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Results: 61 - 75 of 1564
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2021-05-26 19:55 [p.7419]
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Mr. Chair, I do think if people want to speak about graceful or disgraceful behaviour, we have to be careful to follow the rules.
I think it is absolutely correct and legitimate, when it comes to talking about our entire relationship with China, to take into account issues of human rights and, in particular, the arbitrary detention of these two brave Canadians, and I certainly do.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2021-05-26 19:56 [p.7420]
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Mr. Chair, as I said, I think that we need to look very carefully, when we think about all aspects of our relationship with China and put as a priority the detention of these two brave Canadians, and we need to ensure we have the support of our allies in doing that.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2021-05-26 19:56 [p.7420]
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Mr. Chair, let me say how delighted I am to learn that the member opposite is concerned about the environment, and let me say I hope that he and his party will support the price on carbon our government has introduced.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2021-05-26 19:57 [p.7420]
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Mr. Chair, I think it is very appropriate to raise the issue of the Uighurs, which was discussed just ahead of this meeting of the committee of the whole, and as I said at the beginning of this conversation, I absolutely believe that the appalling treatment of the Uighurs, the situation in Hong Kong and, first and foremost, the detention of two brave Canadians needs to be—
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2021-05-26 19:57 [p.7420]
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Mr. Chair, let me welcome the enthusiasm of the member opposite for a gender-based lens and for intersectionality, and let me offer to the member opposite and all members of his party a briefing on our government's approach to gender-based analysis in the budget process.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2021-05-26 19:58 [p.7420]
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Mr. Chair, as I said, and it would be interesting to hear the view of the member opposite, I am very glad to hear his enthusiasm for a gender-based analysis, and that is something that maybe we should all be talking about a little more.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2021-05-26 19:58 [p.7420]
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Mr. Chair, I am indeed the finance minister, and I am aware of that. Let me simply say that when it comes to our relationship with China, I actually agree with some of the intent of the questions the member has been asking, and I do think we need to take into account particularly the appalling treatment of the Uighurs.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2021-05-26 19:59 [p.7420]
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Mr. Chair, I am glad to hear finally a question about Canadian businesses, because it gives me a chance to remind all Canadians that more than 870,000 Canadian businesses have benefited from a program of our government, the CEBA loans.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2021-05-26 20:00 [p.7420]
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Mr. Chair, let me say what value for money is. Value for money is the government's investments in supporting Canadian businesses and Canadian workers. Our wage subsidy program alone has supported more than 5.3 million jobs—
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2021-05-26 20:00 [p.7420]
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Mr. Chair, let me say how delighted I am to hear the Conservatives supporting gender rights and a clean environment. I really hope we will see them supporting this budget, which is a feminist budget and makes unprecedented investments in a green transition.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2021-05-26 20:02 [p.7421]
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Mr. Chair, I too have great respect for the member opposite. I was his critic when he was trade minister.
Let me say what I am disappointed by. I am disappointed by this faux concern for clean investment and a gender-based budget analysis. I am really disappointed by an unwillingness to tell Canadians the truth about our budget, which is that it makes unprecedented and essential investments in Canada's long-term growth.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2021-05-26 20:03 [p.7421]
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Madam Chair, since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, we have done everything necessary to protect the lives and the livelihoods of Canadians, to help our businesses weather the storm and to position Canada for a robust, resilient and sustainable recovery.
As certain regions in Canada start to reopen, we must remember that we are not done fighting the virus. Our determination to win this fight and provide Canadians the support they need is stronger than ever.
This year's budget, which I tabled on April 19 and which Bill C-30 would enact, meets the three fundamental challenges facing Canadians right now.
First, we must defeat COVID. That means buying vaccines and supporting provincial and territorial health care systems. It means enforcing quarantine rules and it means providing Canadians and Canadian businesses with the help they need to get through lockdowns and to fully recover when COVID is defeated. COVID will be defeated. Vaccines are available to Canadians in ever-growing quantities, and they are working. More than 60% of adult Canadians have received their first dose of the vaccine. Canadians are doing their part and getting vaccinated. My thanks go to team Canada. Together we can do this.
Second, we must punch our way out of this COVID recession. That means making sure that hard-hit businesses can rebound, start growing and start hiring again. It also means helping the people who have been the hardest hit by this recession: women, young people, racialized Canadians, low-wage workers and small businesses. We are doing just that. When fully enacted, this budget will create nearly 500,000 new training and work opportunities for Canadians.
Our third major challenge is to create long-term economic growth and to build a more resilient Canada, a country that is better, more fair, more prosperous and more innovative. That is why we intend to invest ambitiously in the green transition and the new jobs that come with it, in digital transformation and innovation, and in infrastructure like housing, transit and the trade corridors that we need as a dynamic, growing country.
The COVID-19 pandemic has put enormous pressure on our health care systems. That is why, in Bill C-30, we propose to provide $4 billion through the Canada health transfer to help the provinces and territories ease the immediate pressure on their health care systems.
Additional funds for health care will help pay for the many different procedures that had to be delayed because of the pandemic. This will help build the resilience of our health care systems. That is what Canadians deserve and need.
A full recovery from COVID requires a new, long-term investment in social infrastructure. That means providing early learning and child care, student grants and income top-ups, so that the middle class can flourish and more Canadians can join the middle class. We know that without child care, parents, usually mothers, cannot work outside the home. That is more painfully clear now than ever. We intend to invest $30 billion over five years, reaching $9.2 billion annually, to provide high-quality, affordable and accessible early learning and child care across Canada. Our goal is an average cost of $10 a day across the country within five years.
In making this commitment, I thank Quebec's feminists, who have led the way for the rest of Canada. I am very grateful to them.
To minimize economic scarring and to power a robust recovery, we must bridge Canadian businesses through to the end of this crisis. The wage subsidy, rent subsidy and lockdown support had been set to expire next month. This budget extends these measures through to September 25, 2021.
In order to help those who still cannot work, we will maintain flexible access to employment insurance for another year, until fall 2022. Furthermore, to support Canadians who are not covered by employment insurance, the Canada recovery benefit will be extended by 12 weeks.
We are also proposing a four-week extension of the Canada recovery caregiving benefit, which would bring it to a maximum of 42 weeks at $500 a week. Similarly, the employment insurance sickness benefit period will be increased from 15 weeks to 26 weeks. These measures provide tangible and measurable assistance to the people who need help now.
As we build a resilient recovery, it is critically important that we help low-wage workers. They work harder than anyone else, for lower pay. They work on the front lines, and COVID has revealed to us all that the work they do is truly essential. We intend to expand the Canada workers benefit, extending income top-ups to about one million more workers and lifting nearly 100,000 Canadians out of poverty. We also propose to introduce a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage.
Young Canadians must be at the heart of our recovery, not just to help them bounce back from the COVID recession, but because their future success is critical to our success as a country. We intend to make college and university more accessible and affordable. We will create job openings in skilled trades and high tech, and we will double the Canada student grant for two more years, while extending the waiver of interest on federal student and apprentice loans to March 2023. This will mean lower costs for the approximately 1.5 million Canadians who are working to repay their student loans. Our budget will also make an important change so that nobody earning $40,000 per year or less will need to make payments on student loans, and the cap on monthly student loan payments will be reduced from 20% of household income to 10%.
We all know that no one has been hit harder by this health crisis over the past 14 months than seniors. The truth is that many seniors were relying on monthly benefits to make ends meet even before the pandemic.
We are therefore proposing a one-time payment of $500 in August 2021 for old age security pensioners who will be 75 or older in June 2022.
Furthermore, this budget provides for an additional 10% increase in old age security benefits for seniors aged 75 and over, as of July 2021. This will increase the benefits that some 3.3 million seniors are receiving and comes at a time when many are living longer and depleting their savings.
Small businesses have been hit very hard during COVID. We must create the conditions for them to recover and start growing again. This budget offers the Canada recovery hiring program to support business hiring. We will also invest up to $4 billion to help up to 160,000 small and medium-sized businesses buy and adopt the technologies they need.
In closing, allow me to directly address the opposition. Bill C-30, the budget implementation act, is the first major step in delivering jobs, growth and recovery. Vaccines are here, and Canadians want to get back to work. It is time for all of us to get back to work in the House as well.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2021-05-26 20:16 [p.7423]
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Madam Chair, the parliamentary secretary's question was very well-informed. I think it will surprise no one in this House that I agree with him very strongly.
For more than 50 years, since the Royal Commission on the Status of Women urgently urged the Canadian government to set about building a universal system of early learning and child care, early learning and child care has been a feminist cause across Canada. What I believe is different today is that there is a wide appreciation in our country, and indeed around the world, that a system of early learning and child care is also an essential economic strategy for driving growth.
In fact, today we are lucky to have the deputy minister of finance, Michael Sabia, with us. Deputy Minister Sabia and his team have calculated that, once we build a universal system of early learning and child care across Canada, that will drive economic growth more powerfully than any policy Canada has implemented since NAFTA, and it will increase growth by more than 1.2%.
In closing, I would like to once again salute the women and feminists of Quebec, who have shown the rest of Canada what can and must be done.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2021-05-26 20:19 [p.7423]
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Madam Chair, I thank the member for his question and for his work. He truly is an expert economist and always delves into the most complex aspects of the budget and of the work we do here.
As always, he asked a technical and important question. My quick answer is that we will work with all of the provinces and territories on this important issue. I would also like to tell my colleague that I really appreciate this specific and important question and that my team would be happy to set up a briefing to give him more details than what I can get into this evening in the House.
However, I do want to give him an answer. The Bank of Canada will be responsible for ensuring that payment service providers comply with the framework and it will maintain a registry of regulated payment service providers.
The proposed legislation would require payment service providers to establish a risk management framework to identify and mitigate risks. The requirements of the proposed framework would be based on international best practices. These requirements would be set out in the regulations, and may include, for example, reliability objectives; specific policies regarding physical security or information technology security to manage cyber risk; and continuity plans.
I have a lot more to say, but I will cede the floor to the member for Joliette. If he would like, I could get back to what I was saying after he speaks.
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View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
2021-05-26 20:22 [p.7423]
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Madam Chair, I want to point out that the requirements will be set out in the regulations.
Knowing that it is important for the Bloc Québécois, I would also like to add that the federal government conducted extensive consultations with the provinces and territories when preparing this bill. The proposed new law takes into account the fact that the federal government and the provincial and territorial governments have complementary objectives and powers with regard to business risk management and safeguarding funds.
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