focus of this office is to support the government with analysis and advice on preparing for the successful administration of the proposed federal capital market stability act in a collaborative manner that respects provincial jurisdiction.
A well-functioning and resilient financial system that instills confidence in domestic and international businesses, in addition to individual Canadians, is paramount to growing Canada's economy. Canada's financial system demonstrated resilience in weathering both the shocks of the global financial crisis more than a decade ago and, most recently, the considerable economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Importantly underpinning this resilient financial system is a regulatory framework with legislative mandates and authorities, world-class leadership and years of preparation, planning and experience. While the regulatory authorities work in a coordinated system, the federal financial stability oversight framework does not include management of systemic risk across Canadian capital markets. This is a critical gap given the current global risk environment and is an area that the Supreme Court has opined is a federal responsibility. Some steps have been taken in this field by provincial securities regulators. However, no Canadian authority has the ability to monitor capital markets' systemic risks across the Canadian financial system, nor to act on a national basis to address them.
This is what the federal government wants to strengthen in collaboration with provinces. The federal government is also committed to strengthening authorities to combat capital markets crime and protect Canadians' hard-earned savings and investments from fraud. These are targeted areas that CSTO is assessing and providing advice on. Before moving forward, more work is required by federal officials, including identifying opportunities and developing processes for administering a systemic risk oversight regime in collaboration with provincial securities regulators. This work would be undertaken in consultation with the provinces.
The additional funding contained in Bill C-30 is needed for the CSTO to continue its important work on systemic risk in criminal enforcement in Canada's capital markets. The CSTO has already made excellent progress. It should receive the funding to continue this important work. I encourage all my colleagues from all sides of the aisle to pass Bill C-30 not only to support Canadians during this pandemic, but also to strengthen our CSTO and move forward in growing our economy once again.
View Taylor Bachrach Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, I am concerned and perplexed by the reduction in the Canada emergency response benefit from $500 per week to $300 per week starting in July.
Could the parliamentary secretary walk us through the rationale for that reduction from the perspective of someone who is self-employed or is a gig worker, and still does not have income? They lost their income because of the pandemic and are not going to have it in July, August or September. Could he provide the rationale for cutting those benefits for people who need them more than ever?
View Francesco Sorbara Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, which is where I was born and raised. My hometown is Prince Rupert.
I will say this. Our government has been steadfast in its support of all Canadians since day one. We continue to provide the benefits they need so they do not have to choose between putting bread on their tables or paying their rent, and we will continue to be there for Canadians.
Our economy is recovering. We have recovered approximately 81% of all jobs. I expect in the next one to two months we will see further job gains as the Ontario economy specifically recovers. We have seen full-time employment in a number of sectors actually improve and be at higher levels than pre-pandemic.
We know there is much work to be done. Our government will continue to be there for all Canadians. At one time, almost nine million Canadians collected the CERB, and 5.5 million Canadians were benefiting, through their employers, from the CEWS. We will continue to be there for Canadians. We will have their backs during this most extraordinary period of time.
View Luc Berthold Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here in the middle of the night to talk about something that is very important and needs to be talked about, no matter what time of day it is, specifically this government's capacity for creating division and creating different classes of Canadians, particularly when it comes to seniors.
Not only did the government choose to create two classes of compensation for damages created by the Phoenix system, but it also attacked seniors by not doing right by them. What it should have done was allow them to access compensation for all the problems they had with Phoenix along with everyone else.
This is not complicated. This is about a retired public servant who wants compensation because he had problems with Phoenix—
View Luc Berthold Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I think it is much better now.
I am not exactly sure where I was, but I was most likely criticizing the federal government for creating two classes of seniors, especially retirees in the Phoenix system.
When one retiree tried to claim his benefits, he was told there was no form to claim them. That form would not be available until the fall. That is not surprising because, in its latest budget, the government also created two classes of seniors: those aged 65 to 75, which we will call young seniors, and those 75 and up, which we will call seniors.
This budget is problematic for them for one simple reason. People who were 75 or older in June 2020 will get a single $500 payment in August 2021 and, starting next year, their guaranteed income supplement will go up by 10%.
Why did this government choose to help only some seniors, not all seniors including those aged 65 to 75?
That is what we want to know, what everyone wants to know. That is certainly what seniors want to know, and what seniors' groups in my riding want to know. I have never received so many emails as I did after this budget announcement. People are shocked, and rightfully so. There is no reason why people 65 to 75 years of age should not also receive government assistance, because the cost of living is going up for everyone, especially the cost of gas and groceries.
Am I to believe that people 65 to 75 years of age spend less than people 75 and up? Absolutely not, that would be ridiculous. It is difficult to imagine how disappointed these people are with the government's most recent budget.
Gisèle Tassé-Goodman, president of the FADOQ network, which is the largest network of seniors organizations in Canada, said that providing financial assistance to seniors was a good gesture, but that those under 75 who are eligible for old age security receive absolutely nothing, zilch. She simply cannot understand why that distinction was made and why the Liberal government chose to create two classes of seniors.
These people were also victims of the pandemic. They were isolated, sometimes mistreated because they were unable to see their loved ones who, in turn, could not help them during the pandemic. They literally feel abandoned by the Liberal government.
Here is the question I would like to ask tonight: Why are the Liberals so hell-bent on dividing seniors into two classes so that those who just retired, or the younger seniors, receive less than seniors aged 75 and over?
View Greg Fergus Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks, I would like to take a moment to congratulate you on your distinguished career in Parliament. You are an honourable man. You have conducted yourself with great dignity as a member here and you will be greatly missed.
It is a pleasure for me to answer the question from the member for Mégantic—L'Érable about the harm the Phoenix system caused to retired federal public servants.
First, let me say that the government has the greatest respect for its dedicated and hard-working public servants, both retirees and those who are currently employed. All current and former public servants—
View Greg Fergus Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, first, let me say that the government has the greatest respect for its dedicated and hard-working public servants, both retirees and those who are currently employed. All current and former public servants deserve to be paid in an accurate and timely manner for their work on behalf of Canadians.
We recognize that the implementation of the Phoenix pay system had direct and indirect impacts on many current and former employees.
In June 2019, we reached an agreement with several public service unions to compensate current and former employees for the negative impacts caused by the system. Several elements of this agreement were implemented in 2019 and 2020. The process for claiming compensation for severe impacts and personal hardship was launched in January 2021, to be precise. The processes are now available to approximately 146,000 eligible current and former public servants.
In addition, in October 2020, we finalized an agreement with the Public Service Alliance of Canada for damages caused by Phoenix, as well as the late implementation of the 2014 collective agreements. This agreement with PSAC, like the 2019 agreement with the other unions, provides general damages to current and former employees. Most employees represented by PSAC received a payment up to $2,500 on March 3 for general damages and compensation for the late implementation of the 2014 collective agreements. Government officials are working collaboratively with their Public Service Alliance of Canada colleagues to implement the terms of the agreement.
There are a number of components to the agreement and we all want to make the process as easy as possible for those who wish to make a claim. Of course, this includes retirees and all former public servants.
We have learned from our past experience. One of the lessons we learned is that rushing does not always yield the best results. We want to get this right.
Former employees who were represented by PSAC will have to submit a claim to receive compensation. More information about when and how to do that will be provided in the months to come.
In the meantime, former PSAC members can still submit claims under the process in place for out-of-pocket expenses, reimbursement for tax advice, and impacts on income taxes and government benefits.
Let me assure my hon. colleague that we are working hard on behalf of retired and former public servants to get them the compensation they deserve.
View Luc Berthold Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I will repeat what a retired public servant wrote to me when he learned that he could not get his compensation because he would have to wait for a form that does not yet exist and will only be available in the fall.
This retired public servant served our country to the best of his ability for many years and, unfortunately, for a certain time, he was deprived of his income because of Phoenix. He said he was “furious”.
I hope the parliamentary secretary will hear this retiree's heartfelt message. He is furious over having to wait for a form that could help him access the compensation he is entitled to.
That is why, tonight, I wanted to rise on his behalf and on behalf of all the retirees who are being told that the form does not yet exist. They are all people who are furious and who are waiting for someone to finally listen and respond to them quickly.
View Greg Fergus Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I did indeed hear the message from my hon. colleague's constituent. Canadians can rest assured that public servants will have the government's unconditional support.
We believe in and support all of our federal public servants, including retirees. Retired public servants like my hon. colleague's constituent deserve a retirement free from financial worry after spending their careers serving Canadians.
We understand the concerns of some retirees, and we are working hard, in collaboration with the unions, to make sure that eligible public service retirees are paid what they are owed in a timely manner. We are fully committed to fair and timely compensation for out-of-pocket expenses brought on by Phoenix-related compensation issues.
We are moving forward with the damages process to look after all our retired public servants as quickly as we can. We will get there together, in co-operation with unions and current and former public servants.
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
NDP (BC)
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
2021-06-15 14:27 [p.8464]
Mr. Speaker, today I spoke with Cherelle, a musician who cannot return to work because of the pandemic.
Nearly two million people across the country are in the same situation as Cherelle and are relying on the Canada recovery benefit to make ends meet. Despite that, the Prime Minister wants to reduce the help people get by $800 a month.
Will the Prime Minister reverse this decision to cut help to people, yes or no?
View Carla Qualtrough Profile
Lib. (BC)
View Carla Qualtrough Profile
2021-06-15 14:28 [p.8464]
Mr. Speaker, our emergency support and recovery measures are helping to buffer the most serious economic impacts and continue to help Canadians put food on the table.
In order to continue supporting workers during this pandemic, we presented in budget 2021 a plan to extend the Canada recovery benefit.
If opposition members want to be helpful, they could support the budget implementation bill and get these supports into the bank accounts of Canadians.
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
NDP (BC)
View Jagmeet Singh Profile
2021-06-15 14:28 [p.8464]
Mr. Speaker, what the minister is not acknowledging is that the government is going to cut the help that families need by $800 a month in this budget implementation bill.
People like Cherelle, who is a musician and earns a living by playing gigs around the country, cannot go back to work. Millions of Canadians who depend on the CRB are going to be in a devastating position if the government continues with its decision to cut the help they need by $800 a month.
My question is for the Prime Minister. Will he reverse his decision to cut the help that people need in the middle of a pandemic?
View Carla Qualtrough Profile
Lib. (BC)
View Carla Qualtrough Profile
2021-06-15 14:29 [p.8464]
Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Canada recovery benefit, Canadians have access to up to 50 weeks of benefits to help them in times such as the one the member opposite is describing. For the first 42 weeks of their benefit received, they can get $500 and for the last eight weeks, it is $300. We see this in conjunction with the wage subsidy and the new hiring program as a way to transition Canadians back to work and back to economic success.
View Leah Gazan Profile
NDP (MB)
View Leah Gazan Profile
2021-06-14 11:23 [p.8312]
Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on her private member's bill and advancing the idea of basic income. However, as we know, leading basic income efforts have indicated that basic income is actually not a silver bullet and it must be in addition to current and future government services and supports.
My concern is with proposed subparagraph 3(3)(d)(i), which provides the option of “the potential of a guaranteed basic income program to reduce the complexity of or replace existing social programs”. My concern was amplified last week, on June 3, when the member for Davenport voted in support of reducing the CRB from $2,000 to $1,200 come July, in the FINA committee, which is a totally unlivable income.
Is the member willing to make amendments to her bill to ensure that cutting our social safety net is off the table?
View Julie Dzerowicz Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Julie Dzerowicz Profile
2021-06-14 11:24 [p.8312]
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for her leadership on this issue. There are two things I will address.
One is in terms of what support programs would be included in any type of basic income implementation pilot. The bill does not actually call for any programs to be reduced. I think it is just gathering the data as to what would be reduced if there are any programs that are flattened over time. It is really up to the provinces and territories to work with the federal government to come up with a pilot for their citizens. The principle should be that everyone is better off.
In terms of what the member referred to in the finance committee, there was a proposal to actually increase CRB, but it was ruled out of order because of a technical thing that does not allow motions to come before the finance committee that would increase the budget.
View Raquel Dancho Profile
CPC (MB)
View Raquel Dancho Profile
2021-06-14 11:26 [p.8313]
Madam Speaker, it is very good to be back on the floor of the House of Commons. Like so many parliamentarians, I have been participating virtually for months, so it really feels great to be here today with you and everyone in the House.
I am pleased today to put some thoughts on the record concerning Bill C-273, an act to establish a national strategy for a guaranteed basic income.
What is a guaranteed basic income? There are many different policy iterations of it. On the whole, it would essentially be monthly cheques to every Canadian. Some of the policy iterations of this would provide basic cheques to children as well. The amount tends to vary depending on the plan, some having a few hundred dollars a month and others seeing it more as a means to cover all basic necessities, like CERB, which was of course $2,000 a month. In simple terms, a guaranteed basic income is like CERB, but for everyone, forever.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated that a national guaranteed basic income could cost $85 billion per year, rising to $93 billion per year in 2025-26. To pay for this at the federal level, Canadians could expect to see a tripling of the GST, which currently sits at 5%, or an increase of personal income taxes to 50%. Introducing a basic income following the costliest year in Canadian history, where federal government spending hit $650 billion in 2020 and is predicted to hit $510 billion in 2021, is cause for concern, especially since we have received no viable, tangible strategy of how the Liberals are going to raise enough revenue from taxpayers to responsibly pay back the $354 billion of deficits from 2020 or the $154 billion of deficits predicted for 2021. Just six short years ago, the federal budget was a mere $298 billion. The Liberals have doubled Canada's national spending during their time in office, and now want to talk about adding another $93-billion permanent spending program to the bottom line. I think Canadians are reasonably concerned about this.
The basic income proposal is about more than spending, of course. One of the main arguments is to address poverty, and policy proponents argue that the benefits to the country's social fabric will outweigh the costs. In 2019, Statistics Canada estimated that 3.7 million Canadians, or one in 10, live below the poverty line. A 529-page report, quite a lengthy report, by researchers and economists at three leading Canadian universities concluded after a three-year investigation that a basic income would not be the best way to address poverty. Rather, the report found that government should focus on improving existing programs that already target those who really need them, for example help with rental assist, youth aging out of the child welfare system or perhaps Canadians living with disabilities. Proponents of basic income argue that it will help those living at the extreme inequalities in Canada, those who are homeless, for example. We know that often those who suffer from homelessness also suffer from severe addictions, with the two often feeding into one another.
I have grave concerns about the impact of a basic income on Canadians suffering from addictions. We know that COVID‑19 has had severe, extreme and deadly outcomes in Canada since the pandemic began. In fact, overdoses have killed more young people, by far, than COVID‑19. In Toronto, fatal suspected opioid overdose calls to paramedics were up 90% in 2020. In Manitoba, 372 overdose deaths were recorded last year, which is a full 87% jump from the year prior. In British Columbia, the latest data tells us that an average of five people die every single day from illicit drug overdose, with 500 people having died in the first three months of 2021 alone. In fact, Canada-wide, in the six months following the implementation of the COVID‑19 lockdowns and restriction measures, there were 3,351 apparent opioid toxicity deaths, representing a 74% increase from the six months prior, a truly devastating statistic.
What happens if we send a monthly cheque of thousands of dollars to those who are severely addicted to drugs? When CERB was first introduced, a constituent of mine, a mother, called me in desperation, terrified that her adult son, who was unemployed and did not qualify for CERB, would apply for CERB, get it and have a severe and possibly deadly relapse. Frontline workers confirmed this fear, like those at Winnipeg's Main Street Project, who have said they believe that CERB has hiked drug use and contributed to opioid abuse and addiction. This is a real concern I have about a basic income, and I really have not heard a coherent solution to address it.
It is difficult to break out of the poverty cycle. We know this. The data tells us that once a person has been unemployed for more than a year, it can be extremely difficult to rejoin the labour market. It can create a dependency on social programs and a disincentive to work. In this sense, a basic income could create a permanent underclass in Canada.
Importantly, there is an inherent dignity in work. MPs are hearing from small businesses in our communities across Canada, particularly in the service industry and the construction field, that it is more difficult now than ever to hire workers and that prospective employees are opting to stay home on government emergency support programs rather than going to work.
Millions of Canadians are, of course, working and taking whatever work they can find, but some are not. We know working and earning an income provides both economic and social benefits. It is necessary for providing for oneself and one's family, and it also boosts confidence through the earned satisfaction of a paycheque. It provides purpose and builds personal responsibility, personal growth and perseverance. It provides daily structure and a reason to get out of bed in the morning. We know it contributes to our personal identity. Many people say “I'm a nurse”, I'm a truck driver”, “I'm a scientist”, or “I'm a small business owner”. It is part of who we are.
As Sean Speer said in the Financial Post a few years ago, “Work is one of those crucial activities and institutions that underpins the good life.”
Recently my grandfather passed away. He was 91, and he was born in the Prairies in the last pioneer generation in Canada. There were very few government support programs in his early days. CERB and public health care were unheard of at the time. People simply had to work very hard every day or they would not eat.
Now, we have developed a kinder, more compassionate society that takes care of people when they fall on hard times, and that is very good. My grandparents' generation built the strong prosperous country that allows for this type of public generosity in Canada. However, near the end of his life, my grandfather remarked that sometimes it seemed to him that young people feel a sense of entitlement to an easy life of comfort, free from struggle. As a young person, I do get that sense as well.
Last year, when CERB was first introduced and the Liberals were creating a student version of it, it happened to be at the same time that our country's food resources were at risk. Every year Canada brings in about 40,000 temporary foreign workers, generally from Central America, to work in our agriculture sector to produce the food that feeds Canadians and, in fact, feeds the world.
However, with the border closures, it was very difficult to get these workers in and our food supply chains were at risk. Now, with tens of thousands of service sector jobs in tourism, hospitality, and the restaurant and bar industry closed, many students who relied on that work for summer employment, and I use to be one of them, obviously did not have the same opportunities.
At the time, just over a year ago, the Conservatives suggested to have able-bodied young people, full of energy, work, as a temporary measure, in our agricultural sector. They could be picking fruit, working in the fields, living on farms for the summer, contributing to the COVID effort and really securing our food supply chains.
This proposal was met with quite a bit of apprehension, to say the least. In fact, when I consulted university student leaders during committee on this idea, one student, and I will never forget this, said that students go to university so they do not have to do those jobs. That is what she said. This was coming from a student who was at a committee meeting asking for government handouts for students.
The student benefit was important, and I am glad it was provided. However, I found these comments very discouraging, not just for the younger generation but also for what was implied, which was that a labour job or an entry-level job with limited requirements for complex skills or education was somehow not respectable, or that those jobs were beneath certain Canadians, notably some student university elites, apparently, who looked down their noses, perhaps, at an honest day's work in the sun.
What does that message send to those aspiring to break into the job market at the bottom of the ladder, or the millions of Canadians who have to work at minimum wage jobs. I was one of them. I worked in dozens of these types of jobs, in restaurants, retail and manual labour. I have done them all, and I am a better person for it. It taught me the value of hard work. It shaped my work ethic and character. I learned many valuable skills that really carry me today. I could go on about the value working part-time since I was 14, on and off, has added to my life.
We know there is no better way out of poverty than getting a job, even when someone has to start from the bottom. The experience, skills, and socialization are ultimately unmatched.
In conclusion, that is why the Conservatives and the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Durham, are focused on a jobs recovery plan from the economic destruction of the COVID-19 pandemic. Priority number one for a federal Conservative government would be to recover and create one million jobs, and get every industry in Canada firing on all cylinders and leaving no demographic or region of the country behind.
Meanwhile, the Liberals are here today to talk about basic income, which is more money for everyone forever. We know that is not a jobs plan. It is certainly not an economic recovery plan. Conservatives want to create an inclusive economic recovery that will build a stronger Canada with more opportunities for everyone, so they can succeed in the job market and not need to collect cheques from the government every month. That is our focus and will be our number one priority should we form government after the next election.
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
BQ (QC)
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
2021-06-11 10:49 [p.8268]
Mr. Speaker, before I begin my speech, I would like to publicly congratulate you. You have fulfilled the duties of your position with brilliance and dignity for 10 years, and you have done a wonderful job of promoting the language of Molière, which is dear to my heart. I therefore want to congratulate you, thank you for everything you have done and wish you all the best in the future.
I am very pleased that we are at report stage. We spent a lot of time on this bill in committee, and it is finally back in the House. Only two amendments were proposed at report stage, and they were proposed by the government.
The first amendment is ridiculous. It would make the wage subsidy off-limits for political parties but only as of this summer, well after all the parties would have happily put their hands in the cookie jar. I want to point out that all the parties have done that, except the Bloc Québécois.
As members know, all the political parties have raised record amounts during the pandemic, but that is not enough. The government twisted the spirit of the program, which was designed to help the workers and businesses affected by the pandemic. This program was paid for by our tax dollars and ran up the collective debt.
Political parties were never mentioned in the bill, but the agency nevertheless decided to include them. This made it possible for the Liberal Party to receive $1 million, even though it raised $15 million in 2020 alone. That is outrageous. What is worse is that after refusing to exclude political parties from receiving the subsidy, which allowed the Liberal Party to keep its $1 million, the government is proposing to offer this subsidy in July even though no other party is using it. That is textbook Liberal hypocrisy.
If the first amendment is ridiculous, the second is downright dangerous. The government's second amendment is very serious and threatens the very lifeblood of Quebec's economy. It seeks to undo what was voted in committee, which will harm Quebec and the other provinces and make Bay Street even happier.
The government wants the House to restore funding for the Canadian Securities Transition Office in Toronto. The government is so fixated on dealing Quebec's economy a devastating blow that it is asking the House to backtrack on what was passed in committee. We know that Bay Street matters more to the government than all of Quebec. We know that centralizing securities regulation is an infringement on the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. Ottawa wants to wipe out Quebec's financial sector. This Liberal amendment would renew and considerably increase the budget of the Canadian Securities Transition Office to expedite its work. It would authorize the government to make payments of up to $119.5 million or even more if Parliament voted to do so in an appropriation act.
The transition office was set up in July 2009 to create a single Canada-wide securities regulator in Toronto. Basically, securities are financial assets, such as stocks, bonds and other instruments. In Quebec, securities are overseen by the Autorité des marchés financiers, the AMF.
The Supreme Court of Canada has dealt Ottawa a number of setbacks, deeming that securities do not fall under federal jurisdiction. However, in 2018 Ottawa finally got the green light to intervene in this area, provided that it did not act unilaterally and agreed to co-operate with the provinces. That is the agreement on paper, but we all know that, ultimately, this will centralize everything and strip Quebec of its financial hub.
Again, Ottawa is trampling on provincial jurisdiction and wants to centralize everything. Paternalistic Ottawa no longer wants a federation, it wants everything. Everything needs Ottawa's blessing. It is the alpha and the omega. It is too bad for Quebec, its nation and the rights of the provinces.
This is a harmful plan. The federal government's plan to establish a Canada-wide securities regulator in Toronto would inevitably translate into a creep of regulatory activities outside Quebec. This plan is just bad and must never see the light of day.
This is more than just a dispute over jurisdictions or mere squabbling between the federal level and the provinces. This is a battle between Bay Street and Quebec. Without a complete financial ecosystem, it is unrealistic to think that we will be able to hang on to our head offices. In our eyes, economic nationalism would become just an empty slogan.
That is why everyone in Quebec is against it. Every political party, the business community, the financial sector and labour-sponsored funds oppose this plan. For example, the Quebec National Assembly has adopted four unanimous motions denouncing the plan. Seldom have we seen Quebec's business community come together as one to oppose a government initiative.
In addition to the Government of Quebec and the four unanimous motions from the National Assembly, this plan faces vehement opposition in economic circles, including from the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec, the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal, Finance Montréal, the International Financial Centre corporation, the Desjardins Group, and the Fonds de solidarité FTQ, as well as most Quebec businesses, like Air Transat, Transcontinental, Canam, Québecor, Metro, La Capitale, Cogeco, Molson, and the list goes on.
A strong Quebec AMF means a strong talent pool to regulate the finance sector, which is a prerequisite for the sector's development. When the Toronto Stock Exchange bought the Bourse de Montréal, the Commission des valeurs mobilières, a precursor to the AMF, made it a condition of the sale that Montreal retain a stock exchange. We know that it specializes in derivatives, including the carbon market.
In Quebec, the financial sector represents 150,000 jobs and contributes more than $20 billion, or the equivalent of 6.3% of the GDP. That is what the government is going after with its extremely dangerous and harmful amendment.
Close to 100,000 of these jobs are in Montreal, which ranks 13th among the world's financial centres according to the Global Financial Centres Index.
This is an attack on our ability to keep our head offices and preserve our businesses. The Task Force on the Protection of Québec Businesses estimates that the 578 head offices in Quebec represent 50,000 jobs with a salary that is twice as high as the Quebec average, in addition to 20,000 other jobs at specialized service providers such as accounting, legal, financial or computer services.
Quebec companies tend to favour Quebec suppliers, while foreign companies in Quebec rely more on globalized supply chains, with all the impact that can have on our network of SMEs, in the regions in particular. We saw with the pandemic that globalized supply chains are fragile and make us entirely dependent on foreign supply.
The bottom line is that this amendment is an attack on Quebec's entire economy. It is a direct affront. This is important, and we must vote against this amendment.
Lastly, companies tend to concentrate their strategic planning, particularly their scientific research and development, where their head office is. A subsidiary economy is a less innovative one, and we do not want to lose our innovative economy in Quebec.
A strong financial hub is vital to the functioning of our head offices and the preservation of our businesses. Keeping the sector's regulator in Quebec ensures that decision-makers are nearby, which in turn enables access to capital markets for businesses, which is essential to support business investment and growth across Quebec.
That is what the government's harmful amendment is all about. This amendment would not help interprovincial trade, contrary to what the government might say. The passport system, the fight against money laundering and fraud, and the collaboration and co-operation among the various securities regulators are working quite well. Centralization will not do anything to improve that, contrary to the fallacious arguments put forward by the government.
The Standing Committee on Finance chose to nip that idea in the bud by deleting that clause of Bill C‑30. That basically cut the funding for the plan to centralize the financial sector in Toronto. I urge all my colleagues in the House to stand behind the committee's decision and to vote in favour of the economy of Quebec, vote against this gift to Bay Street and reject this amendment like we did in committee.
View Stephanie Kusie Profile
CPC (AB)
View Stephanie Kusie Profile
2021-06-11 11:47 [p.8279]
Mr. Speaker, Nav Canada handed out $7 million in bonuses, this after laying off 700 workers and increasing airline fees by 30%. These emergency funds were meant to keep workers employed, not to hand out to executives.
Will the minister start standing up for Canada's aviation workers and demand that these bonuses are paid back?
View Sean Fraser Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Sean Fraser Profile
2021-06-11 11:48 [p.8279]
Mr. Speaker, it is completely unacceptable for companies to be extending bonuses to wealthy executives when they are in receipt of public money designed for workers. I am pleased to share with the hon. member that we have designed the program in a way that is going to help combat this particular trend.
In particular, I would point out that companies need to prove, with the Canada emergency wage subsidy, that every penny they claim is actually going to their workers. In addition, we have adopted a new rule with respect to budget 2021 that will see any company that increases its executive compensation going forward beyond pre-pandemic levels being required to pay back monies received through the wage subsidy. These benefits are for workers, and that is where they should go.
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
BQ (QC)
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
2021-06-11 12:30 [p.8293]
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Joliette for his speech.
He spoke in particular about the Canada emergency wage subsidy, which was used a lot in my riding to help businesses like those in the Granby industrial park get through the crisis.
I would like to come back to a somewhat troubling statement made by a Liberal colleague. He said that a political party can be compared to a business that is struggling during the crisis. He was attempting to justify the fact that political parties got to put their hands in the cookie jar as if they were no different from businesses that were going through a difficult crisis and that needed the subsidy to survive.
I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about this very troubling statement by the Liberal Party.
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
BQ (QC)
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
2021-06-11 12:31 [p.8293]
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and friend, the member for Shefford.
What the political parties in the House did, with the exception of Bloc Québécois, was despicable and inexcusable.
In a time of crisis, the government decided to implement a program to support workers and businesses that might not be able to make it through the crisis. That money will have to be paid back through taxes and the collective debt.
The Liberal Party and the other political parties are distorting the spirit of the bill by claiming that political parties are like non-profit organizations. The Prime Minister ordered the agency administering this program to cast the net wide. He got what he wanted. The Liberal Party made $1 million from it, when it already had a record fundraising year. That is unacceptable, and the amendment that the government is proposing to Bill C-30 is despicable. As of this summer, the political parties will no longer be eligible for the Canada emergency wage subsidy, but they have already emptied the cookie jar. That is shameful and inexcusable. I would be ashamed to—
View Rachel Blaney Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, before I begin my speech, I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge and hold up the Muslim community across Canada. This past week has been an extremely painful one for all of the beautiful Muslim people in our communities, who are now afraid of what Canada has become. I pray that we are tireless in our work to make this country an even safer country. Everyone should feel safe to walk in their neighbourhoods in our country.
I am here to debate Bill C-271, an act to amend the Governor General’s Act. This proposed act would reduce the governor general's salary to one dollar a year, remove the right to retirement annuity and amend other acts in consequence.
When I read just the title of the proposed act, I was actually interested in having a meaningful review of and discussion about the next steps Canada has to take to look at this and the realities we have seen over the last while. Sadly, the content of the bill is not a serious attempt to reform how the governor general is selected, and it would, obviously, limit potential candidates to those who are independently wealthy. For me, having more wealthy people in seats of power is simply not a priority.
It is obvious that we need some changes. In the most recent situation with Julie Payette, there is no doubt that the Prime Minister failed to undertake basic due diligence in the vetting process. If this were a piece of legislation that spoke to creating clearer rules and guidelines around vetting, I would be very interested in the content.
While it is true that I personally feel that Ms. Payette does not merit the pension or perks because she really did fail in her duties, there should be a much better vetting process and a clearer pathway around consequences when a person does not serve this important role appropriately.
I believe the member and I agree that, instead of paying her for the rest of her life, the Prime Minister needs to send the message that Canada's public institutions will not be a safe haven for those who abuse their employees. I think that this is an important factor and needs meaningful action. However, this bill is not that.
Canadians know that the governor general plays a role in the constitutional arrangement of our democracy. Our democracy is not perfect, but it is something that I will always fight for. There is no doubt that Canadians want the Prime Minister to take responsibility for the flawed process of appointing Ms. Payette. This flawed process has left taxpayers holding the bag, and I am not okay with that. I also believe that, for this specific case, we want an independent investigation into the allegations of harassment at Rideau Hall. In the long term, there needs to be a better plan to keep all of our workplaces safe.
The Prime Minister has been heavily criticized for making key appointments, such as the governor general and other House officers, based on politics rather than merit. This is concerning for Canadians, and I have heard that from my constituents. When we look at key roles, I believe that Canadians want people who we can all have faith in. When politics and key roles of leadership in our country get mixed up, it makes it harder for Canadians to feel trust in these roles.
Now, because of a poor system, we are in a situation where the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada is currently assuming the duties of the governor general. Having the chief justice give royal assent on legislation that may one day come before the court does present a potential conflict, so this needs to be addressed. However, the solution offered in Bill C-271 does not provide the constructive criticism to get us to the next level, which obviously, this conversation needs to have.
Now, the Liberals have announced that they will have an advisory panel to help select the new governor general. This approach for appointing a governor general was used by the previous Conservative government but was dropped by the Liberals after they were elected in 2015. While the Conservative panel was non-partisan, the Liberals have decided to appoint Liberal co-chairs, and this is clearly partisan.
Again, how do Canadians trust in a process if it is not fair, if they are not taken out of the partisanship realm and placed, as they should be, in the non-partisan one? This is a lot of taxpayer money being spent and, quite frankly, Canadians deserve better.
Some constituents tell me that they do not want a governor general anymore and that ties with the Queen of England just do not fit what Canada has become. This is a very worthy and important debate to have. However, again, the bill does not provide any meaningful space for this dialogue.
It is time for the Prime Minister to show Canadians that there are consequences for employers who create toxic workplaces and abuse their employees. Our former governor general should be disqualified from receiving a gold-plated pension and a lifetime expense account.
I hope in the future we have bills that provide information to address these key factors. When we debate in the House, we have to talk about solutions that will be long term and will not undermine our democratic process.
View Marilène Gill Profile
BQ (QC)
View Marilène Gill Profile
2021-06-11 13:37 [p.8303]
Mr. Speaker, I will speak frankly. The Bloc Québécois proposes that the next Governor General of Canada be given a salary of $1. The reason for this is very simple: When one holds a position of symbolic value, it only makes sense that one should receive a salary of equally symbolic value.
Historically, as it was mentioned earlier, the role of the Governor General called for the incumbent to make several decisions about the future of Canada. The role has become ceremonial and symbolic; nevertheless, the Governor General's approval is at the heart of certain processes, despite what I would qualify as its redundant quality, and the absence of this approval could even keep government from functioning.
Let us run through the Governor General's duties: He is governor-in-chief of the army; he gives royal assent to bills adopted by the House of Commons and the Senate; he signs official documents; he reads the throne speech; he presides over the swearing in of the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of Canada and the cabinet ministers; he appoints the lieutenant governors, who are the Queen's representatives in Quebec and the provinces; and the list goes on, of course.
Now let us look at the various forms of compensation. If there are any, they seem less significant. That is actually more or less the point of today's dispute. Under current Canadian legislation, the Governor General's compensation package includes, but is not limited to, an annual salary of more than $270,000, a generous expense account associated with the office and a lifetime pension of $150,000.
I will spare my colleagues the details of each case, but I could go on an on and break them down into all the associated expenses that are covered. I could talk about Julie Payette, for example. It may sound amusing to call it a party, but that is really what it was: a swearing-in party, a $650,000 swearing-in party at taxpayers' expense, because that is what was spent on the last governor general. That is to saying nothing of the plans for a $150,000 staircase that never came to fruition, or the millions paid by the National Capital Commission or even all the repairs and upgrades to redecorate Rideau Hall. Clearly, it can be a long list.
I could give other examples. I did not mention Michaëlle Jean, whose party cost $1.3 million. That is twice as much as Ms. Payette's.
It is quite simply outrageous for taxpayers to have to cover all of the expenses incurred by the Government of Canada to maintain a symbolic position of critical insignificance, to paraphrase constitutional expert Patrick Taillon, expenses that include this person's activities, personal expenses and a comfortable retirement.
Speaking of redundant symbolism, I would say that we have our share of that in the House. Since I arrived here, I have seen all kinds of things. Some that I expected to see and others I did not quite expect, but maybe I was naive. The monarchy and prayer are examples of that.
I cannot ignore the monarchy because it is closely connected to the role of governor general. I must say that, as a Quebecker, I find it is rather hard to constantly be hit over the head with this reminder that we were colonized and are still not free. It is beyond hard; it is unbearable, and is something that I quite simply refuse. It is just as outrageous as thanking and venerating a sovereign who, I should point out, is the head of the Church of England and the Anglican Church, and who lives on the other side of the ocean. That is outrageous to me.
Closer to home, we have the governor general. I mentioned that position, but I want to talk about it again. The logic is similar. I find it insulting to be paying for the monarchy, the Crown's representative or the Governor General. As I already pointed out, this is all a symbol of an outdated monarchy. That may even be an oxymoron.
I am a little emotional because it makes absolutely no sense. It is just beyond comprehension, especially in 2021. I represent people, I represent Quebeckers, I represent my riding. As members know, 75% of Quebeckers are in favour of abolishing the monarchy, but not the position of Governor General, which will happen afterwards.
Naturally, to some extent, figuratively speaking, I am also revolted. I see that we cannot manage to separate religion from state, which really concerns me. I am saying this in the House, but we need only think about this past week. This separation has not yet been achieved.
Holding on to symbols that are devoid of meaning and colonial relics prevents us from seeing elements that are symbolic, but on which a democracy is founded. I will humbly and very briefly pay tribute to the Patriotes. As I am a Quebecker, I will speak of the Patriotes in Quebec, but there were some on this side of the river as well. The Patriotes fought. We know the story of these people who fought so we could have more rights, freedoms, transparency, responsibilities and representation.
Preserving the spirit of freedom is a matter of honour, dignity and collective memory. That is what I humbly strive for as a parliamentarian. I would like to see us stand up and reject the link that still chains us to colonial times. The Patriotes dreamed of a representative democracy. They would turn over in their graves if they knew that we were still at the mercy of the British Crown. We often wonder what people learn from history. In this case, I do not think we have learned a thing.
I would humbly say that I do not need all that to be able to represent the ideals of democracy and liberty. I have no need for any superfluous symbols.
On another note, I spoke briefly about my history in the House, where I learned a lot of things. I would also like to talk about the prayer that we say before every sitting of the House. In the last Parliament, I moved a motion to consider doing away with that practice, which is absolutely archaic, in my opinion. Canada prides itself on its secularism, but it still prays to God, the Queen and the Governor General before every sitting of the House. That is another symbol. Sometimes I get the impression that these symbols are forcing us not to take our own responsibilities. I am a parliamentarian and, if I want to talk about democracy and freedom, then I do not need someone to remind me of that. I am capable of doing it myself. I am capable of being responsible and of thinking critically and rationally so that I can properly represent my constituents and Quebeckers. I do not need to pray to ask someone to save me or to tell me how to think in order to do my job properly.
As a parliamentarian and a legislator, I also believe that the role of governor general is a relic of the monarchy. As for the prayer, a gesture that is still current, I refuse to participate in this cheap symbolic practice. It goes without saying that I am against spending money to be represented by someone who in fact does not represent me at all.
In closing, I represent the people of my riding and Quebeckers. I would note that 75% of people are in favour of abolishing the monarchy and I am accountable to them. I am not a humble subject of Her Majesty. I am the member for Manicouagan and I am accountable to my constituents. I hope that Canada will divest itself of these archaic symbols. I hope it will turn to something tangible, based on stories that are more meaningful, freer—I can say freer since I was talking about patriots earlier—instead of relying on a Crown overseas.
The Bloc Québécois and I firmly believe that our vision of the future is the exact opposite of what the governor general exemplifies. Quebec and Quebeckers would like to be free and to be respected. We want to make our own decisions. Until the Quebec nation achieves independence, we wish to take a first step to detach ourselves from the monarchy and reduce the salary of the governor general to one dollar. As one of my economist friends, Jean-Denis Garon, says, this amount would not even be indexed to inflation, because a symbol should remain a symbol.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to discuss Bill C-271, concerning the office of the Governor General. I find some of the assumptions underlying this proposal to be perhaps well-intentioned, but definitely misinformed. I welcome the chance to set the record straight on a few critical points.
The bill proposes to limit the salary of the Governor General to $1 a year. This appears to be based on the notion that the office is purely symbolic in nature and therefore does not really do anything substantive. This implies that it could somehow be recast as part-time, voluntary or having no impact. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The job is, in fact, one of the busiest in Ottawa. It is a 24-7 commitment for the individual and their spouse. It is an incredible honour to serve in the office and is very rewarding, but members should make no mistake, it is all-consuming.
I think it is important to understand this when reflecting on the bill before us, so if the House will indulge me, I would like to take a moment to reflect on exactly what the Governor General does and how they spend their time.
It is perhaps easiest to look at the role from two different perspectives. There are the constitutional functions and the ceremonial functions. On one hand, we have the business of helping the government run smoothly and on the other we have an office whose role and purpose is to celebrate Canada, Canadians and the shared values that bind us together.
As parliamentarians, we are pretty familiar with the constitutional and administrative side of things. There are activities such as swearing in members of cabinet, reading speeches of the throne and proroguing or dissolving Parliament, but these are not the full picture. There is also a legislative component that can be very time-consuming. Governors General have to approve orders in council and other instruments, as well as legislation passed here in the House and in the Senate. In a typical year, those can be well over 1,000 individual instruments and, while it would be nice to say that governments are well-oiled machines and that those instruments only get signed during the workday, that is not the reality. I am sure that if we were to ask Mr. Johnston or Madam Clarkson, they could tell us about getting phone calls from Privy Council Office officials on weekends and evenings, asking them to review and sign urgent documents so that programs could start, money could flow or appointments could be made. That is the nature of the job, and Governors General are often called upon to be flexible and to rearrange their plans at a moment's notice.
Of course, the constitutional aspect is only a part of the equation, and I would suggest a comparatively small one when we divide up the actual workday. More time is generally spent on ceremonial aspects of the job, such as on representing and celebrating the country and the best of our citizens and our society, but the Governor General represents Canada. They do this at home and abroad. They receive visiting heads of state and they conduct state visits abroad, sometimes having to criss-cross the globe on trade missions or to attend funerals of foreign dignitaries. They accept the credentials as foreign diplomats.
Equally importantly, they encourage excellence and achievement. Many Canadians likely do not realize that Rideau Hall administers the Canadian Honours system. It is responsible for awards such as the Order of Canada, the Medal of Bravery and the Polar Medal. In a typical year, the Governor General would attend dozens of ceremonies and give out hundreds, if not thousands, of awards to worthy Canadians. It is always gratifying and humbling to see how many talented and caring Canadians there are in communities across the country. Part of the Governor General's job is to identify, highlight and celebrate these people and their accomplishments so that they serve as examples to everyone in Canada.
In a similar context, the Governor General is a patron to many charitable organizations, using their office and stature to draw attention to worthy causes. Another important role that the Governor General plays is that of commander-in-chief of the Canadian Armed Forces. In this capacity, they give out military honours and awards and visit Canadian forces personnel, their families and friends at home and abroad. Most importantly, they celebrate the accomplishments of our troops, and they are there to grieve with them and support them during times of tragedy.
What I have described is clearly not a symbolic job. This is not a job where the incumbent shows up occasionally and cuts a few ribbons here and there; the workload is significant. I am told that in a typical year, the incumbent would see over 500 events. An incumbent might be asked to give over 200 speeches in a year, visit dozens of communities and open the doors to Rideau Hall and his or her home to hundreds of thousands of guests every year. This is, by all objective criteria, a full-time commitment. Those people deserve to be fairly compensated when they agree to work such as this on behalf of a country.
This takes me to the second concern about the bill. For the sake of argument, let us say the member is right and the Governor General should only receive a dollar a year. What are the consequences of that? Where does that take us? The answer is nowhere good.
I would ask the member if he could afford to work for a dollar a year. The work we do here representing Canadians is critical to the functioning of our democracy. Would he be willing to do all of that on a volunteer basis? Would Canadians honestly say, even if they wanted to, that they would assume full-time employment but not be paid for it? Not many would. In fact, only a very small and very wealthy percentage of the population could ever entertain that proposition.
Our government is looking to ensure that public institutions reflect the diversity of our country. This means embracing diversity in appointments to Crown corporation boards. It means having a senior civil service drawn from Canadians from all parts of the country, with diverse backgrounds and experiences. I would argue the same should be true for the highest office in the land. To suggest that only the rich need apply closes the door to the vast majority of Canadians. That simply is not fair nor is just, and is bad public policy.
Finally, I have heard it suggested that limiting compensation would be a move to somehow take money away from the Queen and the monarchy, as if we cut a cheque for the Governor General directly to Buckingham Palace. Again, this is simply not reality. The Office of the Governor General is a uniquely Canadian institution. It is fundamental to our Canadian system of responsible government. For seven decades, it has been held by a Canadian who is supported by dedicated Canadian public servants. I believe in the importance of the institution. I know I am certainly not alone in the House when I say that.
While I firmly believe that institutions need to continually evolve and meet changing public expectations, what is being proposed simply is not positive or helpful toward this change.
View Garnett Genuis Profile
CPC (AB)
Mr. Speaker, this is quite an interesting bill from the Bloc. I had a few different thoughts about it.
One is it shows a shifting view on the minimum wage. I wonder what precedent it would set for our minimum wage laws if we started paying a government employee one dollar a year.
Another thought was just to reflect on one of my favourite quotes from Winston Churchill. He said that the genius of a system of constitutional monarchy is that, when a nation wins a battle they say God save the Queen; and when they lose a battle they vote down the prime minister.
The third thought I had on this bill was that it really amounts to a throwing out of the baby with the bathwater. Let me explain the context around that a bit.
We had a fairly serious scandal over the last number of years involving the Governor General. It really started with a choice by the Prime Minister to not use the review and vetting process that had been put in place by the previous government. There had been some discussion about the appropriate mechanisms for review of a vice-regal appointment and the creation of a committee to assist with that work. The Governor General is an extremely important position in our political life. The appointment of that position is very consequential, so steps were taken under the previous Conservative government to strengthen the effectiveness and the independence of that appointment process.
The Prime Minister, whether just in a typical but ill-conceived desire to be different from his predecessor or for some other political reason, decided to ignore that process. There was an appointment in which clearly, as a result of some of the problems that happened after the appointment took place but also evident in other things that came to light, the Prime Minister had shown a real lack of wisdom in bringing this scandal about by simply not using the appointment structure that had been put in place previously. Had the Prime Minister simply chosen to consult and follow the processes that had been laid down, then we would not have had this problem.
Following that, with the scandal emerging and the resignation of the Governor General, there has justly been a public outcry around the significant post-office benefits that the Governor General receives when he or she leaves that position, in particular in the context of a Governor General who did not even complete the full term and had to leave as a result of scandal. I have certainly been hearing from many constituents who think, especially for somebody who does not complete their term of office, that these benefits are not appropriate.
There is a lot of work done, and I salute the work being done by my colleague, the member for Sarnia—Lambton, around trying to address this issue and identify the particular problem in the context of the scandal and a solution. There is a failure of the Prime Minister in this case, and we have seen a lot of scandals out of the current government. Any time there is a scandal, it raises questions about our public institutions because it can weaken faith in those institutions. Sometimes we have those within this Parliament who want to capitalize on that to run down the institution completely. This is what we see, frankly, with this Bloc bill that is taking a real issue following a real scandal as a result of the Prime Minister's failures to engage in proper vetting and use the process that was available. The Bloc is trying to take it to the other extreme and essentially degrade the office of Governor General by saying that we would pay the Governor General one dollar a year.
I have a couple of points specifically on that proposal. I am not entirely sure it is a serious proposal. Of course, given the number of ridings it runs people in, the Bloc will never form a national government, but hypothetically if it did, I do not think this is a policy it would even implement. It is obviously untenable for lots of reasons. However, it is interesting to just observe that in our parliamentary history, the history of our system, I do not think in this country but historically in the U.K., there was a time when parliamentarians were not compensated.
It was actually a big reform, the idea that members of Parliament should be paid for what they do. As much as we do not often hear clamouring from the public for higher salaries for functionaries or politicians, there was a reality to the need for that reform because at one time politics, because members of Parliament were not paid, was the exclusive proviso of the wealthy. If something is not paid, then only people who have other sources of revenue could do that activity. However, if a salary is introduced, even a modest one, for something, then it makes that position accessible to more people.
As much as we can debate the specific levels, the fact that we pay some salary to elected officials, to public servants, to people who hold important ceremonial offices, is necessary if we want those positions to be accessible to all Canadians.
The proposal from the Bloc, to the extent that it is a serious proposal, to effectively not pay the Governor General would mean that a person would have to be quite independently wealthy to be in this position, because they would likely be looking at five years, hopefully, if they serve out their term, of not receiving any compensation. They would have to be volunteering full time for that period.
If the Bloc wants to go down this road, we may see private members' bills for them to eliminate their own salaries and eliminate the salaries of other people who work in government. I do not anticipate we would see that. The reality is that we want important offices of state to be accessible to people based on their merits and based on the support they receive, not based on their ability to maintain themselves from other sources of revenue while they are in those positions.
I do think there is another issue, perhaps the substance behind what the Bloc is trying to do here, and that is to undermine the system of government, to challenge the idea of constitutional monarchy in general. I would just say that the structure of our system is time-tested and it has been effective, having a kind of locus of national loyalty that is independent of elected politicians.
In presidential systems, there is an elected person who also sort of represents the nation in a symbolic sense. I think the genuis of constitutional monarchy is that the decision-making power is in the hands of the people's representatives, but there is also a locus of national loyalty that is independent of elected politicians. This breeds what I would call a healthy disrespect for politicians. That is, we are not the people who are the ultimate locus of shared national focus.
We do not have a president who embodies these dual roles, political but also ceremonial. We have a separation between the ceremonial function of the person who represents the unity of the nation and elected politicians, who have important decision-making roles but who inevitably, by engaging in the process of making decisions and debate, become points of division. People can agree or disagree with what a particular politician is saying, but hopefully a monarch or a viceregal can become an expression of universally shared values.
That distinction is a better system. It is well embodied by that quote I shared from Winston Churchill at the beginning, that when a nation wins a battle, they sing God Save the Queen, and when they lose a battle, they vote down the prime minister. In great moments of national celebration, it is not all about the politicians. It is about the values that a nation shares and the ability of a monarch or a viceregal, independent of politics, to seek to embody those values.
The governor general is an important office. The failures of the Prime Minister that precipitated a scandal in the context of that office are unfortunate, and we need to do better going forward, but let us not accept this Bloc attempt to throw out the value of these institutions just because of this scandal. We can address the issues in this scandal while still recognizing the critically important role played by this office.
View Simon Marcil Profile
BQ (QC)
View Simon Marcil Profile
2021-06-11 14:07 [p.8307]
Mr. Speaker, five minutes is enough time for me to say everything I need to say about the position of governor general.
That position has been vacant since we started debating this bill. Does anyone really miss the governor general? Does anyone think not having one is unfortunate? Is anyone in a hurry to get a governor general? I do not hear anyone saying so, and I am pretty sure the atmosphere is much improved since the former governor general decamped.
To be perfectly frank, if I were the Prime Minister, I would take advantage of the fact that I was in England to tell the Queen that our country can survive without a governor general. My last sentence was a bit clumsy, but that is because the Prime Minister has two second languages, English and French, and one can never be too sure his words will make sense.
The Prime Minister will not do that though, because Canada needs that connection to the monarchy. The monarchy is an ever-present symbol, much like multiculturalism, bilingualism and even the prayer in the House. That prayer is utterly absurd, as my colleague from Manicouagan pointed out earlier, because the state is supposed to be secular. None of that stuff represents Quebec.
The events of recent months have clearly demonstrated that we do not need this type of outdated and truly offensive symbol of British imperialism. It is a nostalgic tribute to the great victory of the English over the French, and we are sickened by it.
That does not reflect who we are in Quebec. The solution is to do away with this position, but that will not happen. We see that our colleagues from Canada are not there yet. I understand that. They have also not made enough progress when it comes to labour law or family rights and they are not even able to provide adequate child care. That is not the first area where they lag behind Quebec.
For reasons of their own, they still want to keep in position the representative of a regime that fought against their country's democracy and independence, even though they often forget that. They still bow to the Queen and are still happy to have a governor general.
The Bloc Québécois has made many compromises. We are reasonable people. We are therefore proposing a measured solution: a symbolic salary for a symbolic position. We propose that the governor general's salary be just one dollar. It is simple and coherent and it is perfect because the position is useless in any case.
I remind members that the governor general is housed at taxpayer expense. He dines on the finest hors d'oeuvres and petit fours, all the fancy little tidbits that are served at high-society receptions. He drinks champagne and gets to go to all the parties he likes. I am certain that many people would gladly sit through a few boring ceremonies for free year-round room and board.
The governor general exists, but serves no purpose. In short, it is a symbolic position that deserves a symbolic salary. I urge my esteemed colleagues, who are not so esteemed as all that, to vote in favour of my bill. Unfortunately, they will not, because they like the monarchy.
A constitutional monarchy is irrelevant in a democratic Parliament. Instead of the governor general or the Queen, we ourselves can better represent the hard-working citizens who elect members to help them and represent them in Parliament. That is what democracy is all about. People are proud to be independent, and they are proud to be governed by the people and the will of the people as embodied by elected members. Members are proud to be here, no matter what their profession or surname may be, because they were chosen by the people.
Maybe Canada does not need a symbol that is fundamentally based on the notion that not everyone is born equal. This country prides itself on being a great democracy, but by constantly recognizing the monarchy and the governor general, it is saying that not everyone is born equal. That is a major problem. This position is undemocratic.
Canada is certainly not ready to take this step. My colleagues may have an epiphany and understand what we are trying to say, but until then, I will just say that one dollar is enough.
View Bruce Stanton Profile
CPC (ON)
View Bruce Stanton Profile
2021-06-11 14:12 [p.8308]
Pursuant to order made on Monday, January 25, the division stands deferred until Wednesday, June 16, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.
It being 2:13 p.m., the House stands adjourned until Monday at 11 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).
(The House adjourned at 2:13 p.m.)
View Luc Desilets Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Desilets Profile
2021-06-10 16:22 [p.8240]
Madam Speaker, the Liberals received $850,000 from the wage subsidy, the Conservatives received $716,000 and the NDP received $265,000. The current amendment will require that they stop dipping into the cookie jar by the end of August.
If this can continue until August, why not make it retroactive, since we are saying that, starting in August, this is no longer allowed? That is what I do not understand. What are my colleague's thoughts on that?
View Tracy Gray Profile
CPC (BC)
View Tracy Gray Profile
2021-06-10 16:22 [p.8240]
Madam Speaker, our leader has made comments on this already. When we originally approved a lot of the programs last year to help businesses, the major focus was to help small businesses and get the money out the door. We have now seen that a lot of those programs have not worked for a lot of small businesses, and our focus has absolutely been on making recommendations to the government on a number of those programs and amending them.
View Kristina Michaud Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. He relayed how difficult it has been for SMEs and how the Canada emergency wage subsidy helped them out. It also helped other organizations, namely the political parties.
The government just proposed an amendment on that because it realized that it is inappropriate for political parties to use this program.
I would like to know what my colleague thinks. The government says that this practice will be inappropriate after August 2021. Why not sooner? Why not make the amendment retroactive, so that the political parties are retroactively not entitled to the emergency wage subsidy?
View Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, I believe my colleague and I are on the same wavelength on this and many other issues.
It goes without saying that this was an assistance program for struggling businesses and that the filthy rich major parties are not struggling businesses. This was inappropriate from the get-go. It would only make sense for this to be retroactive to cover the entire period.
View Alexandre Boulerice Profile
NDP (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the fantastic member for Vancouver East.
Like the member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, I was shocked to see that the Conservative motion is about housing. It is rare that we hear them talk about this subject. So much the better if their motion talks about housing because it is a real subject, a real issue and a real problem.
Does the motion present real solutions? That is another matter, and we can talk about it later.
Housing is a critical issue that affects thousands of people in Montreal, Quebec and across Canada. Obviously, my speech is going to focus on Montreal because that is where my riding is located. There is a real housing crisis in my riding. It is not the only place in Quebec that has been affected by the crisis, but it is one of the places that has been hardest hit by it.
The vacancy rate is approximately 1%, which is extremely low. That means that people do not have a lot of choices. Sometimes they are even forced to stay where they are because there are no other options available. Some housing units are dangerous and can jeopardize the health of their occupants. I will come back to that later.
As I was saying, the vacancy rate is really low. The delay regarding the Canada-Quebec agreement exacerbated the crisis. The federal government waited three years before releasing the funds and getting out the shovels and bricks to start real housing projects. Unfortunately, Quebec has been the last in line when it comes to housing.
The vacancy rate puts intense pressure on both the rental market and on home ownership. People are paying ridiculously high prices for housing. In Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, 74% of residents are renters. I recently saw a two-bedroom apartment going for $1,750 a month. A two-bedroom apartment cannot house a big family. Furthermore, I wonder what kind of job someone needs to have to be able to pay $1,750 a month. The average income is around $40,000 or $45,000 a year. Rent is, on average, $1,200 or $1,300. This puts a lot of pressure on workers, on the middle class and, obviously, the less fortunate.
Why is housing so important? It is because there are a few things we can do to help improve people's lives.
People need better working conditions. If someone earns more and inflation is not too high, they can increase their purchasing power. Higher wages are therefore a good thing.
The government can also use fiscal tools, such as taxes, to redistribute wealth and achieve greater equality within our society. One of the best ways to fight poverty and reduce inequality is to tackle the biggest expense for individuals, families and households. That biggest expense is rent.
Let us tackle that problem so we can really help people and lift them out of poverty. Maybe that just means giving them a little bit of a leg up to help improve their quality of life so they can take a vacation or go to a restaurant or the movies. When those activities are allowed, of course, but we all agree that it is coming.
Everyone knows that if a person spends more than 30% of their income on rent, they will end up poor and vulnerable. Right now, 20% of people spend more than 50% of their income on rent. In other words, one in five people spends more than half their paycheque on rent. That is outrageous. About 3,000 households or 6,000 to 7,000 people in Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie are in that situation. That is a lot of people.
As I said off the top, I was happy to read the Conservatives' motion. Then I started combing through it for a couple of words that turned out not to be there: “affordable” and “social”. The motion says nothing about affordable or social housing even though social housing in particular is the best way to help people get decent housing that is within their means. It is possible to create housing that costs people no more than 25% of their income, of their pay.
That makes a huge difference. It helps people in a tangible way. However, the Conservatives have disregarded this and have not included it among the options on the table, even if it is the best tool we have to help people and give them decent housing.
The Liberals occasionally talk about social housing, but they do not invest enough in it.
The Liberal plan, of which they are so proud, is to create 160,000 affordable or social housing units. I will get to what affordability means. The Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness says that there is an urgent need to build 300,000 housing units in Canada. The plan in question, of which the Liberals are so proud, barely manages to offer half of what is needed to meet the needs of the population. Personally, I would not pat myself on the back as much as they do.
The NDP wants to go farther, faster. We want to make the kind of effort that has not been seen since the Second World War and build 500,000 new affordable social housing units in the next 10 years.
When we use the word “affordable”, we must consider certain criteria and be mindful of the definition. I will get right to the issue of affordability. As a matter of fact, depending on the definition, it can refer to some completely absurd situations. If our only criteria is that these units are rented 5% cheaper than the market average, which is exploding and reaching outrageous and ridiculous prices, we end up with housing that is considered “affordable”, but for which people need to have an outrageously high salary and an outrageously low standard of living.
According to the Liberal definition, in Ottawa, a unit that rents for $2,750 a month is considered affordable. The Liberal government thinks this is affordable for the poor and the middle class. I cannot wait to go door to door on this issue.
We need to be able to build housing outside the logic of the market. That is why the NDP puts so much emphasis on building social housing and co-operative housing, which is another way to deal with the housing problem. This goes beyond the single perspective of real estate developers, profits and business objectives. There is obviously room for a lucrative private real estate market. There is also nothing wrong with helping people get a better deal in the market and helping young families get into home ownership.
However, we must be able to keep a part of our real estate market outside the regular market. This would reflect the principles of public service, co-operation and mutual aid, and it would include housing co-operatives, for example, which are common in Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. These are great places to live, where people learn about co-operation, living together, sharing and local democracy. We have to continue to push in that direction.
We need to recognize that housing is a fundamental right and part of human dignity. For years now, the NDP has been introducing bills and fighting to have housing recognized as a right. That would make all the difference.
Speaking of making a difference, the federal government could still make a difference with investments and funding. I talked about 500,000 affordable social housing units, but there are also a lot of other things, such as working with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the CMHC, to make it easier for young families to access home ownership and to encourage the creation and maintenance of the co-op housing I was talking about.
We must also use federal land. There is federal land that is not being used and could be sold to private developers to build various projects. Why not set aside and use these federal lands to ensure that social housing is built, for example in the riding of Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, in Montreal, where there are some very interesting sites? They should be set aside for social housing.
Locally, in Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, there is the issue of “renovictions”, when people are forced to leave their dwelling because of renovations. This does not fall under federal jurisdiction, but we must work with the provinces to come up with solutions.
As for housing safety and environmental health, I joined a protest near my office started by people who were unable to move out of their dwelling even though it contained mould and was dangerous for the occupants.
The La Petite Patrie housing committee is working extremely hard with regard to the construction of social housing close to the Bellechasse sector. The Rosemont housing committee is also working to have other properties designated entirely as community housing when new projects are built, which is interesting.
With regard to the former Centre de services scolaire de Montréal or CSDM building on Sherbrooke Street, the Front d'action populaire en réaménagement urbain, or FRAPRU, is asking that it be reserved for social housing.
I think that is an excellent idea and something we should consider.
View Stephanie Kusie Profile
CPC (AB)
View Stephanie Kusie Profile
2021-06-08 14:50 [p.8110]
Mr. Speaker, yesterday we learned for the second time this week that the government gave taxpayer funds to an organization that were used for executive compensation. Nav Canada laid off 700 workers and increased airline fees by 30%, yet gave out $7 million in executive bonuses.
Will the Prime Minister do the responsible thing, ask for Canadians' money back and demand that these executives give the money back to the government?
View Sean Fraser Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Sean Fraser Profile
2021-06-08 14:51 [p.8110]
Mr. Speaker, with sincere respect for the hon. member, she knows that when we developed the Canada emergency wage subsidy we did so to protect jobs. I am pleased to share that in excess of five million Canadians were kept on payrolls as a result of that program. Recently, we made an adaptation to that program to ensure that if a company increases executive compensation next year, compared with before the pandemic, it will need to pay the money back.
Before the member criticizes us too harshly, I would ask her to take a look in the mirror, because her entire caucus voted against the measure we put in place to raise taxes on the wealthiest 1% so we could cut them for the middle class.
Canadians know that our government has been there for them from the very beginning, and we will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to get them through this public health emergency.
View Elizabeth May Profile
GP (BC)
View Elizabeth May Profile
2021-06-08 16:58 [p.8129]
Madam Speaker, like my friend from South Okanagan—West Kootenay, I do not find much in this motion to which to object, but I also think that, when facing the housing crisis, we need to recognize that there are some undercurrents here that are not easy fixes. There are a lot of ways we can look at the acute crisis of homelessness for people who need a roof over their head and market housing.
Would the member agree with Professor William Rees at UBC, who said that the biggest problem we faced was when we stopped having the affordability of houses in each community based on what that community earned and it became a global commodities market for speculative investment?
View Kerry-Lynne Findlay Profile
CPC (BC)
Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague. This is something that has run away in Canada. It is something we need to take hold of and deal with. We should not have the places where Canadians work just be vacation destinations for people from around the world.
We need to have it tied to our incomes, because we are Canadians, earning money in Canada and paying taxes by Canadian law. That should mean something in terms of affordability of housing.
View Patrick Weiler Profile
Lib. (BC)
Mr. Speaker, the pandemic-related lockdown measures dealt a hard blow to the tourism and hospitality sector, the backbone of the economy of West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country. Small businesses throughout my riding have been clear that the Canada emergency wage subsidy has been a lifeline without which they would have had to close their doors for good.
As restrictions on gathering are lifted and our economy can safely reopen, businesses are planning to hire more staff and do their part in creating well-paying middle-class jobs. Could the minister share what this government is doing to support them?
View Mary Ng Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Mary Ng Profile
2021-06-07 14:50 [p.8022]
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country for his strong advocacy for small businesses.
We have been there for businesses every step of the way in this pandemic. On the road to recovery, we are investing $600 million with the Canada recovery hiring program. This will help businesses hire new workers, hire back workers or increase the hours and wages of existing workers and support a quicker recovery.
We are going to continue to be there for Canadian businesses and workers.
View Michael Cooper Profile
CPC (AB)
View Michael Cooper Profile
2021-06-04 11:57 [p.7977]
Madam Speaker, last year the government entered into an agreement to compensate federal public servants with Phoenix pay damages, and yet one year later retired and former public servants cannot even apply, let alone be compensated, because the government has failed to set up a claims process.
After one year, when will the government stop dragging its feet and see that retired and former public servants receive the compensation they are entitled to?
View Steven MacKinnon Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Steven MacKinnon Profile
2021-06-04 11:58 [p.7978]
Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague well knows that the Conservatives left us with a brutal mess in terms of the Phoenix pay system. We have had to clean it up and indeed extend compensation to all public servants, including retired and former public servants. We will continue to do that. Public servants have all received their general damages, and retired public servants and former public servants will similarly see this compensation.
View Luc Berthold Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government that chose to create two classes of seniors in Canada also had the bright idea of creating two classes of compensation for damage created by the Phoenix system.
As a result, retirees who are entitled to compensation for failures in the system will have to wait until after the others to claim their due. The Treasury Board does not have any forms to submit to retirees for compensation because the forms will not be available for a few months.
One retiree wrote to us saying, “I am still furious since I do not yet know when the money will be paid to me.”
Why is this government treating these retirees as second-class citizens?
View Deb Schulte Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, I want to assure my colleague that we are working on behalf of seniors who have worked all their lives. They deserve to have a safe and financially secure retirement. They deserve to be paid their benefits and the payments that they require. We are working very hard to make sure that all seniors receive the payments and the benefits that they are entitled to.
View Mary Ng Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Mary Ng Profile
2021-05-31 20:04 [p.7676]
Madam Chair, good evening to all members attending today's committee.
With the rapid rollout of vaccines, I am optimistic that we will be able to reopen our economy, and with the investments we are making in budget 2021, we can look forward to a strong, sustainable and inclusive economic recovery.
Our government's COVID-19 economic response plan has protected millions of jobs, provided emergency supports to countless families and kept businesses afloat throughout the pandemic. We have had the backs of Canadians and businesses since day one.
Budget 2021 sets us up to finish this fight against COVID-19 and to keep Canadians healthy and safe, all the while building a better, fairer and more prosperous future for generations to come. The time to act is now and this budget puts us on the right path. However, this is not 2009. We cannot afford to take a decade to recover from the COVID recession.
We are taking prompt, decisive, responsible action.
We are making ambitious and targeted investments to accelerate job and business growth, driving toward faster recovery than if we did not take any action. This is the most small-business friendly budget in Canadian history.
We are extending the Canada emergency wage subsidy and the Canada emergency rent subsidy to September, with flexibility to go further than that if public health measures require it.
We are also announcing new supports to bridge the recovery, such as the Canada recovery hiring program, as 500,000 Canadians are still unemployed or have reduced hours because of the pandemic. We will invest $600 million so that businesses can hire more workers or increase hours and compensation for those they already have.
We also announced significant investments to support the success of diverse entrepreneurs through the Black entrepreneurship program, the women entrepreneurship strategy and investments for indigenous entrepreneurs. This is part of the greater action our government is taking to make our economy more inclusive and to bridge the gaps that racialized and under-represented entrepreneurs and businesses have faced for far too long.
Budget 2021 is ambitious.
It will not just get us onto the road to recovery. It will take us where we need to go to be competitive, to be more prosperous and to become even more resilient. Since my first day as minister, I have been focused on ensuring that businesses have the tools they need to start up, scale up and access new global markets. COVID-19 and our economic recovery have only increased the importance of this work.
Our businesses need the tools and the financing to compete in today's economy. That is why we are expanding the Canada small business financing program loans of up to $500,000, with a potential line of credit of up to $150,000, to provide liquidity for start-up costs and intangible assets, such as software for data management and supports for intellectual property. We have also committed to taking decisive action to lowering credit card fees for small businesses, helping to make consumer interactions more beneficial so that our main streets can be even more competitive.
Beyond financing, we want to ensure that our Canadian entrepreneurs have the expertise and tools to protect their Canadian innovations in the increasingly intangible global economy. The pandemic has greatly expedited the shift to the digital economy. More businesses have gone online in the last six months than in the last 10 years.
The pandemic has also shown the importance of businesses needing the latest tools, technologies and expertise to compete. In budget 2021, we are investing $4 billion for small and medium-sized businesses to go digital and to adopt new technology so they can grown and be even more competitive. This will support some 160,000 businesses and create jobs for nearly 30,000 young Canadians.
It will ensure long-term post-recovery growth and competitiveness.
Today, our small businesses are just a click away from being exporters, and we want to support as many as possible to grow around the world, while anchoring their success here in Canada, and to create jobs.
We have seen another global shift, one to sustainability. We know that the environment and the economy go hand in hand, which is why we have also announced $1 billion over five years to help draw in private sector investment for Canadian clean tech projects, ensuring that they remain competitive and on the cutting edge of innovation. This will help us reach our target of net-zero emissions by 2050. Through this budget, we are setting up our businesses to start up and scale up now, and to be ready to succeed and thrive in the economy of the future.
While travel has been limited through COVID-19, I have not let it slow us down in our efforts to create opportunities for trade and investment, to diversify our trade and to develop solutions to supply chain challenges, especially for essential goods. COVID-19 should not and cannot be used as an excuse to stop trading or to turn inward with protectionist policies.
International trade has been critical to create jobs and opportunities for growth. This is truer in our economic recovery more than ever. By working to implement the new NAFTA, CETA and the CPTPP, Canada's businesses are able to access new markets to expand their companies.
Canada and Canadian workers from coast to coast will benefit.
We have continued our work to ensure that Canada's 14 free trade agreements, including the new NAFTA and the recent trade continuity agreement with the United Kingdom, continue to serve Canadian interests and Canadian businesses, entrepreneurs, workers and families.
Earlier this month, I met with my Mexican and U.S. counterparts to discuss the implementation of the new NAFTA, and to work together on our shared priorities, such as the environment, labour and inclusive trade, for our shared economic recovery. From steel and dairy, to forestry and clean tech, we have the backs of Canadian businesses and workers in all sectors.
Our government has pivoted during the pandemic to support Canadian businesses through virtual trade missions to France, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea; through the first Canada-Africa clean growth symposium; and through our virtual CETA road show last year. With over 2,000 entrepreneurs attending, we have made international trade more accessible. We have led over 150 business-to-business connections for our Canadian businesses.
We continue to take a team Canada approach to help businesses and entrepreneurs succeed here at home and abroad with Canada's trade tool kit: the Trade Commissioner Service, Export Development Canada, the Business Development Bank of Canada, the Canadian Commercial Corporation and Invest in Canada. They are all working together and focused on supporting Canadian businesses and their needs.
Budget 2021 will support the Trade Commissioner Service by providing $21.3 million over the next five years, and $4.3 million on an ongoing basis, to boost Canada's clean tech exports. We will work with our international partners and multilateral institutions to reduce unnecessary trade barriers and restrictions, keep supply chains open and build back a more resilient and inclusive economy. We will continue to work together, as we have done throughout the pandemic, including through our work on the WTO's trade and health initiative, to ensure that our essential health and medical supply chains remain open and resilient.
Crucially, we must also continue our hard work with one another and with all of our international partners to find solutions that accelerate the production and equitable distribution of affordable, effective life-saving vaccines. The pandemic is not over anywhere until it is over everywhere. We are committed to continuing our work toward a speedy and just global recovery.
I look forward to answering questions.
View Gord Johns Profile
NDP (BC)
View Gord Johns Profile
2021-05-28 11:43 [p.7559]
Madam Speaker, with limited international and domestic travellers, summer 2021 is going to be another devastating loss for tourism and hospitality businesses right across the country. The Liberals are cutting the wage subsidy and rent supports for these businesses just when they need them the most. Once again, the government is leaving workers in the tourism and hospitality sector behind.
Will the minister commit today to extend the wage subsidy and rent support until at least spring 2022 to help these small businesses and their workers?
View Sean Fraser Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Sean Fraser Profile
2021-05-28 11:44 [p.7559]
Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his legitimate concern for the small business operators in the tourism sector, which we know has been hit disproportionately by COVID-19.
The first thing these businesses want back is their customers, and we are working hard to deploy vaccines to ensure that we can have a sense of normalcy return as soon as possible.
With respect to the wage subsidy, I would point the hon. member to the fact that we have extended in the recent budget the wage subsidy and the rent subsidy, with the flexibility to do more if necessary, and we have implemented new funds to support Destination Canada and $500 million directly toward support for the tourism sector.
We will be there for operators, because our recovery depends on their participation in the economy.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, a few moments before concluding his speech, the member talked about the Conservatives' plan and how it was going to increase wages for employees.
Can he explain how their plan would increase wages?
View Earl Dreeshen Profile
CPC (AB)
Mr. Speaker, I certainly can. The first thing that we would do is get rid of Bill C-69, which is stopping all opportunities for natural resource development. If we want to have green economies and green jobs, we have to recognize that we have to use the tool we have, which is Canada's oil and gas industry.
As we do that, we will be able to move into some of these other areas that are important to those who care so much about the environment, but we cannot shut down one part of it in order to try to promote a secondary one. From that same position, we know that there are going to be a lot of requirements for rare earth minerals. We have to make sure we get the government out of the way if we think those will be part of our future.
View Lindsay Mathyssen Profile
NDP (ON)
View Lindsay Mathyssen Profile
2021-05-26 16:20 [p.7384]
Madam Speaker, I have the honour of presenting e-petition 3296. As members may know, it was recently revealed that several hate groups, anti-LGBT groups and at least 45 anti-choice groups received Canada emergency wage subsidy funding. Previously, the government has stated that public funds of the government should not be directed to organizations that support discrimination or groups that are anti-choice.
The petitioners are asking that the Government of Canada change the criteria for future subsidies to exclude anti-choice and hate groups, and revoke previously given funds to those anti-choice groups and hate groups.
View Peter Fonseca Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, I live in Mississauga and I proudly represent my constituents of Mississauga East—Cooksville. I know how hard they work to provide for their families; protect their health and provide a better education for their kids, which we know are the keys to a better future; and to take care of their aging parents and grandparents. In short, they work to build and to dream. That is what Mississauga East—Cooksville is all about, and in turn, that is what the Canadian dream is from coast to coast to coast.
That is why, when a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic such as COVID-19 shook the very foundations of our health care, and social and economic systems, our government stepped up and ensured that we would do everything we could to help protect Canadians. As the Prime Minister often says, we have Canadians' backs, meaning we will be there for Canadians every step of the way to support them and to help them weather this storm. The actions we have taken have helped Canadians stay safe and buffer the worst economic impacts.
This third wave has hit hard, with further public health restrictions and regional lockdowns leading to many Canadians facing unemployment or reduced hours this last couple of months. As we work to finish the fight against COVID-19, we will continue to support Canadians through programs such as the Canada recovery benefit, a more flexible EI program and the Canada emergency wage subsidy, which continue to be lifelines for so many Canadians.
That is why we announced through budget 2021 that we will be maintaining flexible access to EI benefits for another year until the fall of 2022, fulfilling our campaign promise to extend EI sickness benefits from 15 to 26 weeks, extending the Canada recovery benefit by an additional 12 weeks until September 25, and expanding the Canada workers benefit to support low-wage workers.
These are historic investments that address the most pressing issues exacerbated by COVID-19, which are to put people first, create jobs, grow the middle class, set businesses back on a track, and ensure a healthier, greener and more prosperous Canada.
I would like to commend the Minister of Finance because Bill C-30 brings us to the next stage. It is a recovery plan for jobs, growth and resilience, the Government of Canada’s plan to finish the fight against COVID-19 and ensure a robust economic recovery that brings all Canadians along. The COVID-19 recession is the steepest and fastest economic contraction since the Great Depression. It has disproportionately affected low-wage workers, young people, women, and racialized Canadians.
The pandemic has laid bare long-standing inequities in our economy. Budget 2021 is an inclusive plan that takes action to break down barriers to full economic participation for all Canadians. It would establish a $15 federal minimum wage.
For businesses, it has been a two-speed recession, with some finding ways to prosper and grow, but many businesses, especially small businesses, fighting to survive. Budget 2021 is a plan to bridge Canadians and Canadian businesses through the crisis and toward a robust recovery. It proposes to extend business and income support measures through to the fall and to make investments to create jobs and help businesses across the economy come roaring back. Budget 2021 is a plan that puts the government on track to meet its commitment to create one million jobs by the end of the year.
Budget 2021 is a historic investment to address the specific wounds of the COVID-19 recession by putting people first, creating jobs, growing the middle class, setting businesses on track for that long-term growth, and ensuring that Canada’s future will be healthier, more equitable, greener and more prosperous.
The Government of Canada’s top priority remains protecting Canadians’ health and safety, particularly during this third, aggressive wave of the virus and its variants. Vaccine rollout is under way across Canada, with federal government support in every province and territory.
In my riding of Mississauga East—Cooksville, over 60% of adults have received their first vaccine, and this past weekend we began to inoculate kids 12 and over. I accompanied my 15-year-old twin boys, Alexander and Sebastien, to get their first shot through Trillium Health Partners Mississauga Hospital mass vaccination site this weekend.
I want to thank all the frontline staff, volunteers and emergency services for making the experience a friendly, efficient safe and secure one. We could see how proud, joyful, hopeful and, I have to say, patriotic people felt, that they were doing their part to safeguard themselves, their family members, their community and their country by getting vaccinated and helping shield us from this horrible virus. People are starting to be cautiously hopeful as vaccines roll out and we approach herd immunity. Canadians can dream once again of something approaching normality.
During last week's constituency week, I had the opportunity to meet with Mississauga and Peel Region's leadership team of elected officials, management and stakeholders to discuss long-term care and the continuum of care with a focus on our seniors and vulnerable populations. The COVID-19 pandemic has strained our long-term care facilities across the country and in my community of Mississauga East—Cooksville like never before. I want to thank the Minister of Finance for the well-deserved measures to strengthen long-term care and supportive care.
Many seniors have faced economic challenges as they take on extra costs to stay safe and protect their health. This 2021 budget proposes to provide $90 million to Employment and Social Development Canada, a government department responsible for social programs, to launch the age well at home initiative. This initiative would assist community-based organizations to provide practical support that helps low-income and otherwise vulnerable seniors to age in place, such as matching seniors with volunteers who can help them with meal preparation, home maintenance, daily errands, yardwork and transportation. This initiative would also target regional and national projects to help expand services that have already demonstrated results helping seniors stay in their homes. Funding would be provided over a three-year period starting in 2021-22. I am pleased to say that many non-profits and charitable organizations working with seniors across the country stand to benefit from this measure.
In addition, the 2021 budget proposes to build on work conducted by the Health Standards Organization and Canadian Standards Association in launching a process to develop national standards focused on improving the quality of life of seniors in long-term care homes. This budget would provide $3 billion over five years to Health Canada to support provinces and territories, ensuring standards for long-term care are applied and permanent changes are made; and, $41.3 million over six years and $7.7 million ongoing, starting in 2021-22, for Statistics Canada to improve data infrastructure and data collection on supportive care, primary care and pharmaceuticals.
We made a campaign commitment promising to increase old age security, OAS, benefits for seniors aged 75 and older. Many seniors are living longer and they are relying on monthly benefits to afford retirement. These funds would be delivered in two steps. The 2021 budget would support seniors by providing a one-time payment this August of $500 and increase regular OAS payments for pensioners 75 and over by 10% on an ongoing basis as of July next year. This would increase the benefits for approximately 3.3 million seniors, providing additional benefits of $766 for full pensioners in the first year and indexed to inflation going forward. This would give seniors more financial security later in life, particularly at the time when they face increased care expenses. In total, the two measures represent $12 billion over five years for our seniors in additional financial support, beginning in 2021-22; and at least $3 billion per year ongoing, to be delivered by Employment and Social Development Canada.
Budget 2021 invests in Canada's biomanufacturing and life sciences sector to rebuild domestic vaccine manufacturing capacity. It has a plan to put in place national standards for long-term care and mental health services.
Budget 2021 makes a generational investment to build a Canada-wide early learning and child care system. This is a plan to drive economic growth, increase women's participation in the workforce and offer each child in Canada the best start in life. Budget 2021 would invest almost $30 billion over the next five years and provide permanent ongoing funding, working with provincial and territorial and indigenous partners to support quality not-for-profit child care, ensuring the needs of early childhood educators are at the heart of the system. The goal is to reach $10 per day on average by—
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2021-05-26 16:58 [p.7393]
Madam Speaker, a headline in the Winnipeg Free Press today reads, “Manitoba is less than two weeks away from vaccinating 70 per cent of its eligible population against the novel coronavirus in a final push to bend the COVID-19 curve of Canada's hot spot.”
From day one, the Government of Canada has been there in very tangible ways, through the creation of the CERB program, with over nine million Canadians having direct increases to disposal income; and numerous government supports for small businesses. Now we see some light at the end of the tunnel. Also, Manitobans saw the flash of the Winnipeg Jets sweeping the series 4-0 against Edmonton, which made a lot of us feel good.
I wonder if my colleague from Manitoba could provide his thoughts on some better things we could be conveying to Manitobans.
View Ted Falk Profile
CPC (MB)
View Ted Falk Profile
2021-05-26 16:59 [p.7394]
Madam Speaker, I want to compliment the member for Winnipeg North on his recognition of our Winnipeg Jets having ousted the Oilers in four straight games, led by Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler. Of course, we are looking forward to continued success. We are looking forward to a Canadian team from the centre of Canada, which is in my riding, holding the Stanley Cup.
What should we be telling Canadians? When COVID-19 hit, the government needed to act quickly, and it did. As Conservatives, we supported what the government did. In fact, when it came to the Canada employment wage subsidy, initially the government rolled out a 10% wage employment subsidy to employers that were experiencing a decline in sales. We, as Conservatives, proposed to increase that to 75% so the folks who were hurting could really benefit.
We joined together with the other parties in the House to come to the aid of the folks who wanted it. Unfortunately, this budget falls way short of providing additional support.
View Mario Simard Profile
BQ (QC)
View Mario Simard Profile
2021-05-26 17:00 [p.7394]
Madam Speaker, I was thinking today about how I should approach the budget implementation bill.
I have a particular fondness for the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons. I like it when he says we are trying to pick a fight. I was wondering how to interpret that, and I was reminded of a name my father used to call me when I was a teenager.
My father was the king of neologisms. He was a guy who could invent concepts and words. When I was young, he would tell me that I was “contrarious”. I do not know if that came from the word “contrary” or “contrarian”, but he told me that “contrarious” means someone who scratches their backside when their head is itchy. That is just his turn of phrase. I do not mean to be offensive. That, according to my father, is what it means to be “contrarious”. I think that someone who is “contrarious” is someone who goes against what makes sense. It is true that in my teenage years, I frequently did things that did not make sense and defied my father out of stubbornness.
Now when I hear this government telling us that we are trying to pick a fight, I often think that they are using the same contrarian rhetoric. I am not saying that the government has an itchy head and is scratching the wrong spot. That is not what I am saying. I am simply saying that perhaps some of the government's actions are counterproductive.
In my view, there are four aspects of Bill C-30 that clearly demonstrate that the government's actions are counterproductive.
The first aspect is old age security. My office has never received as many complaints as it has about the government's proposal to give $500 to people aged 75 and over.
While my father used to use the analogy that our heads are itchy but we are scratching our backsides, I would say that seniors are fired up, and that is the truth. I have never received so many complaints, both online and by email. This is unfair. It creates two classes of seniors. We have made our position clear, but we did not even need to, since that is how it looks on the ground.
The seniors receiving the payment are unhappy. Seniors aged 75 and over who have a spouse under 75 who will not be receiving it are unhappy, and they are vocal about it. Some of the emails I received even got quite abusive, blaming me as if it had been my decision. I am getting this type of criticism. It is understandable in the context of the pandemic that there are tensions and people who are unhappy. As we know, seniors were the ones who were overlooked during the pandemic.
The Bloc Québécois made a proposal, masterfully presented by the member for Shefford, that I think was rational and reasonable. Why not increase old age security by $110 a month and increase the guaranteed income supplement by $70 for a couple and $50 for a single person? To me, this is a desirable and reasonable position.
I said earlier that the government is acting unreasonably. In my opinion, it is not picking a fight to say that. I am saying that, having listened to the people on the ground, the seniors in my riding, I believe that a desirable and reasonable position would be to increase old age security by $110 and the guaranteed income supplement by $50 or by $70 for a couple.
Health transfers are another aspect of Bill C-30 that I find unreasonable. To me, this perfectly encapsulates what is not working in federalism. I clearly remember two instances of what we call Canadian-style neo-liberalism that took place in the Canadian federation after the 1995 referendum, in 1996-97 and 1997-98. The government cut transfer payments by $2 billion each fiscal year. It totally dismantled Quebec's health system.
There was a report, the Séguin report, which was issued not by a sovereignist, but by a federalist. This report demonstrated what we call the fiscal imbalance. No one ever came out and said that it was conjured up and contrived by the interests of people who had a different political opinion from the sovereignists. No one ever came out and said that, but I think it is a proven fact.
Then there was a slightly better agreement on health transfers with the Conservatives, thanks to a bit of a push from our party, it must be said.
Then, under the Harper government, we were back to meagre health care funding. Year after year, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that if nothing changed with respect to health transfers, provincial deficits would grow while the federal government ended up swimming in surpluses. That is according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, not me. It is in the 2013 report.
What is in Bill C-30? Certainly not the 35% the provinces want. The government is signalling that transfers will come with strings attached. That is what we saw for senior care. That seems to be the government's intention. I think this indicates something unreasonable that nobody wants to see.
Another fairly important aspect of Bill C-30 that made me raise my eyebrows when I read it is the extension of various programs, such as the wage subsidy. My thought was that, if the government were interested in fixing a mistake, it could simply change the wage subsidy to make it off-limits to political parties, but there is nothing about that in Bill C-30.
It is no secret that we will likely be in campaign mode soon. Some political parties will be campaigning using money from the wage subsidy. We are still waiting for our Conservative friends to pay back this money. They at least admitted that it may not have been ethical and may not have been the right thing to do. The Liberal Party and our colleagues in the NDP, however, seem quite comfortable with their decision to claim the wage subsidy.
The government could propose a worthwhile amendment to fix that. At the very least, an amendment would send the message that members of the House of Commons do not create programs that benefit them personally. That is all I will say.
The infamous green recovery is another thing that I think is unreasonable and counterproductive. I will never understand what the government is trying to do with this green recovery. There is virtually no mention of it in Bill C-30.
The only information have we gotten about the green recovery so far is an announcement about the electrification of transportation.
Allow me to back up a little. I am sure this figure is shocking, but the government is talking about a $17.6-billion investment in the green recovery.
Do members know how much the Trans Mountain pipeline cost? It cost $17.1 billion, and that was just one project. Overall, the pipeline costs as much as the green recovery.
That is an image that really hits home, for anyone who is serious about the environment. When it comes to the green recovery, what we have been hearing about is the electrification of transportation. That bothers me a bit because Ontario is going to make off with most of the money associated with that, yet it is the only province that is no longer offering a rebate for purchasing an electric vehicle. That is ironic, but let us leave that aside.
The other thing that really bothers me is that the government announced its intention to get into hydrogen production. There are three types of hydrogen. In committee, the government told us that it would prefer to develop the hydrogen market without making a distinction. Anyone who is familiar with the energy sector would tell us that the worst idea out there right now is grey hydrogen. There is no way that making hydrogen out of oil and gas is environmentally friendly. It is anything but.
Lastly, I want to talk about the forestry industry. There is nothing in Bill C-30 about the much-talked-about $55 million that was announced for the investments in forest industry transformation program, or IFIT. Why is it not in there? I do not know. Fifty-five million dollars is nothing. It is peanuts compared to the support that was announced for the oil and gas industry. There is nothing about that in Bill C-30.
I do not have much time left, but, in closing, I want to tell my friend, the leader of the government, that I am not trying to pick a fight, but when my head is itchy, I scratch it, and when my backside is itchy, I scratch that. It is important to be consistent.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-05-26 17:17 [p.7396]
Madam Speaker, the budget makes some positive steps toward addressing the affordable housing and homelessness crisis in Canada. Unfortunately, it is not enough to make up for decades of neglect by the federal government. Housing is a human right, recognized in international law and affirmed in the national housing strategy. Much more needs to be done to ensure that right is respected. Weak regulations have allowed our housing market to be used by the global ultrawealthy for tax evasion and money laundering. These activities have driven up the cost of housing to unsustainable levels and it continues to climb. Where does this end?
We should be looking at regulations to protect Canada's residential real estate market. Many countries have regulations that restrict foreign buyers. I have heard both Conservatives and Liberals talk about how much they love foreign direct investment. When people earning median incomes can no longer afford to own or rent a home without spending 50% or more of their income, is foreign direct investment in housing benefiting Canadians? Housing prices in Canada have gone up an average of 30% in the past year. We have barely begun to see the fallout of that.
The investment in Canada's nature legacy is a very welcome addition, especially the funding directed to indigenous protected and conserved areas, or IPCAs. Reconnecting indigenous people back to their traditional lands is key to reconciliation. A sixth mass extinction is happening right now. Species are disappearing at a rapid rate, and we are losing important and endangered ecosystems around the planet. The endangered big tree old-growth ecosystems on Vancouver Island are a perfect example of where the funding from Canada’s nature legacy should be spent. Indigenous protected and conserved areas would put land under the control and authority of local first nations. This ensures long-term economic development built on harvesting second-growth forests and creating value-added forest products, while preserving old growth for eco-tourism and traditional practices.
Low-income seniors in my riding have been asking for additional pandemic relief and for a permanent increase in the old age security. The budget promises that old age security will increase in 2022, a year from now, but only for seniors over the age of 75. This is creating two classes of seniors: those 75 and up and those under 75. This is going to force more seniors to continue working in jobs that young people could be filling.
It is positive that the government is moving toward national standards for long-term care, but bolder action needs to be taken. The pandemic has exposed glaring deficiencies in some provinces that allowed for the warehousing of seniors in for-profit homes. Serious action should be taken against private for-profit long-term care homes that used pandemic relief funding to give executives and shareholders a bonus instead of fixing deficiencies.
The government has made a good start with additional support for students during the pandemic, with interest relief and an increase in student grants, but it is time to take bold action to bring Canada fully into the knowledge-based economy. It is time to follow the lead of northern European countries and make post-secondary education in this country tuition-free.
The Green Party has long been calling for improvements to our health care system, with an increase of health transfers and a system that recognizes provincial demographic differences. There is an incremental move toward universal pharmacare, but we need bolder steps to ensure Canadians have access to the medicine they need. We have been calling for universal pharmacare, universal dental care, universal mental health services, wellness care and a patient-centred focus on health and well-being to keep people out of the sickness care system, because we know that all of these things will save money in the long run and keep Canadians healthier.
Small businesses are going to have a more difficult recovery than large multinational companies that have been able to ride out the storm with big box stores and online sales. Small and medium-sized enterprises are the lifeblood of the economy. They hire the vast majority of private sector workers. Special consideration needs to be given to ensure that the hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses across this country are able to recover. The wage subsidy ends in September. Many businesses in my riding need help well beyond September.
This is Tourism Week. The budget commitments to the tourism industry are not enough. Tourism's contribution to the economy is underestimated. Tourism employs more people than oil and gas in Canada, and $500 million is not adequate to meet the needs of tourism operators across the country, especially for those who will not be in full operation again until at least 2022.
I hear from constituents like Shelley and Dave, who own and operate CruisePlus, a company that books tours in Canada and around the world. When the pandemic hit, they and their team worked hard to get Canadians home and cancel bookings. They have struggled to stay afloat during the pandemic. They have lost well-trained, loyal employees and are concerned about the end of the wage subsidy. They will lose support before they are expecting to be able to restart their business in a serious way.
The plan to lower the Canada recovery benefit from the current $500 a week to $300 a week by July needs to be re-examined. Workers are still struggling and may not be able to find enough work to compensate for that reduction.
The pandemic has demonstrated the need to improve our social safety net with a guaranteed livable income. We are going to see additional shocks to our economy with automation, artificial intelligence and climate change. A guaranteed livable income can help ensure that no one falls through the cracks as we navigate these new realities.
How will we pay for all these things? During the peak of the pandemic, more than 5.5 million Canadian workers lost their jobs or were working half of their normal hours. More than half of Canadians are within $200 of not being able to cover their monthly bills. At the same time, Canada's 48 richest billionaires increased their wealth by $78 billion and now have almost a quarter of a trillion dollars among them. We now know that some large corporations used taxpayer-funded relief programs to pay their shareholders and executives huge bonuses. That is disgusting.
Canada needs an increase in the progressive tax rate at the higher income brackets. We also need a wealth tax and an inheritance tax for the ultrawealthy. It is time to close tax loopholes that allow them to offshore their wealth and avoid paying taxes. It is time to tax the Internet giants that extract billions from our economy. Big banks and credit card companies have been raking in profits through increased user fees and interest rates they charge to consumers and businesses, and payday lenders are trapping low-income people into predatory loans with terms designed to keep them in endless cycles of debt. This is unacceptable. How have we let income inequality reach this point? All of these things could have been dealt with in this budget.
Over and over again during this debate, I have heard the Conservatives call on the government to spend less. They caution about deficits and increasing debt. I agree with them in at least one area: We need to end all taxpayer handouts to the fossil fuel industry. Real climate action requires that we cut all funding to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, cut all subsidies to fracking companies and put them on notice that their climate-destroying practice will be banned within the year, and make the costs of industrial cleanup a non-dischargeable debt so we can stop subsidizing the cleanup of abandoned wells. The fossil fuel industry is a sunset industry. It is time to stop propping it up and invest those billions in a just transition to a renewable energy economy.
While there are a number of things that are positive in this budget, it falls short of dealing with the challenges of our time. We are in a climate emergency and we have growing inequality. Canada can and must do better for people and the planet. I will continue to work toward that goal.
View Yves Perron Profile
BQ (QC)
View Yves Perron Profile
2021-05-26 17:29 [p.7398]
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.
He raised several very pertinent elements: support for housing; forestry, an area in which we could have invested; seniors who are being left behind; and the knowledge economy. That is all great. He also rightly pointed out that the wage subsidy was sometimes improperly used to pay bonuses. If that is true, I completely agree with him that the situation needs to be rectified.
I would like his comments on that. In my opinion, the use of the wage subsidy by political parties in the House is a misappropriation of funds. Should these political parties repay this money, which belongs to taxpayers?
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-05-26 17:30 [p.7398]
Madam Speaker, the wage subsidy was put in place to ensure that employers were able to keep staff on. Companies and political parties need to be able to justify taking the wage subsidy. We have seen it being abused by large corporations, and that is a problem.
At the very beginning of the pandemic, we said that we should have specific rules to ensure that there was no pandemic profiteering and misuse of public funds during this pandemic. Those warnings were not heeded. We have seen the misuse of funds, and that is a serious problem.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Madam Chair, we are far more concerned about the stability of regular Canadian families, seniors, students, people who have been hard hit by this pandemic. As we see the government cutting back on supports, they will be the most impacted.
Let us look at people with disabilities. The banks got $750 billion in liquidity supports within four days. People with disabilities get a three-year consultation with absolutely nothing in the budget. This is a contrast that all Canadians can see.
I wrote to the finance minister on January 5 to ask her to release the amounts that large corporations have used from the Canada emergency wage subsidy when they laid off workers and paid dividends or paid big executive bonuses. How much was misused in this way? When are the companies going to pay that misused money back?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Chair, there are a lot of questions there, so let me go through them quickly.
I know the member opposite sincerely cares about workers, seniors and students. So do I, and I know that a collapse of the financial sector would hurt each one of those groups. That is why, in a once-in-a-generation crisis, the government, the Bank of Canada and OSFI acted as they ought to do and as they needed to do.
Let me point out that when it comes to disabilities, the budget includes important measures to provide additional support to students with serious but temporary disabilities. I am really glad that it is there.
When it comes to the wage subsidy, the most important thing for us to bear in mind is that it has supported 5.3 million jobs across the country.
View Raquel Dancho Profile
CPC (MB)
View Raquel Dancho Profile
2021-05-26 21:05 [p.7429]
Madam Chair, the minister unfortunately did not answer my question of how much the private company that administers the student loan was paid. Again, it manages $24 billion of student loans.
We do know that in 2017 and 2018 Finastra was paid over $77 million to run the student loan program. In fact, the taxpayer paid the company over $410 million over a five-year period to administer the program.
We also know that Finastra most recently had nearly $2 billion in revenues, and its customers include 90 of the top 100 banks globally. Therefore, in sum, Finastra is very successful and making a lot of money.
My question is this. Why did Finastra receive the wage subsidy from the Canadian taxpayer and how much did it receive?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Chair, I struggle to understand the sincere intent behind the member's question. Is she implying that somehow we should not be making student loans available to young Canadians? If that is her implication, I could not more strongly disagree. Student loans are essential to our young people. They are an essential investment in our future.
I am so proud that this budget strengthens the student loan program and that, thanks to this budget, young Canadians earning less than $40,000 do not have to start repaying their student loans.
View Raquel Dancho Profile
CPC (MB)
View Raquel Dancho Profile
2021-05-26 21:06 [p.7429]
Madam Chair, I am not sure why the minister would be proud of providing a billionaire company with the wage subsidy when it is making a lot of money. That is my question.
Ultimately, I would like to know this as well. Robert Smith, the CEO of Vista Equity Partners, which owns Finastra, the parent company, recently paid $139 million in tax fines to the American government, which is among the largest tax fraud scandal in American history. The Canadian taxpayer has subsidized one of his companies. Was the minister aware of this?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Chair, again, I would like to probe a bit the intent behind the member's question. She has been asking about the wage subsidy. That is a program that has supported 5.3 million Canadian jobs. In her native province of Manitoba, it has supported 175,000 jobs alone.
Our priority is Canadian students and Canadian workers, and we will do whatever it takes to support them.
View Raquel Dancho Profile
CPC (MB)
View Raquel Dancho Profile
2021-05-26 21:08 [p.7430]
Madam Chair, the minister keeps quoting that stat, but quite honestly, it sounds like some of these companies could have saved these jobs on their own and had billions of dollars to spare.
The finance minister wrote a book about guys like Mr. Smith, where she argued the super-rich became rich because they were at the right place at the right time. Maybe she is right. A billionaire American tax cheat got richer off students and Canadian taxpayers during the pandemic as a result of the Liberal government's poorly designed wage subsidy program in this regard. Now Canadians with federal student loans will know that every time they make a payment, an American tax cheat will get richer. I guess that is okay by the Minister of Finance's standards. I am not sure, but it sounds like it is.
Ultimately, we know Finastra is worth billions, yet it received the wage subsidy. We know that 32 companies that went bankrupt before the pandemic was declared took millions from the wage subsidy, some of which no longer had any employees at all. Some of the best performing Canadian hedge funds also received the wage subsidy despite making hundreds of millions of dollars of profits last year.
Will the finance minister commit to ensuring no more profitable billionaire companies receive the taxpayer-funded wage subsidy?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Chair, what I will commit to is an important measure in Bill C-30 and I hope the member opposite will support. This measure applies to publicly listed corporations that received the wage subsidy for any qualifying period after June 5. These corporations would be required to pay the amount by which the remuneration of their top executives in 2021 exceeded their remuneration in 2019 up to the amount of wage subsidy received for active employees for this period. That is an important measure and I look forward to support from the other side of the House for it.
View Annie Koutrakis Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Annie Koutrakis Profile
2021-05-26 21:52 [p.7437]
Madam Chair, I am pleased to be able to speak to the committee of the whole about the actions of the government. I will be speaking for approximately eight minutes and will be following with a couple of questions, hopefully, for the Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance.
Budget 2021 is a historic document. It is the first budget tabled by a female Minister of Finance. It is also a document that sets an ambitious path for this country for the years to come, while healing the economic wounds of the past year. We cannot go back and alter the destruction the pandemic has wrought on our lives and on our economies, but we can do our best to ensure a better future by laying down the foundations for a resilient and inclusive recovery. I would like to outline the measures that budget 2021 would enact to create jobs and particularly help low-wage workers.
The burden that COVID-19 has placed on low-wage workers cannot be overstated, and the past year has shown how much everyone relies on the important work that many of these workers do. It is a sad reality that the worst economic impacts of the pandemic have been suffered by those who could least afford it. Low-wage workers have been up to six times more likely to suffer layoffs than higher-income Canadians. Many of these workers are young people, new Canadians, visible minorities and women. Many Canadians are struggling to get by while supporting families through part-time, temporary and low-wage jobs.
To support low-wage workers in the federally regulated private sector, budget 2021 proposes to introduce legislation that will establish a federal minimum wage of $15 per hour, rising with inflation. This would directly benefit more than 26,000 workers. To support low-wage workers who have been most negatively affected by the pandemic and make our workforce stronger, budget 2021 proposes to expand the Canada workers benefit to support about one million additional Canadians in low-wage jobs, helping them return to work and increasing benefits for Canada's most vulnerable populations. This important measure would raise the income level at which the benefit starts being reduced for single individuals without children and for families.
As we all know, the Canada emergency wage subsidy was one measure that kept businesses afloat during the crisis and enabled them to keep paying their employees when revenues took a nosedive. The program has helped more than 5.3 million Canadians keep their jobs. It is set to expire in June 2021, but if we want to bridge Canadians through the rest of the crisis, continued support is needed.
To give workers and employers certainty and stability over the coming months, budget 2021 proposes to extend the wage subsidy until September 25, 2021. Extending this support means that millions of jobs will continue to be protected.
The budget also puts forward a new program, the Canada recovery hiring program, which would provide an alternative support for businesses affected by the pandemic to help them hire more workers as the economy reopens.
The government also plans to take action to help the workforce grow and meet demand by helping employers train and reskill workers.
To help Canadians gain skills for good jobs in growing sectors, budget 2021 proposes to invest $960 million over three years for a new sectoral workforce solutions program. This funding would help design and deliver training that is relevant to the needs of businesses, especially small and medium-sized businesses, and to their employees. This investment will help connect 90,000 Canadians with the training they need to access good jobs in sectors where employers are looking for skilled workers.
This measure will also help diversify sectors by ensuring that 40% of supported workers are from under-represented groups, including women, persons with disabilities and indigenous people.
Some 45% of Canadians lack the literacy, numeracy and digital skills that are increasingly necessary to succeed in jobs in the knowledge economy. Budget 2021 proposes to invest $298 million over three years in a new skills for success program that would help Canadians improve their skills. This program would enable approximately 90,000 Canadians to improve their literacy and essential skills to better prepare for, get and keep a job, and adapt and succeed at work.
When the economy reopens many people will return to their previous jobs, but for some, changes in the economy will mean they will need to find new jobs. To address this need and help Canadians find new jobs as quickly and easily as possible, workers need to be able to rapidly adapt and upgrade their transferable skills for newer industries. Budget 2021 proposes to provide $250 million over three years for an initiative to scale up proven industry-led third party delivered approaches to upskill and redeploy workers to meet the needs of growing industries. This initiative will help approximately 15,500 Canadians connect with new work opportunities.
Finally, I would like to add a thought about personal support workers. These individuals perform jobs that are mentally and physically exhausting, but they often do not enjoy the same job protections, compensation and benefits as many of their peers in the health care sector. To follow through on a commitment made in the fall economic statement 2020, budget 2021 proposes to provide funding of $27.6 million over three years for My65+, a group tax-free savings account offered by Service Employees International Union Healthcare. The funding for this portable savings tool will support incentives for worker participation.
The government's economic recovery plan must address the unique challenges of the pandemic recession and must include all Canadians. If we are to have a full and fair recovery, Canada needs all workers to rejoin the workforce and to make sure they earn a decent living so as to generate economic growth and raise the standard of living and quality of life for everyone.
Even before the pandemic, housing costs were rising and were a serious concern for a lot of young Canadians who wanted to buy their first home, including many from my riding.
In 2017, the federal government responded to these concerns by introducing Canada's first-ever national housing strategy to improve the affordability, availability and quality of housing in Canada. It is a vital first step. My constituents have continued to express concerns about the rising cost of housing. Now more than ever, they are counting on our government to do something.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the housing crisis, particularly affecting the most vulnerable Canadians. Unfortunately, this includes women living in dangerous conditions. Members may remember that the House recently held a take-note debate to discuss the disturbing trend of violence against women.
Because of the threat of COVID-19, many people are unable to get into shelters, which further increases the problems faced by homeless Canadians. Budget 2021 aims to continue tackling the housing crisis by investing in new and existing projects.
Can the minister explain how important funding for housing projects is to Canadians and why it is so essential that the federal government take marginalized communities into consideration in its plans?
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