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Results: 1 - 30 of 131
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-06-15 14:55 [p.15068]
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Numbers do not lie, Mr. Speaker. The manufacturing performance is dismal, particularly with the dollar at 81¢, and it is part of a wider trend.
The trade deficit has soared to historic highs: in January, $1.8 billion; in February, $2 billion; in March, an all-time slump, $3.9 billion; in April, another $3 billion. That is a total deficit so far this year of more than $10 billion.
Without reciting talking points, could the government explain how it will turn those terrible numbers around?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-06-10 14:45 [p.14873]
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Mr. Speaker, the formal trade deal between Europe and Ukraine goes into force at the beginning of 2016, but the EU actually understands Ukraine's pivotal role and has therefore pre-emptively and unilaterally lifted tariffs for Ukrainian companies.
In contrast, despite much rhetoric about Ukraine, Canada has held back, awaiting the completion of inevitably time-consuming, formal, bilateral trade talks.
Why does the Prime Minister not do as much for Ukraine on trade right now as Angela Merkel has already done?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-06-08 14:38 [p.14697]
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Mr. Speaker, despite celebratory announcements in October and December of 2013, and then again in August and September of 2014, the CETA deal is still not done. Last September's premature party alone cost hard-working Canadian taxpayers nearly half a million dollars.
The government cynically boasts about the number of deals it has signed, but the grim reality is record high trade deficits of $3 billion and $3.9 billion in March and April. When will the government finally scrap its tired talking points and tell us when CETA will be finished?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-06-03 14:58 [p.14533]
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Mr. Speaker, the OECD has cut its 2015 GDP forecast for Canada to a dismal 1.5%. By way of excuse, the minister today claimed, “We are doing better than most developed countries”. That is simply not true. The OECD puts us behind Australia, Germany, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, South Korea, Sweden, the U.K., the U.S. and yes, even Spain.
This is no global problem, as the government likes to pretend to excuse its shoddy management. This is a made-in-Canada runway to recession.
When will the finance—
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-06-01 14:38 [p.14398]
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Mr. Speaker, Friday's GDP numbers showed a 0.6% drop over the first quarter of 2015, a performance rightly described as “terrible” by a Bay Street economist.
The Governor of the Bank of Canada's previous remark about an “atrocious” start to the year has sadly been borne out. Most troubling was the 0.2% decline in March, a month which was supposed to show an economic rebound.
When will the Conservatives quit parroting their talking points, face this grim reality, and admit they have no effective plan for jobs and growth?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-05-27 14:18 [p.14216]
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Mr. Speaker, in my riding of Toronto Centre, rail safety is an issue of immense community concern. The government has proposed changes to the current rail safety system, but they do not go nearly far enough.
A new proposed speed limit remains higher than self-imposed limits set by CN and CP in urban areas. The timeline to replace and upgrade aging DOT-111 tank cars would leave unsafe cars on the tracks for far too long.
The Conservatives' piecemeal approach to rail safety is frustrating our communities and putting them at risk. In my riding, two rail lines used for transporting crude oil run through residential areas. Residents and community organizations are worried and want better safety rules, but Transport Canada's Rail Safety Directorate lacks staff, funding and training.
We must do much more to improve rail safety in our communities.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-05-25 14:38 [p.14060]
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Mr. Speaker, the government's performance on trade continues to fall far short of its rhetoric. The most recent example is a breakdown in bilateral negotiations with Japan. Talks have been stalled for months, with Canadian officials citing Japan's focus on the trans-Pacific partnership as their excuse for the slowdown. However, Japan has continued bilateral negotiations with other countries, so this excuse rings hollow.
Will the Conservatives redouble efforts to schedule a round of negotiations with Japan before we fall behind our foreign competitors, as we did with South Korea, costing Canada billions of dollars and thousands of middle-class jobs?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-05-25 14:39 [p.14060]
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Mr. Speaker, a $3-billion trade deficit in March, a historic record, suggests the trade agenda is not working. This is not the first time the government has touted an imminent deal without showing any results. As CETA winds its way through EU institutions, it is facing mounting criticism from European officials. There is growing talk that portions of the text may even need to be changed to assuage these concerns, even though Canadians have been told that this is a done deal and have had hundreds of thousands of their dollars already spent to celebrate it.
Will the minister finally forego his smoke-and-mirrors act and tell us when CETA, which we have already celebrated, will finally be ratified?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-05-06 15:02 [p.13538]
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Mr. Speaker, speaking of shameless photo ops, despite hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on ceremonies and announcements, the CETA deal has stalled.
Conservative rhetoric on trade just does not match the results. There was a $3 billion trade deficit in March, a historic record. Our share of western export to Asia has been cut in half, and we are at risk of being kicked out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The government prefers talking points over market access, photo ops over real export opportunities for Canadian businesses and Canadian workers. When will the Conservatives take some real action on trade?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives like to brag about the number of trade deals they have done, but in March they presided over the largest trade deficit of $3 billion in Canada's history. That makes, for the first quarter, a trade deficit of $7 billion.
This weakness is especially worrying, given Statistic Canada's recent report that businesses intend to cut R and D spending by 2.6% this year, a worrying indicator for the future. The numbers do not lie.
When will the government stop hiding behind absolutely ludicrous talking points on the TFSA and admit that its economic policies are failing Canadians?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-04-27 14:38 [p.13052]
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Mr. Speaker, Michael Kinsley defined a gaffe as the moment when a politician accidentally tells the truth. That is what happened when our usually invisible Minister of Finance said that the high cost of doubling the TFSA limit will be a problem for the Prime Minister's granddaughter. His remark revealed the Conservative government's profoundly cynical and short-term approach to economic policy, and its utter lack of a long-term vision for Canada.
Why are the Conservatives building up billions of dollars of debt for all of our grandchildren with this $10,000 tax break for the already wealthy, and where is their plan for long-term growth and jobs?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-04-27 14:40 [p.13052]
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Mr. Speaker, I am proud to say that we are worried about long-term solvency for the Government of Canada, and we are worried about jobs and growth now.
According to Carleton University economist Jennifer Robson, the Conservative income splitting plan “will only reach, at most, 12.9% of all Canadian households and a maximum of one third of families with children”.
Two-thirds of families with children will not save even one dollar from these so-called family tax cuts. When will the Conservatives start giving help to those who need it rather than to those who do not?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-04-22 14:45 [p.12862]
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Mr. Speaker, “multipliers for infrastructure spending...are...high. In contrast, a reduction in personal income taxes has a considerably lower multiplier...”. Those are not my words. That is the sound economic argument laid out by Jim Flaherty in his 2009 budget.
Could the current minister explain why he is ignoring this wise advice and handing out tax breaks to the rich instead of investing seriously in infrastructure and the economic growth middle-class Canadians so urgently need?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-03-31 15:52 [p.12623]
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Mr. Speaker, I will share my time with the member for Mississauga—Brampton South.
The Liberals share Canadians' concern about rail safety in Canada. After the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, the government promised to take steps to ensure the safety and integrity of Canada's rail network. However, in the past two months, there have been three major derailments in Ontario alone. In March, one of those trains, which was transporting dangerous goods, burned for a whole weekend.
In my riding, Toronto Centre, two rail lines used to transport crude oil go through residential neighbourhoods. Residents and community organizations, such as Safe Rail Communities, are worried and want the government to introduce safety measures and regulations to protect them from potential dangers. However, Transport Canada's rail safety directorate lacks staff, funding and training.
Transport Canada has a lot of catching up to do, but its budget was cut by $202 million, or 11%, in the main estimates. These cuts followed a scathing report by the Auditor General, who pointed out that the government had conducted just 26% of the required audits and did not audit VIA Rail, even though the company transports 4 million passengers a year. The report also revealed that the government does not have enough inspectors and system auditors to audit critical safety functions. When the Liberal critic questioned the minister in committee in March 2015, the minister said that a single additional inspector had been hired, which brings the total number of inspectors to 117.
This latest bill is yet another example of the Conservatives' piecemeal approach to rail safety. The Transportation Safety Board said in February that the Conservatives' new rail standards do not go far enough, and the recent accidents support that assertion. The TSB clearly stated that the older, least safe tank cars should be removed from the rails immediately. The government's timeline for removing these cars is unrealistic, and the Conservatives know it.
Railways united Canada, and many of us still live close to those same railways that helped build our country. The government has a duty to ensure that Canadians who travel on these railways and who live close to them are safe, and it also has a duty to keep the employees of rail carriers safe.
I represent Toronto Centre, which is a riding where rail safety is an issue of intense community concern. Last fall, my colleagues the member for Trinity—Spadina, the member for St. Paul's, and I held a town hall. We held it on a cold autumn night. It was a Friday, and 200 people showed up to discuss this issue. For me, that was a real measure of how strongly the community feels about this issue.
This is not some remote technical question for my constituents, for the people I have the privilege of representing in this House. This is something that people are concerned about every day, that people worry in a very real, very present way affects the safety of their families, the safety of their children.
We are planning to hold another town hall meeting in April, in a few weeks, simply because there was such intense community concern about this issue. I cannot underscore too much for this House how central this issue is, and what priority we must accord it.
Something that we hear every day, and that we heard again today in question period, is one of the threads that runs through the government's philosophy, and that is a point of view which for me feels like warmed over 1990s U.S. Republicanism. It is a “starve the beast” philosophy, a philosophy that says the central responsibility of government is to cut taxes so that government services can be cut. That really is the central ideological idea of the government.
I personally, as a Liberal, strongly disagree with that philosophy and that point of view. I do not think it makes sense for our economy, and it does not make sense for our society.
I hope that in this House, regardless of the party to which we belong, this is one area where we can all agree that government plays an essential role. Government cannot be underfunded. Regulators must be given the authority they need. We cannot count on industry to regulate itself in this crucial matter of rail safety which touches on the personal safety of so many Canadian families.
My concern is that Transport Canada's rail safety division is understaffed, underfunded and undertrained. It is a division which has been a victim of the revolving door of Conservative ministers, with five ministers in nine years.
I would be remiss if I did not point out that another essential aspect of the rail safety issue to which one of the hon. members opposite has just alluded is the fact that we are seeing far more oil being transported by rail than in the past. That is a big part of the reason that rail safety has jumped so high up the agenda of the people whom I represent in Toronto Centre.
People know, even though the level of information given in a timely manner about what is being transported is low, and people appreciate that vastly increased amounts of crude oil are being shipped along our railway lines. That has increased both the perception and the reality of the potential danger that this poses.
I must say that reality did not happen by accident. The reality that so much oil is being transported by rail at great cost and posing a great potential public safety hazard is the fault of the Conservative government which has failed to get the pipelines built that Canada's natural resource producers need to get our resources to market.
That failure is partly a failure of a relationship with aboriginal people. It is partly a failure of relationships with the provinces. It is partly a failure of relationships with local communities. It is, above all, a failure of diplomacy and building an effective productive relationship with the United States, our most important neighbour, our most important trading partner.
This is a failure that is of tremendous concern to the people I represent in Toronto Centre, because they feel, quite rightly, that it has put their communities in greater danger. What is really astonishing to me is that it is a failure which, above all, has caused problems for the Canadian economy as a whole.
In closing, we do see some modest improvements in this bill, but we feel that it does not go far enough. What we would like to see above all is a comprehensive, effective strategy for transporting Canada's natural resources and getting them to market.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-03-31 16:03 [p.12624]
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Mr. Speaker, that is absolutely right. There are a couple of issues here. As my hon. colleague has pointed out and as I mentioned in my remarks, the revolving door of ministers has not helped this situation. Equally though, we have seen a real erosion of expertise in the division responsible for rail safety.
In Canada, we are very lucky to have some excellent, dedicated, devoted public servants who have tremendous experience and cultural experience in their institutions. One of the tragic legacies of the Conservative government is the hollowing out of those institutions.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-03-31 16:05 [p.12625]
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Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right. Part of the answer here is better regulation, more regulators, and regulators who have the experience and authority to enforce the rules.
However, there is another part of the problem, which I have been hearing about from concerned people in my community. They are people who either have a past history of being involved in this industry, or in many cases, people who simply describe themselves as concerned mothers who have educated themselves about this issue and have become involved because they are worried about the safety of their kids. What they report to me is a tremendous decline in the infrastructure of the railways themselves.
One of the reasons that we will be putting forward a very ambitious infrastructure program is precisely to repair and rebuild these railways, which have been the backbone of Canada.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-03-31 16:06 [p.12625]
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Mr. Speaker, that is a very good point from my colleague. One of the things that has been a real issue is the perception that I hear from our American counterparts that Canada is dragging its feet when it comes to rail safety. That, to me, as a Canadian legislator, is a real matter of concern.
We should not rely on the Americans to pass rules to keep our people safe. We should do it ourselves.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-03-25 14:42 [p.12298]
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Mr. Speaker, over the past week, both the OECD and TD have sharply cut their economic outlook for Canada. TD's new forecast for 2015 has Canada losing $22 billion from our economy compared to the bank's projections from just three months ago. TD warns unemployment will rise, wage growth will stall and household debt will mount.
When will the Minister of Finance stop playing hide and seek with the House and personally tell us what his plan is to reverse this painful economic decline?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-03-24 14:36 [p.12246]
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Mr. Speaker, a new Conference Board report has exposed our country's shrinking trade presence in Asia. Between 1993 and 2013, Canada's share of exports to Asia dropped by half, falling from the 15th largest exporter in the region to the 23rd. There is a direct link between a strong export sector and good jobs, but we are losing ground in the largest market in the world.
When will the government finally table a budget with a plan to reverse Canada's trade decline and bring better paying jobs to Canadians?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-03-11 14:10 [p.11976]
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Mr. Speaker, Nadiya Savchenko, a Ukrainian pilot, Iraqi war veteran, and member of the Ukrainian parliament, has been held as a prisoner of war in Russia since June 24, 2014.
Last summer, Nadiya was kidnapped by Russian armed and Russian-led forces and illegally transferred to Russia. There she was detained and questioned by Russian intelligence about the deaths of two Russian journalists during a mortar attack, but cellphone records confirm that she was already in Russian custody before the journalists were killed. Nonetheless, Russian courts have continued to push the Kremlin's falsehood that she crossed the border voluntarily and have refused appeals for bail or house arrest.
This past Sunday, on International Women's Day, supporters in Toronto, across Canada, and around the world came together to fast in solidarity with Nadiya's 83-day hunger strike and to call for her immediate release.
Canada and the House should join their American and European allies and pass a resolution demanding Nadiya's immediate return to Ukraine.
[Member spoke in Ukrainian as follows:]
Slava Ukraini. Slava heroini.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-03-11 15:06 [p.11986]
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Mr. Speaker, those were nice words from the trade minister, but in January Canada posted a walloping $2.5 billion trade deficit, the second-highest in our history. Our dismal trade performance is especially worrying given the weakness of the dollar, usually a boon to exporters, and the economic rebound in the United States, our largest foreign market. The government is very good at throwing $100,000 parties to announce unfinished trade deals, but it is ignoring this worrying erosion of our exporting muscle.
When will the government finally table a budget with a plan to reverse this worrying decline?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-03-10 14:40 [p.11929]
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Mr. Speaker, the IMF has issued a warning about the inflated Canadian housing market, cautioning that home prices have jumped more than 60% over the past 15 years. Canadian families with a personal debt burden that the IMF warns is among the highest in the OECD are at risk of $100,000 losses they can ill afford. The IMF says that Canada needs better data, something the Conservative government is bizarrely opposed to, and more coordinated financial oversight.
When will the government quit electioneering and fearmongering and table a budget that addresses Canada's cooling economy and overheated housing market?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-03-10 16:00 [p.11941]
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for York West.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to join this important debate. Over the past 30 years, the Canadian economy has doubled in size. However, median household income has only increased by 15%. A report released last week by the CIBC shows that this trend has only gotten worse since the 2008-09 recession. I would like to quote a few passages from the report.
“The Bank of Canada continues to warn us that the headline unemployment rate is not as rosy as perceived and, in fact, according to the Bank's new and improved measure of labour market activity, labour slack is still significant,” says Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist and author of CIBC's employment quality index.
He continues:
In many ways, the Bank has a point. Our measure of employment quality is now at a record low—suggesting that the composition of employment is sub-optimal. But a closer examination of the trajectories of our index's sub-components suggests that the Bank's prescribed remedy of low and lower interest rates might not cure what ails the labour market.
“While full-time paid-employment jobs are on average of higher quality than part-time and self-employment jobs, not all full-time paid-employment jobs were created equal,” says Mr. Tal. “The number of low-paying full-time jobs has risen faster than the number of mid-paying jobs, which in turn, has risen faster than the number of high-paying jobs.
“Over the year ending January 2015, the job creation gap between low and high-paying jobs has widened with the number of low-paying full-time paid positions rising twice as fast as the number of high-paying jobs. Those trajectories are largely behind the softening in our measure of employment quality over the past two decades.”
Faced with stagnating incomes, an increasing cost of living and mounting debt, middle-class Canadian families are struggling to make ends meet. Today, there are 159,000 fewer jobs for young people than before the recession. The Conservatives' action plan consists of income splitting and a $2 billion tax break that will mostly benefit the richest of Canadians while 85% of Canadian households will not see a cent.
The Liberal Party would invest those funds in areas that would really benefit the middle class, such as community infrastructure, post-secondary education and professional training, as well as research and innovation.
The Liberals feel that this country needs a new economic plan and, with each passing day, that feeling grows stronger. The economy of our largest trading partner, the United States, is on fire, but Canadian exports have dropped by almost 3%.
The Prime Minister wants to talk about anything but the economy. His priority is to give a $2 billion tax break to the richest members of our society, and he is more interested in fearmongering than in proposing economic solutions.
As we have heard from the CIBC, from a recent study by York University, from the IMF, whose concerns about the overheated Canadian housing market we cited earlier today in question period, there are some deep structural problems in the Canadian economy right now, particularly when it comes to the hollowing out of the middle class. We are becoming a low-wage, part-time economy for more and more Canadians.
The York University study I just mentioned has found that over the past 10 years there has been a 50% increase in the percentage of jobs in Ontario, which are part of this low-wage, part-time economy from 22% to 33% of jobs.
According to the OECD, in that organization of the world's leading economies, Canada has the third highest percentage of low-paying jobs as part of the composition of our employment.
The Bank of Canada is worried. In the monetary policy report for January, the bank said, “the proportion of involuntary part-time workers continues to be elevated”. As the CIBC has said, we are becoming a nation of part-timers.
As the Liberal Party has been arguing, what we need is an economic plan for the middle class to shore up Canada's hollowed-out middle class. We need a plan. A lot of what is going on is because of some of the new forces at work in the 21st century. A lot of what is happening is because of globalization, technological change, the rise of the sharing economy, or what some people are calling the “Uberization” of jobs, the “Taskrabbitization” of jobs.
However, the government can do something about it. The government is obligated to do something about that to adjust, to adapt our social and political institutions so that the Canadian middle class, rather than being the victim of globalization and the technology revolution, can actually thrive in these circumstances.
What we are seeing, I am very sad to say, from the government is the opposite. We are seeing that rather than trying to soften these forces, the government is leaning into them, particularly with its income splitting policy. Instead, what we would like to see from the government is an economic plan for growth, particularly growth of middle-class jobs.
Infrastructure is a big part of the solution. Those infrastructure jobs cannot be “Uberized” and they cannot be exported outside the country. Infrastructure investment has another great advantage. Big infrastructure programs help the economy to run hot. In those circumstances, the middle class has much more bargaining power, and we can see a reversal of these very terrible trends we have been discussing today.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-03-10 16:11 [p.11942]
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her question. I also want to apologize because I will answer in English. I am not ready to answer in French, but I will try to do so eventually.
I strongly believe that we are facing a couple of related economic problems right now. One is this hollowing out of the middle class, which we have been discussing at great length today, and to which I do think there are government solutions. There are actions that the government can take to improve the situation. On the contrary, there are actions governments can take, like the income splitting policy of the current government, which will actually make the situation worse.
A related problem, I believe, is the problem that some economists are calling “secular stagnation”. The economies of the western industrialized countries are not rebounding from the financial crisis, from the recession, with the sort of strength that a lot of people expected. We seem to be stuck in this low-growth economic space. We see it particularly in Europe with some interest rates now negative, which is shocking.
Therefore, I strongly agree with the direction of the hon. member's question. I think now is a time when we need government action to focus on economic stimulus, and that is why I concluded by talking about infrastructure investment, which I think can have a powerful impact on both economic growth and middle-class jobs.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-03-10 16:13 [p.11942]
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Mr. Speaker, I think the member points to a real problem. The reality is that technology and advances in technology started off by allowing us to have just-in-time manufacturing where we did not need to keep great inventories of goods. We could get the goods to the factories just at the moment they needed them.
What has more recently been happening is that we have discovered that those same technologies have allowed employers to treat employees as a just-in-time input into the economic process. As my hon. colleague has pointed out, this has devastating effects on human lives. It means that people are unable to plan their family budgets. It means that people who have children, as I do, have a hard time organizing child care. Imagine if we knew we were going to work 40 hours a week but had no idea when those 40 hours would be.
I absolutely think it needs to be a priority for government policy to find ways to make sure that people have reliable incomes and reliable hours. I think this is something we can do in collaboration with employers.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-02-23 14:55 [p.11529]
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Mr. Speaker, Igor Sechin and Vladimir Yakunin are two close friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin. While both have been sanctioned by the United States, they are not on Canada's list. The media have described Canada's sanctions against Rosneft, Mr. Sechin's company, as “relaxed”. The government's hypocritical talking points about the number of people Canada has sanctioned ring hollow with our allies and with Canadians. This is about quality, not just quantity.
When will the government match its actions to its rhetoric and sanction Sechin and Yakunin?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-02-18 14:59 [p.11355]
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Mr. Speaker, in an email to the Conservatives about his plans to strip Muslim women of their right to wear the niqab at citizenship ceremonies, the immigration minister got the basic facts wrong. In a cynical political ploy, the government, he said, will appeal a court decision “allowing people to wear the hijab while taking the oath”. Surely the minister, of all people, ought to know the difference between a niqab and a hijab.
As the Conservatives seek to restrict the rights of Muslim women, can they not at least pay them the courtesy of getting the facts right?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-02-17 14:39 [p.11301]
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Mr. Speaker, a recent Conference Board study shows that Canada's younger generations are earning less and receiving fewer pension benefits than their parents. It states, “young Canadians may have a lower lifetime earning potential than any generation before”.
There is no more dire indictment of a country's economic performance than the prospect that our future may be poorer than our past.
Stale and misleading talking points, like the ones we have heard already today, will not deliver prosperity for this generation. When will the government finally table a budget with a real plan for jobs and growth?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-02-04 14:48 [p.10695]
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Mr. Speaker, that is simply not true. Everyone in business knows that we live in the age of big data. That is why Canada's leading economists and the CFIB are united in calling for the return of the long form census. As Roger Martin of the University of Toronto said, in direct contradiction of what we just heard, “It is just disinformation to say the current survey works”.
Will the government finally reverse its anti-science, anti-business, and antediluvian policy and return the long form census as my colleague's bill calls for?
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2015-02-02 13:01 [p.10897]
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Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to join this important debate.
Newfoundland and Labrador's support for CETA hinged to a significant degree on the Government of Canada's promise to help the industry adjust to the recent removal of minimum processing requirements. That promise should have been kept. CETA will eliminate trade barriers and boost free trade between Canada and the European Union. It will also create opportunities for the middle class.
The Liberal Party of Canada supports free trade because it will open markets to Canadian goods and services, grow export-oriented businesses, create jobs and provide choice and lower prices to Canadian consumers.
Unfortunately, the Conservatives negotiated this agreement without holding a proper public debate. As a result, the government did not adequately address concerns about sectors that could suffer because of CETA, particularly the sector that employs fish plant workers in Newfoundland and Labrador. The removal of minimum processing requirements is definitely a huge concern for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. The province's support hinged to a significant degree on the federal government's promise to help the industry adjust to this new reality. That promise should be kept.
I would also like to quote my colleague, the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, who talked about this matter last week:
However esoteric federal-provincial relationships might appear to many Canadians, all Canadians want their leaders, especially their Prime Minister, to be trustworthy.
This is very important. I would like to thank my colleagues, especially the francophone members, for listening to my bad French, and I hope it was understandable.
Now I will continue in English. I thank my francophone colleagues for tolerating my efforts. It is important for us to try, as practice will make perfect.
As my colleague has already suggested in her line of questioning, what is at stake here are some very fundamental issues that go right to the heart of the terrible way the government is conducting itself. I would like to focus on two in particular, and they are the fact that so often, and not just when it comes to trade but it comes to economic policy in general and foreign policy, the government talks big but does not deliver. The government's rhetoric is not matched by execution. One way to put it is that it is obverse of the usual advice, that one should speak softly and carry a big stick. Today's Government of Canada speaks loudly and carries a small stick, particularly when it comes to executing it.
This CETA deal is a perfect example of that. I have lost count of the number of official announcements we have had of this deal being concluded. I have lost count of the amount of taxpayer money that has been spent to celebrate the conclusion of this deal and yet the deal, manifestly, is not there.
What is more, with each passing week, some new real obstacle, some new hurdle, which the government had to overcome and should have overcome before all of these glorious announcements, manifests itself. This conflict between the federal government and Newfoundland and Labrador is just the latest example.
The second thing I would like to emphasize is something I spoke about a bit earlier when citing my colleague. This dispute speaks so profoundly to way in which the government has failed at one of the essential tasks of statesmanship, and that is relationship building, relationship building with the provinces, one of the central jobs of Ottawa, and relationship building with our partners in the world.
I have a somewhat homey metaphor. I am a mother and I have three kids. Nowadays in classrooms kids do not sit in desks by themselves; the desks are put together in a group. Modern pedagogy understands that the way to accomplish big jobs in the world is through teamwork. Therefore, my 10-year-old daughter sits around a group of tables with other kids. She is already being taught that teamwork is essential. That lesson seems to be lost on the other side of the House.
It is not just in elementary school. During the winter break, I had the privilege of visiting the University of Windsor and seeing its magnificent new engineering department. In its beautiful modern new lecture halls, the students do not sit in seats one by one separated from one another; they sit grouped around tables. Again, teamwork is the key to success in the modern economy. This is an approach that the government is either unable to carry out, or simply does not understand how essential it is.
It is particularly important when it comes to trade. Trade, after all, is about partnerships and relationships. We see the breakdown here when it comes to the relationship between the federal government and Labrador and Newfoundland, but that is far from the only trade relationship that has been dangerously eroded. It is shocking to me to note that in fact our biggest trade and economic relationship, what should be the bedrock international relationship for any Canadian government, the relationship with the United States, has also fallen prey to this my way or the highway bullying approach of the government. We see the evidence of that failure at relationship building and statesmanship in issues like the fact that the Keystone pipeline has not been approved, that it has become a huge and contentious issue in U.S. politics and that there is a huge fight over the port at Prince Rupert.
This unnecessary fight between the federal government and Newfoundland and Labrador is really just a manifestation of a broader failure on many fronts and of these two very characteristic flaws of the government.
What is particularly troubling to me and my colleagues is that the support of Newfoundland and Labrador for CETA was earned in part by a promise from the Government of Canada to help the industry adjust to the abolition of minimum processing requirements. Is it not elementary that a government should honour its promises? Sadly, that is not what we are seeing.
I would like to quote some comments from representatives of Newfoundland and Labrador. In the St. John's newspaper, The Telegram, Minister Darin King said that if it could not get a deal with Ottawa with the Minister of International Trade, Newfoundland and Labrador planned to take this dispute over the head of the Canadian government to Brussels. Here is what he said to The Telegram:
Our plan would be to go into the EU — Brussels — and meet with member states and members of the union to outline our position and to seek support from them....We want a resolution. We want to put this to bed because we recognize that CETA is good for the country and good for our province, and we want to put this deal to bed and move forward and get on with things.
Imagine how Canada would look, how ridiculous our international position would appear, if we had warring Canadian factions travelling to Brussels to present contradictory positions.
That is not how a well-managed country is run. That is not the way we get a good deal from our counterparties. This is particularly dangerous. This dispute flaring up within our own family, in public, in the House, comes at a particularly dangerous moment. As I sure members know, at this moment, the CETA deal, which we strongly support and believe is really important to the Canadian economy, is facing new objections and pressures from some of the key European Union players. There have been voices raised against it in France and, particularly, in Germany. At a time when support is fraying, this is not a time for us to fail to get our ducks in a row at home and to fail to have unity, to break promises within the Canadian families. I am disappointed to say that this is what is happening.
Trade deals are an area where, like so much economic policy, timing matters and delaying costs people real money. This is not an issue where the government has the luxury of fighting interpersonal battles or ideological battles. To delay is to take money out of the pockets of hard-working Canadians. We have had a very clear and stark example of that reality very recently, and that is in our trade with South Korea.
The United States, the EU and even Australia got to a trade deal with Korea ahead of us. We are delighted that a deal has finally been done, but because of that delay during that period, Canadian exporters lost 30% of market share. Experts calculate that this was a loss of about $8 billion. That is a lot of money, which simply through delay, was effectively taken out of the pockets of hard-working Canadian business people. We really need to focus on timing. We need to get beyond the rhetoric and get this deal done, not have fighting at home.
I am getting increasingly concerned about CETA. Last week, I met with many business people whose businesses depend directly upon this deal getting done. They are worried that we have not completed the deal, despite multiple announcements.
There is a very real reason to be worried. If we cannot resolve our disputes at home and get the deal done, it will be in real jeopardy.
As members know, the United States is now negotiating its own trade deal with Europe. This is a huge political issue in Europe, indeed, an issue which raises concerns at a much higher, much more emotional level than the deal with Canada. It is essential for us to get our deal done, to get it signed, to get it out the door before the debate around the negotiations with the U.S. really becomes a central political focus in Europe.
It is also essential for us to get this done, to resolve our disputes at home, because the EU negotiators will not have time for us forever. They will not be able to focus on internal Canadian squabbles forever, on possible visits this month from officials from Newfoundland and Labrador to Brussels. Their focus will be shifting to the U.S. deal. It is absolutely incumbent upon the government to resolve this dispute and to get the deal done.
Why does the Liberal Party feel so strongly about the importance of trade, of getting deals done, of getting access to market for Canadian producers? Eighty per cent of our economy is dependent, directly or indirectly, upon trade. That is huge. Our dependence on having effective relationships and effective access to international markets is particularly great today. As 2015 has dawned, we have seen a global economy looking much less rosy than we were hearing from the other side of the House all last year.
We are entering a global economic environment of unexpectedly falling commodity prices, including low oil prices, which is a very serious issue for the Canadian economy, as everyone from the Bank of Canada to TD have said. There is another really big issue out there that is shadowing our economy. It is the issue of what Larry Summers, the former secretary of the U.S. Treasury, likes to call “secular stagnation”. This is the idea that the western industrialized economies might currently be stuck in a period of low growth.
I am very sad to say that because of the short-sighted ideological thinking of the government, because of its all-eggs-in-one-basket play in the oil sector, Canada is unprepared for these rocky international waters. At a time like this, more than ever we simply cannot afford to be fighting amongst ourselves, to have these embarrassing unprofessional fights between a provincial government and the federal one over a trade deal that we desperately need to conclude. We need to get it done. It is really not acceptable, in fact it is incredibly dangerous, for our country to be stalled in this space with Newfoundland and Labrador's really objecting and talking about a trust betrayed.
I would like to tell the House what some of the leaders from Newfoundland and Labrador, in their own words, had to say. Premier Paul Davis said, “We’re at a crossroads where the federal government has changed the rules.”
That, to me, goes to the heart of the issue here, that in the midst of this incredibly important, much bally-hooed, and incredibly complex deal that is central to our economy, the government dropped the ball on this key federal-provincial relationship and had the temerity to change the rules half way through. That is not statesmanship. That is not grown-up management of a country, of an economy, and of a trade negotiation.
Darin King, Newfoundland and Labrador's business minister, said, “The federal government’s failure to honour the terms of this fund is jeopardizing CETA for all industries, economic sectors, and indeed all Canadian and European Union citizens.”
He had it exactly right. We all want this deal done. The government had the privilege of negotiating the deal not just with the EU, but also with our Canadian provincial partners. It has simply dropped the ball. It is being accused by its partners of failing in what is a key duty of a federal government, to be trustworthy and to keep its word.
Finally, I want to quote the intergovernmental affairs minister, Keith Hutchings, who said:
We've got to be able to hold fast to those items that we negotiated. It's a much bigger issue. Once we go down that road of giving the authority to the federal government and saying, “Well, you can negotiate something, but once it gets to the final stages you can pull back and say no, that's fine.” As a government we can't approve of that.
What is really at stake here is probably the most fundamental issue of leadership and governance. That is integrity. It is trust. The real issue is the economy is at stake. A trade deal is at stake. Even more crucially, the government's ability to be trusted by Canadians is at stake. That is why I am delighted we have the opportunity to debate this in the House today. I hope the government will see the light.
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