Debates of June 5th, 2023

Sitting Resumed

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

That is right. It is shameful, as the hon. member said.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order. I think now we are getting into cross-debate. I would ask members, if they have comments or questions, to wait until it is time for questions and comments, which will be soon, in two and a half minutes.

The hon. member has two and a half minutes, and I would ask him not to engage in cross-debate.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Madam Speaker, I wonder if those members will go to food banks in their ridings and tell them that they will cut affordable day care. What would that do to parents, single parents especially? They will cut GIS perhaps, cut day care and cut the CCB. There would not be a rental benefit. They would not have stood by Canadians during the pandemic.

Those seem to be the talking points from the Conservative Party. I do not think that is what they are going to hear or that they will gain much support from food banks across the country with a message of “Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. It is the Conservative way.” Again, as droughts, fires and floods ravage agricultural areas of our country and those of our allies, what is the cost of that? They are silent on that, consistently silent.

The final thing I would like to discuss, and the one that is the most shocking of all they are opposed to, is dental care. Each one of us, every member of this chamber, has taxpayer-funded dental care for themselves, for their family, for their spouse. What are we hearing the Conservatives tell their constituents? They say, “You don't need that. You don't want that. We will cut it. That is the Conservative way.”

They can talk a great game about balancing the budget, but that is going to be the cornerstone of it. We do not hear the other side of what the Conservative Party is talking about: “We will balance the budget, but it will be on the backs of Canadians and, by the way, we'll give a tax break to the largest polluters in this country.”

If pollution is made free again, the one thing that I think we can all guarantee is that there will be a lot more pollution. There will be more fires. There will be more floods. There will be more drought. That is the one guarantee. It is very sad, again, that Conservatives can go outside, see the smoke in the air and say they do not care.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, it was interesting to listen to the Liberal member fearmongering about cuts, as many Liberal members do. If we take a look at actual history and facts, we will find that the last government to significantly cut transfers for health care, social services and other important programs was the one of finance minister Paul Martin's budgets of 1995-96 through 1997-98, where we went from $18.4 billion in 1995-96 to $14.7 billion in 1996-97 to $12.5 billion in 1997-98 because of the absolutely disastrous economic policies of the last incompetent Trudeau government, a government that racked up deficits in 14 out of 15 years. We now see another incompetent Liberal government doing the same thing.

Does that not concern the hon. member in the least?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member goes outside and sees the smoke in the air and talks about 1995. I think I was in grade 11. Let us get real. Let us get real about today. Let us get real about the future.

If he wants to talk about history, let us talk about history. Let us talk about Brian Mulroney, a Conservative prime minister who put a price on pollution. Guess what? It worked. It helped solve the acid rain problem that was endemic during the 1980s. It was a Conservative idea. If it worked then, why will Conservatives not at least embrace something?

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Madam Speaker, we recently learned that the government has agreed to lend an additional $3 billion to Trans Mountain. Meanwhile, we have learned that the government took $2 billion from the employment insurance fund.

My colleague opposite talks about forest fires as though Bill C-47 is going to somehow contribute to Canada's fight against climate change. He says one thing, but his government does the opposite. How does he explain that?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Madam Speaker, we said it at the time. It is about transitioning the economy. Oil is still going to be produced. Energy is still going to be relied on. I know that when the leader of the Bloc Québécois was minister in the provincial government, he was seeking to engage in oil exploration in Quebec.

Again, this is about transitioning. It is an existing pipeline that is going to be doubled to get the same amount of oil to different markets.

Let us talk about climate change while the Conservatives are doing nothing.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, one of the things that, of course, I am most proud of in this bill is the dental care and the expansion of dental care. Obviously, dental care is something that New Democrats have been fighting for, for a very long time. It is very good that the Liberals have come on board. This bill expands that to be for more than just children. It expands it to those under 18 and to seniors.

I am wondering if the hon. member could talk a little bit about what dental care will mean in his riding and perhaps comment on how on earth he thinks the Conservatives justify to their constituents why they think dental care is not reasonable for Conservative constituents.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have been advocating for dental care since before my election in 2015, as the chair of a community health centre in St. Catharines that established a volunteer dental clinic.

To see the look in people's eyes when they can smile is monumental. It is monumental in their lives. The Conservatives may say that they are not going to do it because it is right. Maybe it will appeal to them as an economic plan. One cannot get a job if one cannot smile at a job interview. To see someone be able to go into life without pain is significant.

Again, it is shameful that they would look away and not support that. They will have to tell their constituents why they want to take away dental care from them.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise this evening to speak to Bill C-47, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, 2023, introduced by the government.

The budget is a key exercise in our democracy. It is the time when the government decides how and where it will spend the hundreds of billions of dollars that it controls. The government does not pull all this money out of thin air. Each of these dollars comes directly out of the pockets of individuals from the four corners of Quebec and Canada who worked hard to earn that money. That is why the government has a duty to use that money responsibly and reasonably. Most of all, it has to spend so as to meet the needs and priorities of the public—because, again, it is our money.

The government can also use the budget to implement its vision for society, the vision it has for the future. We saw that in Quebec with the construction of hydroelectric dams, which continue to make the Quebec nation an ambitious, visionary and decidedly green nation. I will say, however, that if we want to find a vision of the future, then we need to look somewhere other than this Liberal budget.

If we take a close look at the budget, we see that the government's priority is more about saving its faltering marriage to the NDP than meeting the needs of Quebeckers and Canadians. While the Prime Minister plays political games and uses the treasury as his personal piggy bank to stay in power, everybody else is tightening their belts and wondering how they will pay their mortgage.

We are talking about inflation, recession, the economic slowdown and skyrocketing interest rates, but the government has not seen fit to implement preventive measures to prepare the economy for the possibility of rough times ahead in the coming months and years. This government is completely out of touch with the economic situation and its day-to-day impact on the lives of real people. Since these ministers are chauffeured around and do not often take the time to look beyond Ottawa and the greater Toronto area, I will use the rest of my time to explain what is happening in areas such as mine, the Lower St. Lawrence, and how their inaction is making life difficult.

The first urgent issue is housing. It is not complicated. There is virtually nothing available on the market in my region. According to the most recent data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, the vacancy rate in Rimouski is 0.4% this year compared to 0.2% last year. That is a slight improvement, but it is nothing to write home about. To give members an idea, a healthy real estate market usually has a vacancy rate of about 3%. We are nowhere near finding a balance between the current vacancy rate of 0.4% and the average of 3%.

That imbalance is having unprecedented consequences for my region. I held a housing summit in my riding in March to better understand and identify those consequences. Here are some of the things that the organizations and people on the ground shared with me. There is no longer any such thing as affordable housing. The housing units that are available are unaffordable or not fit to live in. Requests for emergency assistance have tripled since the beginning of the pandemic. Obviously, there are not enough resources to help all of those people and many are being left to fend for themselves. Emergency shelters, particularly in Rimouski and the surrounding areas, are full to overflowing. It is unprecedented. People were homeless in Rimouski in the middle of winter. Spending the night outside in the Lower St. Lawrence area in the middle of winter is far from pleasant.

I have heard some extremely disturbing stories. Students looking for housing are being approached by older men offering to put them up in exchange for services. That is completely unacceptable. Staff at addiction treatment centres have even told me that people cannot leave their facilities because there is nowhere go.

Given all the precariousness and the distress people are feeling, one might think the government would have made it a priority to tackle the housing crisis, but no. The Liberals have completely dropped the ball. There is nothing at all for housing in the latest budget—zero, nada, niet, not one penny.

The government members are patting themselves on the back and quoting data from the 2022 budget. It is unbelievable. How can this be happening? A crisis is going on, but no investment is being made to find solutions that could end it. The disconnect is staggering.

However, the demands of the Bloc Québécois and community organizations were fairly clear and specific. For instance, the government was asked to permanently renew the rapid housing initiative and to increase the rent supplement transfer.

The need to speed up the transfer of funds between governments was also discussed. With each day that the federal government holds on to funds instead of passing them on to Quebec to send where they are needed, construction costs keep rising and our students, families and seniors keep growing poorer. How much longer do we have to wait for action? Urgent action is needed now to resolve the housing crisis.

Another area where we hoped the government would deliver on expectations is employment insurance. This issue has been a topic of discussion for a long time. When the Liberal government came to power in 2015, it was one of their election promises. When it came back to power in 2019, it did not keep its promise then either. In 2021, it made the same promise again. We were told that consultations were being held to find out what was going on, but they know what is going on. They know the problems and they know the solutions. What is missing is the will to act, the action.

I have not forgotten the Liberal promise of 2015, and I can say that the rights groups advocating for the unemployed have not forgotten it either. The unemployed men and women who are waiting for the government to deliver real reform have definitely not forgotten it.

Currently, six in 10 workers who pay into employment insurance are not eligible for it because the eligibility criteria no longer reflect the reality of the labour market in 2023. These are not people who hope and pray for an unemployment cheque, they are people who pay into the fund. It is not complicated: this program was set up many years ago and has not been updated. There has been no reform. Naturally, it no longer reflects reality. I hope that the government will take action on this for once and for all.

As mentioned, on reading budget 2023, we learn that the government is not planning for any reform before 2030. The Liberals promised reform in 2015. During the 2019 election, they said they would do it.

In 2021, they called an early election. We all remember what a good idea it was to change government and call an election in 2021. What is more, they did it in the middle of the pandemic, when they were telling people to wear their mask and maintain social distancing. Then the government and its Prime Minister, the member for Papineau, went out and took photos with babies. They acted like the pandemic was over because they wanted to win the election. They did not want to change things for people. They wanted to return with a majority government. It is not easy to be in a minority government.

Every day, this government shows us that it does not care one iota about democracy. We know that it entered into an alliance with the NDP, which has been doing its bidding for some time. This is not new. The NDP also serves the government by supporting its gag orders. There have already been a dozen gag orders since the government and the NDP, which calls itself the New Democratic Party, struck a deal.

Let us come back to the budget. My colleagues will understand that it is quite difficult to just go along with it. I hope that the people listening to us at home will realize what is happening in this democracy. It is now operating under multiple closure motions to allow the government or an opposition party to save face. That is what we are currently putting up with in a G7 country.

I will repeat that six out of 10 workers who pay into EI are unable to access it. In the Lower St. Lawrence area, back home, seasonal work is a large part of the economic activity and the lives of workers. A strong EI system would help build solid regions and ensure that people keep living in our regions and do not leave.

The EI reform is urgent. It is part of the support measures that are necessary for seasonal work, which is an economic driver in our regions. I am thinking mainly of tourism, agriculture and the fishery. We can discuss that.

All of these sectors rely on seasonal activities. It is not because people do not want to work in certain seasons. Potatoes cannot be planted in the middle of winter. Some government ministers do not seem to grasp how it works. People are still wondering about this in 2023.

Another issue I absolutely must address has to do with seniors, specifically the inequity suffered by people aged 65 to 75 who are not getting an increase in their OAS benefits. The government is completely out to lunch on this. It is yet another broken election promise. I hope the government will do something once and for all.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I listened to my colleague very carefully, as always.

Over the weekend, I went door to door to hundreds of homes in Montreal. I spoke with Quebeckers who mentioned that the NDP was able to bring in a dental care program that will help the people of Quebec. People in Montreal were thrilled that this program in being established.

The NDP forced the government to introduce legislation on pharmacare this year. There are so many holes in Quebec's pharmacare program. As we know, the major unions are calling for a public pharmacare program that covers everyone, just as the New Democrats are proposing.

I see then a bit of a gap between what the Bloc Québécois supports and what the NDP has proposed, which seems to really resonate in Montreal.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Madam Speaker, I listened attentively to my colleague's question and his comments. First of all, neither the NDP nor the federal government invented the dental care program. Of course Quebec's current dental care program is not perfect.

However, I will say one thing. It is not a secret. We can see in the government's current budget that there is no allocation for the so-called dental care program. There is nothing until 2023. I will make a wager on what will happen after that. It is possible that there will be an election in 2024, if the agreement with the NDP is not honoured. I guarantee that the Liberals will put that in their election campaign. They will ask people to elect them again with this promise. I do not believe it right now.

There is another very important thing I would point out to my colleague, and that is that the government's dental care program penalizes Quebec families. That is unfair. Quebec families will receive less money than other Canadian families, because we already have dental care programs with Quebec's current employment conditions. There is therefore nothing to boast about, quite the contrary. The House should be condemning the fact that the federal government's dental care program is creating a certain inequity between Quebec and the rest of Canada.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague for his excellent speech.

One of the things he spoke to was employment insurance. I know that the topic is important to him. I would like to hear him speak about the environment as well.

Bill C‑47 is very short on environmental proposals, to put it mildly. In fact, it lets the oil companies use taxpayer money that they do not really need to invest in solutions that do not really work.

I would like to hear my colleague's opinion on that subject.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Madam Speaker, what I am about to say is no secret, but it is important. The government purchased a pipeline. It is not for shipping grain; it is for shipping oil. The pipeline cost $30 billion. It started off at $7 billion, and then climbed to $15 billion, $22 billion, $24 billion, $28 billion and $30 billion. I hope that the government realizes that it could fix an awful lot of problems with that money. It could build housing, help seniors and support families.

What my colleague from Terrebonne said is important. The government is not even trying to hide anymore. It bought a $30‑billion pipeline with our money. In the latest budget, it is also giving away $21 billion in tax credits to oil and gas companies. I will not be shedding any tears here tonight for these companies over tax credits. They are not even subsidies now, just tax credits. That makes it even harder to track how much money will be disappearing into the pockets of which multi-million dollar corporation.

The government cannot be serious. It wants to transition to green energy, yet, today, the Minister of Labour is praising the government's action on seabed oil and gas development, saying, “Don't tell me a green energy future doesn't include oil and gas.” I want to congratulate the Minister of Labour. This government is not going to make the net-zero energy transition happen, I guarantee it.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Before I resume debate, I am going to ask members to check the mikes around them and turn down the ones that are not being used. We are getting some feedback on interpretation; the mikes are picking something up. I would appreciate that, as it would save the pages a bit of time.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-47, the budget implementation act.

I will start off by condemning the incredibly childish behaviour of Conservative MPs over the course of the last few days. We have seen in the House unprecedented adolescent, juvenile behaviour. We certainly saw that last Friday. I raise that concern because Canadians need to know that what the Conservatives have been blocking are measures that are going to benefit their constituents. I find that surprising.

What have the Conservatives been blocking over the course of the last few days? They have been throwing paper in the air. They have been trying to pretend that they are having technical problems. They have been putting forward every single dilatory motion they can think of. The member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay was able to finally put forward the emergency debate motion, after eight hours of Conservatives blocking it. They were blocking an emergency debate on wildfires at a time when Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia are consumed by fire. Firefighters are working hard, communities are threatened and there have been massive economic losses, and the Conservatives have spent the whole day blocking that motion from coming forward. I am glad they were finally overcome by the weight of more rational members of Parliament, and we will have that debate on wildfires tonight.

However, the fact is that the Conservatives are so disconnected from reality that they blocked an emergency debate that is so important for paying credit to the firefighters fighting these fires and paying credit to the communities and volunteers trying to keep people alive and safe. They blocked that for the course of the entire day, and I am unbelievably disappointed with these pyromaniac gatekeepers. Finally, the NDP persevered, as we always do ultimately, and we are now going to have this debate.

The Conservatives would justify this by saying they are blocking programs the NDP wants to bring in, and that is true. There are programs the NDP, on behalf of Canadians, wants to bring in, so let us talk about what the impact of them would be in Conservative ridings.

There is the dental care plan that the the member for Burnaby South and the entire NDP caucus forced the government to bring in after decades of commitments from Liberal and Conservative governments that they always reneged on. The dental care plan means that people with disabilities, seniors and families with kids under the age of 18 will finally have access to dental care at the end of this year. That is what is in Bill C-47. This is what the Conservatives have been blocking for two days. It is access to dental care for thousands of their constituents. It is access to dental care for seniors in their ridings, 70-year-olds who have never had access to dental care because they could not afford to pay for it.

We know that dental care is expensive. However, the Conservative MPs stood resolutely against seniors finally having access to dental care after decades. They stood resolutely against people with disabilities. I find that particularly despicable, because we know that people with disabilities are the poorest of the poor. Half the people who go to food banks to make ends meet are people with disabilities. Half of the homeless in this country are people with disabilities.

I remember during the terrible years of the Harper regime how the Conservatives steamrolled over people with disabilities, steamrolled over seniors and forced the retirement age up so that people who had worked all their lives were forced to work longer. The disrespect shown by blocking dental care, to my mind, is inconceivable.

As members know, in the recent Alberta election, the NDP swept all of Edmonton, every single riding at the provincial level, and took most of the ridings in Calgary. If I were a Conservative MP from Edmonton or Calgary, I would read the room and think, “What we are doing with the kind of mean-spirited approach we have, where we try to deny people services that can make a difference, is obviously something that people in Edmonton and Calgary have turned their backs on.”

If I was an Edmonton MP or a Calgary MP for the Conservative Party, I would think twice about doing what they have done over the last two days, which is deny basic dental care to those seniors, people with disabilities and all families that have youth 18 and under. It is not just that; the Conservatives also denied the grocery rebate. As for the average benefit to a Conservative MP's constituency, about 11,000 Canadians living in each of those ridings would benefit from that grocery rebate: $500 extra to put food on the table at a time when people are struggling.

The member for Carleton, who is the head pyromaniac gatekeeper, is saying he does not want that money to go to those 11,000 people in his constituency, and I guess other Conservative MPs are saying the same thing, that in their constituencies, they do not want those 11,000 Canadians, who are struggling to make ends meet and who have lower incomes, to get the grocery rebate. Why would they be so mean-spirited? Why would they be so entitled to deny those constituents the benefits they have? I ask, because the Conservatives have access to a dental care plan as MPs, and they have access to a good salary as MPs, but they would deny that to, on average, 11,000 constituents in their ridings. To my mind, it is unbelievable.

Then, of course there is the other element that the NDP succeeded in forcing the government to do, which is on affordable housing. The urban, rural and northern indigenous housing strategy financing is so vitally important. Affordable housing is finally being built. Finally, we are getting to the point where we are starting to address the housing crisis in a meaningful way. The member for Carleton likes to talk a good game. He says, rightly, that the cost of housing has doubled under the Liberal government. What he neglects to say is that it also doubled under the terrible Harper regime, one of the most corrupt governments in our history and one of the most mean-spirited governments in our history. It was an unbelievably incompetent government. It could not manage finances. It could not fight its way out of a paper bag, and all of the other things—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

It is not time for comments or questions. I would just ask the hon. members to hold their thoughts and write them down, for when the time comes for questions and comments in about two and a half minutes. It seems that every time we get to two and a half minutes we start getting a little rambunctious, and I would just ask members to hold off, please.

The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, the truth hurts. When Canadians speak truth to Conservatives, we know what the reaction is. Albertans in Edmonton and Calgary certainly spoke truth to Conservatives earlier last week, and I think we are seeing that reflected in the falling poll numbers as well for the Conservatives.

The Conservatives would stop affordable housing from being built. After we have seen decades of both the terrible Harper regime refusing to build affordable housing and the Liberal government refusing to build affordable housing, the NDP is forcing the government to actually do that, and the Conservative response is to block it. They do not want affordable housing for Canadians, as they might be able to have a roof over their heads and they might be able to back to school or work. A whole bunch of things could happen from that, and Conservatives somehow find that this is something they do not want to see.

The NDP forced investments in health care, and members will recall it is the terrible Harper regime, that dismal decade of 10 awful years that Canadians had to survive, that actually cut the health care funding in the first place, so the NDP is fixing what the Harper regime and Conservatives broke. What we have in the bill—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin is rising on a point of order.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, as you know, and as the hon. member has been around long enough to know, it is against the rules of the House to mislead the House, and he just completely misinformed the House in regard to the Harper record.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I just want to remind members that this is all due to interpretation—

[Greg McLean]

No it's not.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

This is part of debate. I just want to allow the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby to finish up his speech. I would ask members—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!