Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here. I will be splitting my time with the member for St. Albert—Edmonton. He has always got such incredibly intelligent debate and I always look forward to his words.
I am so thrilled to be back in the House. I very much thank the people of Calgary Midnapore for returning me to the chamber with the highest percentile of votes in Calgary, the highest percentile of votes in any major centre and what I am most proud of, the greatest number of votes for any woman in Canada. It is an honour to be back in the House.
I would also like to take a moment to thank my team, which was so incredible throughout the election. I would like to thank my campaign manager, Mr. Justin Gotfried, the son of Richard Gotfried, the MLA for Calgary-Fish Creek. I would also like the thank Katie Cook who was my communications point person and my sister Holly Schramm who served as my official agent, keeping me in line and out of trouble with those books. I would also like to thank all the incredible volunteers. I would like to thank my parents Keith and Angie Schramm, who are still my constituents to this day, and my very good friends who I grew up with in Calgary Midnapore who put out signs and raised money for me, Joanna Shaw Morin and Caroline Baynes. Of course, I cannot go without thanking the loves of my life, my husband James Kusie and my beautiful son Edward Kusie who supported me in this journey back to the House of Commons. I thank them and I love them.
Again, I thank so much the people of Calgary Midnapore.
Here we are again in the House debating legislation on new benefits. As the member across the aisle indicated, yes, we on this side of the House were very collaborative and certainly went along with the government's requests for funds and for programs, because we care about Canadians. We are compassionate individuals and we knew that was what Canadians needed at that time.
I will give a brief history of all the times we went along with the legislation despite concerns because we knew that was what Canadians needed at that time.
Let us go back to March 13, 2020, when Bill C-12, an act to amend the Financial Administration Act, was presented; one billion dollars in funding for approval. We did not put up a fuss on this side. In fact, it received royal assent the very same day.
Let us go forward a little further into time. On March 24, 2020, we had Bill C-13, an act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19. As the shadow minister for families and social development at that time, it was legislation to fix the shortcomings that the government missed at the time it created the original legislation, but, one again, we did not put up a fuss on this side of the House. We recognized that was what Canadians needed at that time. That bill also received approval from the House that day and royal assent the very next day.
On April 11, 2020, there was a second act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19, Bill C-14,, which was CEWS, and we know there were certainly a lot of faults with that at the beginning, as well as the CERB. It received royal assent the very same day. Again, I am just pointing out the collaboration this side of the House had always provided the government in getting Canadians the benefits they need.
Here we are again today, being asked to approve Bill C-2, but we are in a different time. We are heading out of the pandemic. I recognize we have the omicron variant, and I hope no fifth wave, but Canadians want to move forward into the future.
Therefore, I have a message for the government today, and it is that you do not get a blank cheque.
It is time to move our economy from benefits to jobs, and I am very proud to say that as the new shadow minister for employment future workforce development and disability inclusion. We currently have one million job openings, with a 16.4% jump from August to September alone. That is incredible.
One-fifth of those are in the hospitality sector. Other major vacancies occur in these critical health care sectors, including nurses and psychiatric nurses. We have heard in the House about the crisis in the trucking industry, how the average age of truckers is near retirement age and how there are just no new workers coming forward to take these positions. In fact, over one-third of employers have indicated that they have limited their growth in general as a result of not being able to find employees.
This affects every region and so many sectors. I said this when I made my request for an emergency debate on Friday to have a discussion about the shortage of workers in the country. It affects Quebec, the manufacturing sector in Ontario and of course the tourism sector in my home province of Alberta. For this reason again, I say again to the members opposite, “You don't get a blank cheque.”
I would like to move on to something that is very uncomfortable to talk about, and that is the fraud that we have seen with these programs. In fact, FINTRAC reported that there were organized criminals who knowingly and actively defrauded the government with both CERB and CEBA programs, that social media was used to recruit people, and in fact that stolen identifications were used in an effort to get these funds. There was the use of prepaid cards to prevent a paper trail, so they were very smart about this. They knew what they were doing, unfortunately for the government.
In addition, there were individuals who received these funds while not even living in Canada and in fact living in jurisdictions of concern, countries that posed a higher money-laundering or terrorist financing risk. From the start of 2020 until October 31, 30,095 suspicious transaction reports were registered for COVID-related benefits. That is over 30,000. Sadly, 30,000 of those also dealt with human trafficking and drugs, two issues on which the government has failed, but prosecutions are unlikely. Why? In July 2020, the Canadian Revenue Agency advised the House of Commons finance committee that the program had been targeted by organized crime and that Canada does not prioritize the investigation and prosecution of financial criminals. In fact, in the past decade alone, Canada has secured fewer than, wait for it, fewer than 50 laundering convictions. The government is not taking organized crime seriously. Again, for that reason, “You don't get a blank cheque.”
Finally, we in this country need to get a grip on inflation. Canada is among the top 10 countries with the highest inflation rates in the G20. Canada has the second-highest inflation rate in the G7, second only to the United States, which I know the government thought it would get along better with, since the Liberals still talk about the previous president all the time. Rates are predicted to reach 4.9% this month, a three-decade high, and are expected to stay there well into 2022.
Some provinces, including Prince Edward Island, are experiencing rates as high as 6.3%, and unfortunately it is low-income Canadians who spend one-third on shelter and 15% on food and higher energy prices. We cannot control the pandemic, but we can control spending. There was $74 billion on the CRB and there will be $8 billion for Bill C-2 if it passes. We should investigate the fraud. We should evaluate this further. Perhaps we should bring it to the finance committee if the Liberals are willing to strike the finance committee up again, but my final message to them is this: “You don't get a blank cheque.”