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Results: 1 - 5 of 5
View Yves Perron Profile
BQ (QC)
View Yves Perron Profile
2021-06-22 11:35 [p.8948]
Madam Speaker, it is because this man's name is etched on my heart. The name of his riding is Bécancour—Nicolet—Saurel.
I was saying that members need to remind themselves of their commitment. I invite them to think of the people who call their riding office to tell them how they are struggling to put food on the table. I have been helping some of those people this year.
Let us remember the older people who supported the Quiet Revolution in Quebec and the establishment of the society we live in today, which has allowed us to thrive because it is so generous and prosperous. I would not be here today if not for the Quiet Revolution. I am a son of the proletariat, of the working class. If these people had not created the good public education system that we have in Quebec, I would not be here. Could we remember that from time to time?
I will talk about the renewal of an agriculture-related measure because, as members know, I cannot make a speech without talking about agriculture. Another good example of the arm's length relationship that the federal government wishes to maintain was the extension of the tax deferral on patronage dividends of agricultural co-operatives for another five years. This measure has been in place for more than 10 years, actually 15 years. It works well, but, every time it is about to expire, the sector panics. They have to ramp up their lobbying system and contact all of us. All elected members of the House with farmers in their riding have been contacted this past year because of concerns about the lack of an official commitment to renew this measure.
People in the agricultural sector are happy the measure has been renewed for five years, of course. They would not say they are unhappy, but it is not exactly what they wanted. They wanted the measure to be permanent.
Why would the government make a measure permanent and make people's lives easier when it can score political points and come off looking so good and generous by making a wonderful announcement every three or four years about renewing the measure?
Make that measure permanent and move on to other things. Elected representatives should be working to improve people's lives and their constituents' lives for the long term, regardless of their political interests. We have all noticed the announcements happening all over the place, little mini-announcements about $25 million for this or $100 million for that. That is fine, and I am not saying I do not want those announcements, but let us do some really structural, long-term things for our people.
Take, for example, the emergency processing fund, which was implemented during the pandemic. I forwarded some cases to the minister's office but nothing came of it. These cases involved people who had started modernizing their regional processing plants—plants we so desperately need—in good faith, but ended up being told that the program had run out of money. They were told that it was unfortunate, but that they would have to try again another time. When the government is feeling generous and people have begged enough, it will see whether it can inject another $1 million or $10 million. When I raise the issue, they tell me that $10 million more were invested, but that is not enough. Sure, $10 million is great, but what businesses need is effective, long-term assistance.
My time is running out and I would be remiss if I did not bring up the point I raised the other day about support for temporary foreign workers. As of June 16, the $1,500 amount has been reduced to $750, even though bringing in temporary foreign workers is no less expensive than it was before. Quarantines are still mandatory and necessary. The farmers who are bringing in foreign workers right now are just as important as those who brought in foreign workers two months ago. Why are businesses being treated differently and unfairly? It still costs money.
In my last speech, I cited a letter from the agricultural community addressed directly to the government and the minister asking them not to cut this money. What is more, these people lost a tremendous amount of money in the Switch Health mess. Not only should these amounts not be reduced, but more money needs to be given to these people to compensate for the problems they encountered with Switch Health.
View Yves Perron Profile
BQ (QC)
View Yves Perron Profile
2021-06-18 14:53 [p.8802]
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and for speaking at length about agriculture. I understand that he wants us to turn our attention to what comes after COVID-19, but I would like him to speak to what happened during the pandemic.
In question period today, I asked why support for mandatory quarantines was cut in half a few days ago when the war on COVID-19 is not over and our farmers need support.
I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about the general support provided to the agriculture and agri-food community during the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular the inadequacy of the emergency processing fund.
View Richard Bragdon Profile
CPC (NB)
View Richard Bragdon Profile
2021-06-18 14:53 [p.8802]
Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague's question is a good one as it relates to the inadequate support that we have found for those who literally grow our food and keep our land. Our agriculture producers are the backbone of our economy and are essential to our food security. If this pandemic has revealed anything, it is the absolute need to prioritize our agriculture and food supply chains.
The current government has not. In fact, it has put priorities on so many things, but the one sector that seems to have been overlooked in many cases are those who actually grow and supply and literally keep our land in this time; that being, our farmers and our agricultural sector.
I agree with the hon. member. This must be an ongoing priority for the government and we must do everything we can to ensure that our food supply chains are secure and that proper investment is made into agriculture.
View Francesco Sorbara Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, it is great to see you and all my hon. colleagues this afternoon. It is wonderful to represent the very entrepreneurial and hard-working folks of my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge. I know many of them have started going back to their normal lives. Traffic is getting busy again in the city of Vaughan in the York Region and people are working, which is great to see.
I would like to thank my hon. colleagues for sharing their thoughts on the impact of the pandemic on Canadians, Canadian businesses and the different sectors of our economy.
The COVID-19 global pandemic has had wide-ranging effects in Canada, from dangers to public health to business restrictions and closures, causing grief, job losses and hurting the economy.
Nearly a year ago, we asked Canadians to do their part so that together we could stop the spread of the virus and flatten the curve in order to protect our neighbours and friends, especially the elderly, the most vulnerable and people living with certain health conditions.
During that time, Canadian businesses have shown tremendous resilience in adapting to the challenges posed by the pandemic by adjusting their operations to keep Canadians safe and scaling down their costs during times of weaker demand.
From the beginning, we have taken a whole-of-government approach to stopping the spread of COVID-19 and ensuring the safety and security of Canadians. We are working with our municipal, provincial and territorial counterparts, as well as our international partners, to mitigate the risks to Canadians.
Our government has done everything in its power to combat the virus and mitigate its harm, using every tool available to safeguard the health and livelihoods of Canadians, help businesses weather the storm and support the various sectors of our economy.
Last year, we put in place Canada's COVID-19 economic response plan to provide immediate support for Canadians and Canadian businesses. This plan is a broad, wide-ranging approach that continues to keep our economy stable and protect jobs. Through this plan, we have put forward numerous measures to ensure that Canada's sectors have the support they need to recover from this crisis and, for that matter, Canada's workers do as well.
Let me now provide members with some examples of our broad-based industry supports.
For highly affected sectors, such as tourism and hospitality, hotels, and arts and entertainment, that have struggled to access sufficient financing, we have launched the highly affected sectors credit availability program. This program offers government-guaranteed low-interest loans of up to $1 million to eligible businesses to help them with their day-to-day operating costs during the COVID-19 crisis. It enables them to invest in their longer-term prosperity.
In my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge, the city of Vaughan is known as the event centre capital of Canada. There are many event centres where weddings, bar mitzvahs and celebrations happen. I know these centres have been impacted significantly during the pandemic, and we have assisted them to the best of our ability so they will reopen when the time comes and it is safe to do so.
For the businesses in the agricultural and agri-food sector, we have provided $35 million through the emergency on-farm support fund to prevent and respond to the spread of COVID-19, improving health and safety on farms and employee living quarters. We also enabled Farm Credit Canada to provide an additional $5 billion in lending, offering increased flexibility to farmers who face cash-flow issues and to processors who are impacted by lost sales, helping them remain financially solid during this difficult time. Businesses in the agricultural and agri-food sector and businesses in the aquacultural and fishery sectors have benefited from this measure.
Businesses in the aquacultural and fishery sectors have also benefited from $62.5 million of new assistance to the fish and seafood processing sector through the Canadian seafood stabilization fund. This new assistance has helped them add storage capacity for unsold product, comply with new health and safety measures for workers, support new manufacturing and automated technologies to improve productivity and quality of finished seafood products, and adapt products to respond to changing requirements and new market demands.
For the cultural, heritage and sport sector, we have created the short-term compensation fund for Canadian audiovisual productions to compensate independent production companies for the lack of insurance coverage for COVID-19-related filming interruptions and production shutdowns within the sector. We recently increased the fund from $50 million to $100 million to allow more productions to make use of the program during the busiest time of the year for the audiovisual industry. We have also established a $500-million emergency support fund to help alleviate the financial pressures of organizations in this sector facing significant losses because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Right now, oil and gas workers and their families are struggling because of things beyond their control. As a result, companies have had to slow down or pause their operations, leaving too many people out of work. Thankfully, recently we have seen a run-up and increase in the price of oil, whether it is WTI or WCS. This is a net overall positive for the Canadian economy.
To support businesses in the energy sector, an important sector for our economy, we have provided up to $750 million to create a new emissions reduction fund to support workers and reduce emissions in Canada's very important oil and gas sector, with a focus on methane. This fund is providing primarily repayable contributions to conventional and offshore oil and gas firms to support their investments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Of this amount, $75 million was allocated to the offshore sector.
We also provided up to $1.72 billion to the Governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, and to Alberta's Orphan Well Association, to clean up orphaned and inactive oil and gas wells. This has helped maintain thousands of jobs while creating lasting environmental benefits.
To support infrastructure projects across the country, we have adapted the investing in Canada infrastructure program to better respond to the impacts of COVID-19, adding a new COVID-19 resilience stream. This new stream, delivered through bilateral agreements with the provinces and territories, provides added flexibility fo fund quick-start short-term projects that might not otherwise be eligible under the existing funding streams. We also accelerated $2.2 billion in annual federal infrastructure funding for communities, through the gas tax fund, to help communities quickly move forward with infrastructure projects.
For many Canadians, COVID-19 has had a major impact on daily life, as they work to pay their bills, put food on the table and take care of themselves and their families. More and more Canadians have been turning to community organizations for assistance as a result of the economic conditions of the pandemic. To ensure that Canadians get the support they need, the government has made significant investments in shelters, food banks and community organizations, including $300 million distributed as of January 12 for charities and non-profit organizations across Canada that deliver essential services and an additional $200 million in total support for nearly 3,000 food banks and local food and service organizations to address emergency hunger relief across Canada.
To support hospitals and keep our nurses, doctors and front-line health care workers well equipped in the months and years ahead, I am proud to say the government has committed over $9.1 billion to support the procurement of personal protective equipment. This funding is in addition to the $3 billion for the procurement of personal protective equipment provided directly to the provinces and territories through the safe restart agreement.
As we have said from the beginning, our government is there for Canadians. We promised to do everything we could to support Canadians, Canadian businesses and all sectors of our economy. That is what we are doing today and what we will continue to do.
We will be here with Canadians and will have their backs for as long as the pandemic is here with us. We have had them from day one. We have been there with emergency programs like the CEBA, the Canada emergency wage subsidy, the rent relief program and the regional relief and recovery fund. We will continue to invest in Canada, we will continue to invest in Canadians and we will continue to grow and strengthen our middle class.
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
Lib. (MB)
View Kevin Lamoureux Profile
2021-02-22 11:03 [p.4337]
Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to be able to address the chamber.
This morning I would like to provide some thoughts in regard to Bill C-206. Its intent is to ultimately expand fuel charge relief provided for farmers by making some changes to the definition of “qualifying farming fuel”. Specifically, I understand the bill would add natural gas and propane to the eligible fuel list.
As we continue to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, it is really important to recognize that we are not in a position in which we can afford to ignore the real and immediate threat that climate change poses to our environment and our economy. I think it is important to recognize that fact, even in these very trying times.
We will continue, as we have in the past, to work to support Canada's farmers as they attempt to also fight climate change. I think it is also important to recognize that our farmers, and the farming industry as a whole, have contributed so much with they way they are fighting climate change. The modernization and technology that is being used on our farms is absolutely incredible, and every year it continues to get better.
I can recall the days in Saskatchewan of running on to the fields with the big John Deere tractors and cultivators. When we compare the way farming was back then to today, we see some significant changes in the way farms operate. We need to acknowledge that. We will support farmers, ranchers, food businesses and food processors because we recognize the important role they play in our economy, our society and our lifestyle.
It is also important that we recognize that pollution pricing is the most effective and efficient way to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with climate change, and we have been saying that since the very beginning. In fact, all the direct revenues from the price on pollution go back to the jurisdiction that it came from.
That has been the goal of the government, and Manitoba has benefited from that significantly. We are getting into the tens of millions of dollars. The majority of the constituents I represent get a net gain as a direct result of the price on pollution.
I think if we look around the world, we would see a huge amount of support for having a price on pollution. We can look to the Paris Agreement or talk about other provincial governments. In fact, British Columbia's government has led the way. Ironically, we would have to go back probably over 15 years to see when even the Province of Alberta initiated the idea on some form of price on pollution.
Instituting a price on pollution across Canada has been a priority of this government, and it has been, for the most part, very effective. For those jurisdictions that do not have something of a similar nature, Ottawa steps in to ensure that there is that sense of equity, in that all Canadians are contributing. We saw legislation that was brought in earlier with regard to net-zero emissions. This legislation is a first of its kind and was introduced by this government.
Again, we are very sensitive to the farmers. We will see what happens when this bill goes to committee, but the government, even during these trying times, has been there to support our farmers. We can talk about the $5 billion in additional farm credit that was unlocked, or the $100 million for the new agriculture and food business solutions fund. We also increased the Canadian Dairy Commission borrowing capacity by $200 million.
There was also an additional $35 million to improve health and safety on farms. We spent well over $100 million for agricultural recovery initiatives, which will ultimately support a national approach to responding to some of the huge additional costs people in farm businesses have had to incur. Also, from what I understand, we launched a $75-million emergency processing fund to help modernize and automate some of these facilities.
Our government knows and understands our Canadian farmers. They are a part of the climate change solution, and we will be there to continue to support them in the months and years ahead.
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