Bill C-14 (Historical)

Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020

An Act to implement certain provisions of the economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 30, 2020 and other measures

Part 1 amends the Income Tax Act to provide additional support to families with young children as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic progresses. It also amends the Children’s Special Allowances Act to provide a similar benefit in respect of young children under that Act. As part of the Government’s response to COVID-19, it amends the Income Tax Act to provide that an expense can qualify as a qualifying rent expense for the purposes of the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS) when it becomes due rather than when it is paid, provided certain conditions are met.
Part 2 amends the Canada Student Loans Act to provide that, during the period that begins on April 1, 2021 and ends on March 31, 2022, no interest is payable by a borrower on a guaranteed student loan and no amount on account of interest is required to be paid by the borrower.
Part 3 amends the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act to provide that, during the period that begins on April 1, 2021 and ends on March 31, 2022, no interest is payable by a borrower on a student loan and no amount on account of interest is required to be paid by the borrower.
Part 4 amends the Apprentice Loans Act to provide that, during the period that begins on April 1, 2021 and ends on March 31, 2022, no interest is payable by a borrower on an apprentice loan and no amount on account of interest is required to be paid by a borrower.
Part 5 amends the Food and Drugs Act to authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations
(a) requiring persons to provide information to the Minister of Health; and
(b) preventing shortages of therapeutic products in Canada or alleviating those shortages or their effects, in order to protect human health.
It also amends that Act to provide that any prescribed provisions of regulations made under that Act apply to food, drugs, cosmetics and devices intended for export that would otherwise be exempt from the application of that Act.
Part 6 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund
(a) to the Government of Canada’s regional development agencies for the Regional Relief and Recovery Fund;
(b) in respect of specified initiatives related to health; and
(c) for the purpose of making income support payments under section 4 of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit Act.
Part 7 amends the Borrowing Authority Act to, among other things, increase the maximum amount of certain borrowings and include certain borrowings that were previously excluded in the calculation of that amount. It also makes a related amendment to the Financial Administration Act.

Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, we are here today debating a bill ostensibly to support Canadians given the pandemic. It is important for us to support Canadians, but we are a year into the pandemic now and I am wondering if the government is missing the boat.

A year ago, when parliamentarians came together in the midst of the first lockdowns, the restrictions, lockdowns and measures we were putting in place for Canadians to support them were designed to buy governments time to figure out exactly what COVID-19 was, how it spread, who was most affected, how to put in place testing systems and things we needed to do to produce therapeutics and vaccines, and how to get hospitals ready. That was a year ago.

I would like to pause and say that it is actually miraculous what has happened. Vaccines have been developed. Therapeutics have been developed. Rapid tests have been developed. However, these are all things that should have been deployed widely in Canada, a G7 country, by now. We are now sitting here talking about a bill, and while, yes, the support is important, the support is necessary because we do not yet have an end in sight from the federal government. That is a huge problem.

We are continuing to ask Canadians to sacrifice more and sacrifice the hope of jobs, recovery, reunion, safety and mental health without having a path forward, and it is because we do not have the information we need from the federal government to have an end in sight.

I want to talk about what this means in the context of a very personal human face. I want to talk about my cousin Eric. My dad's side of the family is a big, French-Catholic family, with eight brothers and sisters, dozens of grandchildren and dozens of great-grandchildren. None of us grew up in wealth, but everybody has worked hard.

This year at Christmas my cousin Eric phoned me. He is 27 and he is going to get married, and this is really great. Normally it would be such a big cause for celebration, but there were two things that really bothered me about the conversation we had. One of them was how hopeless he sounded. Anyone who knows him knows he has a sense of humour and is always very positive, but the first thing he said was “I do not know how we are going to get a house.” He had no idea, and it was off the table for them. That is wrong. He said it is because he and his fiancée Jessica have had very tough times.

Jessica is a business woman. She put together a dog grooming business that got very successful, but the restrictions shut it down numerous times. Eric works at a box manufacturing plant. Whenever he tells people that he works at a box manufacturing plant, I hate that he shrinks back, because he is an essential worker in the pandemic right now. How many people listening to this speech today have had something delivered in a box over the last year?

These bills are failing Eric and Jessica. The government's response has largely been classist, let us be honest. We have not really addressed the fact that people who work in box manufacturing plants, in grocery stores and on the front lines really do not have a lot of hope because their lives are on the line. They are the most at risk for transmission right now. They do not want the CERB forever. They want safe working conditions. They want a prospect to move forward. Eric and Jessica want a wedding and want to be able to buy a house. I do not see anything in the bill, or anything the government has done, that has an end date in sight.

If this bill were doing what it is supposed to be doing, it would be tied to such things as the number of vaccinated people in Canada. We should start setting targets for vaccinations and for the number of rapid tests deployed in plants such as the one Eric works at, so we do not have to continue to put restrictions on Canadians without telling them what they are getting out of it. That is the reality.

We keep putting more restrictions on Canadians, but we are not explaining to them when, or under what circumstances, those restrictions will end. That should be concerning to every member here. If everything is going so well, why can we not tell Canadians when the end will be in sight?

Yesterday I asked the transport minister the simple question of whether a vaccinated Canadian would be subject to the same travel restrictions the government put in place. He did not really have an answer for that. Why? Why can we not talk about better systems, rather than just curfews, putting people in quarantine hotels and more restrictions, when we have tools, such as rapid tests, that have not been deployed across the country?

Vaccines have not been brought into the country and we do not have a date in sight for that. The government needs to take a leadership role. It needs to work with every party in Parliament and all premiers of all political stripes to put together a plan, so we are not coming back to Parliament to debate more extensions on restrictions that require us to pay people for taking away their freedom, liberty, hope, mental health and way of doing things.

I do not accept that this is where we are. We are having the same debate we were having a year ago. Why? I could accept that and tell Eric and Jessica that is where we are, if there were not better ways of doing things that the world has produced. We need to start tying bills and measures such as this one to hard dates and hard plans for recovery. That is what is missing in this bill right now.

Frankly, we are abdicating our responsibility as parliamentarians, because the amount of money we are spending on these stopgap solutions is bankrupting the future for people like Eric and Jessica. Yes, we need to be supporting people through lockdowns, of course we do, but we keep spending more money. I know people hate talking about debt levels in this country, but we are going into so much debt as a country that the interest payments on that debt, the credit card payments on that debt, are going to bankrupt our country's ability to spend on things like affordable housing in the future.

Every time we have to make an interest payment to another country on the money we are spending now on stopgap solutions means another road, hospital or affordable housing complex cannot be built in the future. We are making a choice to continue these temporary measures versus coming up with a long-term plan. That is what is wrong. That is what is missing here.

I get that we are arguing about the technicality of these programs and extending them, but people do not want to stay on CERB forever. They do not want to stay on long-term support; they want hope and a way out of the pandemic.

We have those tools. They exist in the world, but have not been deployed in Canada. The government has to get its act together. It has to start answering questions, such as whether the vaccine will be tied to travel restrictions by a certain date, or what the data points we need are and how we are going to get to them. It should be giving status updates to Canadians. The government cannot keep taking away freedom and the hope of living a good life without a plan.

Here we are spending all of this money and I cannot give Eric and Jessica an answer to whether they will have a wedding next year. I do not know if they will be on CERB. I do not know if Jessica will be able to practise her business. For every single one of us, of all political stripes, that is not acceptable a year in. We all have to demand better, because Eric, Jessica and every single Canadian deserve better. They deserve hope, and that is what we should be fighting for.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I really appreciated how the member used personal experiences to illustrate what people have been going through. The examples are countless.

I have a first cousin on my dad's side of the family, the baby of the cousins, who got married just before the pandemic. She recently announced that she was expecting. Her name is Mary and her husband's name is Matt. I had to drop off their baby shower gift at Canada Post to be delivered to them because we obviously cannot see them in person.

There are definitely so many people throughout our country who are struggling with this. However, there is an end in sight. This member asked a lot about the end in sight, and what the hard date was. Every Canadian will be vaccinated, if they choose to be, by September of this year. When we use that as our date and we tell people to look forward to that, it will motivate people to plan around that. For example, Queen's University in my riding is planning events for the fall, based on this information.

Does the member not see that as a tangible date we are able to tell people to prepare for?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, first of all, the government has not said that it would lift restrictions once everyone is vaccinated, so I do not know. That is number one.

Number two, the reality is that most of the vaccines the government has contracted are produced in Europe, and Europe is about to impose export restrictions on vaccines. Our country is not on the exemption list. That is a huge problem. Also, we are two million doses short of the vaccine this week.

I actually do not know if September is reasonable. Based on all the projections we have right now, I would say it is not. That is what I am talking about. We do not have this information. The government has not been transparent. It is not talking about tying vaccines to lifting restrictions. It is not talking about implementing better systems of rapid testing. It is just vague stuff. We need more information.

We need information. We need hard timelines. We need clear conditions so that people can plan. No, to Mary and Matt—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

We will have to give colleagues an opportunity to ask questions.

Continuing with questions and comments, is the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, what really concerns me is that we are in the biggest medical catastrophe in a century, the biggest threat to Canada since the Second World War, and we are being told not to worry, that by September, everybody will be okay. It is the Bobby McFerrin solution: Don't Worry, Be Happy. However, I have so many small businesses in my riding that will not be around come September. It will be tough luck for them.

The question I want to ask is about the failure to address the vaccine crisis. We knew this was coming. It was the same with our incapacity to deal with PPE. We are being told not to worry, that the Europeans will be nice to us.

That does not cut it with the new variant strain they say is going to hit us like a hurricane. The Novavax vaccine will not be ready for at least two months, and the NCR plant is still under construction.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague about the absolute failure of the government to seize the tools necessary to protect its people in the biggest medical crisis we have ever seen. We need the government to actually take a lead on vaccines, rather than hoping that the Europeans will be nice to us. That is not going to cut it when the new variant strain hits.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. The government's vaccine strategy is an abject failure.

What people watching us want to know is what we are going to do to fix it. I want to point out that the colleague who just asked the question is from the New Democratic Party. I have worked with colleagues from that party and with colleagues in the Bloc. We do not agree on everything, but we agree with the fact that we need to do better.

It is incumbent upon the government to work across party lines and admit this failure. That is the first step to fixing a problem, admitting the failure and saying it is not okay. It is not Bobby McFerrin, and we need to move forward.

That is what we are all working on here in the House of Commons. I encourage the government to take these concerns seriously, because we cannot wait until September for some sort of hope that might never come.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on Bill C-14, but before I do so, I would like to echo a lot of the comments that have been made in the House celebrating Black History Month. I would especially like to give a shout-out to my provincial colleague in Alberta, Minister Kaycee Madu, whose provincial riding is shared between my riding and that of Edmonton Riverbend. Minister Madu is the very first Black justice minister in any provincial or federal government in Canadian history, so I would like to give him a special shout-out and special congratulations for Black History Month.

In Alberta we have been blessed with incredible contributions from the Black community, from the legendary John Ware, our first Black cattle farmer, who was rumoured to be able to wrestle a steer to the ground and jump on cattle while riding a herd forward, to Violet King Henry, the very first Black woman ever called to the bar in Canada. It is a great month and a great contribution to Alberta.

Black History Month is the good part. Now we move on to Bill C-14, which is the bad part. I will start with all the debt the government has added during the pandemic. We have added more per capita than any country in the G7 and G20. Our debt this year is probably going to hit $1.1 trillion. That is just the federal debt. The provincial debt is going to be about another trillion. However, these numbers do not cover the federal liabilities for Crown corporations or pensions.

What do we get for all that debt? We have the most spending per capita in the G7, the most support, while also having among the highest levels of unemployment in the G7. Our unemployment rate is only better than that of the economic basket cases Italy and, just now, France as well. We are barely ahead of them. We have only 0.3% lower unemployment than France and 0.4% lower unemployment than Italy. What about the rest of the G7? Our unemployment rate in Canada, despite all of the spending, is 41% higher than the unemployment average of the G7.

In May, at the height of the pandemic, our unemployment was pretty much the same as the U.S. at 14%. The most recent data from the OECD is from December, when Trump was still in power, and Trump's America had dropped to 6.7% unemployment. We were at 8.6%. The U.K., probably ravaged far worse by COVID than any other G7 country, has an unemployment rate of 5%. Italy, which is just barely above us right now, was devastated by the first wave and the second wave, and its unemployment is actually lower now than it was pre-pandemic, yet Canada struggles along.

What about going forward? What is the sign for the economy? The IMF recently slashed our growth projection for this year for the economy by 31%. It did not know why and did not state why. I do not think the Liberal government knows why. There is no plan for going forward, so it was probably just a shrug as to why. However, what if we compare this with the rest of the world? The IMF increased its forecast for growth by 5.7% for the economy around the world, while Canada's dropped 31% from the previous projection.

Getting back to the debt, if we ignore the fact that Crown corporations are technically supposed to look after their own finances, they have about $400 billion or $500 billion in liabilities. The unfunded public service pension liabilities is upward to about $100 billion. When we talk about the overall debt hitting $1 trillion, it is actually about $1.5 trillion. I ask members to let that sink in. That is before the lower interest rates negatively affect the pension liabilities.

The finance minister would tell us that everything is fine, everything is good, and not to worry. My colleague from Calgary stole my line about Bobby McFerrin and Don't Worry, Be Happy, but that seems to be the comment. We are told not to worry because interest rates will stay low forever. However, and here is the thing, they will not stay low forever. We are at the mercy of a world economy. If the U.S. raises its interest rates, we are going to have to pay more for our debt.

The finance minister says that we do not need to worry, and that we have locked in this debt for a long term. When we look at how borrowing is done, the longer that we are borrowing and the longer we are locked in, the higher the rates actually are. When we look at the Bank of Canada website, it is anywhere from triple to eight times the short-term rate the longer that we lock in.

It is not a simple matter of locking in zero interest rates forever or that we never have to pay it back. Rates will eventually rise and we will end up as we were in the Chrétien-Martin era, slashing the public service and health care transfers to provinces.

What is the plan to get out of all of this? What is the government's plan to build the economy? The whole plan is built around a slogan stolen from Joe Biden. We are going to ”build back better”. That is the plan.

We have massive unemployment in tourism hospitality, but we should not worry; we will build back better. With airlines on the verge of collapse, that is okay; we will build back better. The Alberta energy industry is devastated by the government's incompetence and its inability or refusal to act on Keystone or other issues. We should not worry; we will build back better. Slogans, unfortunately, are not going pay the bills and slogans are not going to help us build back better.

We do not have a fiscal anchor. We used to have one years ago, which was “the budget will balance itself“. That was the Liberals' original fiscal anchor. Then it changed to the budget would be balanced in the third year. Then the fiscal anchor became 27.5% debt to GDP, then 30.5%, and then the anchor switched to being a decreasing debt to GDP. Now we have fiscal guardrails.

The finance minister says that we should not worry, that we will have fiscal guardrails to guide us forward. What did the Parliamentary Budget Officer say about these guardrails? Besides nonsensical, he said that they were contradictory and incompatible. This is what is scary. The finance minister says that we will have our guardrails based on hours worked and unemployment.

What does the PBO mean by saying that they are incompatible and contradictory? Unemployment levels can go down, but the number of hours worked is predicted by the PBO to go down as well because we have an aging workforce and therefore fewer people working, fewer people participating in the workforce with fewer hours worked. We have our new fiscal anchor being called nonsensical by the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Again, there is no plan.

There is no plan about the Liberals' $100 billion stimulus spending. The Parliamentary Budget Officer says that most if not all jobs lost will be regained by 2021-22, which is when the fiscal stimulus is set to kick in.

Therefore, the government basically does not know what its guardrails are. It says that it will spend about $100 billion in the coming years, but it will kick in when the Parliamentary Budget Officer expects our unemployment to be back to where it was pre-pandemic. Again, what is the point of the $100 billion? The government does not seem to know. Where is our debt going? The government does not seem to know.

I want to get back to what my colleague from Calgary was talking about in regard to the vaccines. We need the vaccines to get out of this. Thank God for Pfizer, Moderna and all the scientists and big pharma for performing a miracle and getting these vaccines out. However, they need to be in the arms of Canadians.

I have a gentleman in my riding who is 102, a World War II veteran, Fred Russell. He is a magnificent man. He still has his full faculties and still gets up and dances. He landed at Dieppe and got off the beach, probably the last 10 survivors from the Dieppe raid. He landed at Normandy, actually liberated Dieppe with the Canadian troops, fought through France, fought through Holland and fought through Germany. From about mid-September, a couple of weeks after Canada declared war, until after VE day, he was away serving this country. He is locked in his room in a seniors care facility, without seeing family, friends, without seeing anyone, because he does not have a vaccine.

This is a gentleman who stepped up for Canada. He was there for Canada when Canada needed him. Where is Canada now when he needs Canada to step up for him with the vaccine? It has disappeared between Liberal talking points of vaccines for everyone one day down the road. It is not good enough for Fred Russell, who gave everything for Canada, and it is not good enough for Canadians either.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Small Business]

Madam Speaker, I would like to acknowledge the service of Russell who lives in my colleague's community and what he did for Canadians.

I will take a step back to some of the higher-level messaging the member set out in his speech, particularly with respect to his concern around spending and the debt level.

I find it very difficult to understand how we will be able to invest in science and create vaccines domestically without spending. I find it very difficult to understand how we can support our entrepreneurs and businesses without the spending.

Would the member like to explain how we can continue to support Canadians and invest in the domestic production of vaccines without adding to our debt level?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague said that it was difficult for her to understand. It is difficult for me to understand as well when a company in Calgary has been reaching out to the government since the beginning of the pandemic for support for its made-in-Canada vaccine. What did it get from the government? Nothing. The company probably received an email thanking it, saying that the government was procuring more per capita than anyone. The government says that it wants to invest in made-in-Canada solutions, but when it had the chance, it refused.

When she talks about the spending, we just learned that the government spent $115,000 to put workers up in a luxury resort in British Columbia instead of using lower-priced hotels is Esquimalt. Fisheries and Oceans justified it by putting them in the most expensive hotels in the country.

The government is happy to spend in every possible way that does not actually benefit Canadians, but when there is a chance, like investing in the pharmaceutical company in Calgary, it turns its back.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, small businesses have been hit really hard during the pandemic and many will not survive. In my riding of Winnipeg Centre, business owners have literally remortgaged their houses to try to keep their employees employed and their businesses open. The government has failed grossly in providing adequate support for small businesses to ensure they can survive the pandemic.

Would my hon. colleague have further thoughts on this?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Winnipeg Centre makes a very good point. Small businesses are suffering. At the very beginning, the government said that the wage subsidy support would be 10%. We called for 75%, like many in the G7. Then it delayed the rollout for months and months. By the time the wage subsidy was rolled out by the government, most of these people were laid off and sitting on CERB.

On the rent subsidy, we begged the government to change its program to support businesses directly instead of waiting for fat-cat landlords to apply. The government again ignored the requests from the opposition and small businesses. It failed them utterly.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague gave us a lot of data to process.

Several times the member reiterated that the Liberal government had no plan. Failing to plan is planning to fail, and I do not know why the Liberal government would want to fail. Why would it want to fail Canadians? This is a crucial time in the history of Canada. The Liberals have an opportunity to lead and they are not; they are reacting. It is time to plan and it is time to lead.

I wonder if the member could talk a little more about our increasing debt levels and the potential of interest rates rising and what that could do Canada.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague asked why the Liberals planned to fail. I think it is just practice. Rising interest rates are going to cost us dearly. We saw it in the Chrétien-Martin years where it outpaced our growth. If we can get growth higher than the interest rates, we will be fine. That is the problem, though. There is no plan from the government for growth, for growing the economy.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to add my voice to the debate on Bill C-14. I appreciate very much the contribution of my learned colleague.

The bill deals with matters from the fall economic statement, which has still kept Canadians in the dark with respect to the financial future of our great country. However, it is no surprise when the last budget presented by the government was in 2019. We are two years later and we still have not had a budget. Canadians need to be assured about the state of our finances. During these very uncertain times, we need that certainty from our government. Canadians need to know that someone has a steady hand on the wheel.

However, it has come to the point where the Prime Minister rolled over when the U.S. President, Joe Biden, cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline, basically his first order of business once he was elected. We know this project would have created thousands of jobs at a time when we badly need job creation, particularly in the west, and it would have generated billions in revenue at a time when Canada needs more revenue with very quickly rising expenses. It is hard to believe that the Liberals were not pleased by the decision of the President to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline. It is an opportunity for an ideological win for their party, while dealing a blow to the Canadian energy sector.

Our greatest resource has been blocked by the Liberals who have drastically increased our national debt. How is federal spending going to position our country to come back for a post-pandemic recovery? With this never-seen-before federal stimulus spending, where is the vision for our country? How will generations to come pay for the promises being made today?

No matter what the plan is and no matter how they spend the money, the Liberals leave Canadians out of the loop until they appear at a podium to make an announcement. There is no meaningful consultation. The government has announced $100 billion infrastructure spending over the next 10 years, but nobody knows what the plan is for that. How are they going to get that money out the door? How is it that going to be distributed and what projects will be priorities? We are left to wonder if there is a plan.

We know that it would be totally unlike the government to just focus on a flashy announcement with no actual real substance. No matter how much the announcement or what the results will be, Canadians continue to be left in the dark on how their money will be spent. Therefore, how can we expect to make this great Canadian comeback, which we desperately need? How can we get back in the fight with both hands tied behind our backs, with our greatest resources being stifled and attacked by the government?

Our manufacturing sector has been taxed and regulated to death, to the point where manufacturers across Canada, including in my riding of Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, are packing up and leaving for jurisdictions with friendlier governments where there are not the regulations and never-ending mounting taxes. For them the uncertainty of their future is too great, knowing they have spent their time, talent and treasure to create jobs in their communities. The burden becomes too much to bear.

Our energy sector, which employs folks from coast to coast and all points in-between, has been hobbled and stymied by the Liberals at every opportunity. Their anti-energy ideology does not respect the fact that people in my community have to drive to work and heat their homes. This is not an option. They must use oil and gas in their day-to-day lives.

I cannot imagine a Canadian government that would prefer we use oil from countries like Saudi Arabia, where we know that there is horrific treatment of women and minorities and where people are persecuted for their sexual orientation, rather than using ethical, clean oil from Canada's west. It is produced to the highest environmental standards in the world, and while I cannot imagine a Canadian government that would want something different, that is what we are seeing. Conservatives know we should empower the Canadian resource sector to produce, employ and innovate. The story of the great Canadian comeback starts here at home in Canada, with knowing our strengths and playing to them.

When we see, at the first opportunity, a government look to reward its friends and well-placed insiders, we see that it defaults to corruption instead of to a team Canada approach. It certainly gives Canadians pause and it does not give them the confidence they need in the face of very uncertain times.

The resignation of the Governor General is disheartening, to say the least. As a former member of the Canadian Forces, I hold the office of our commander-in-chief in the highest regard, but it does not come as a surprise, when the Prime Minister had his finger on the scale in selecting the Governor General, that it would end poorly. That is the modus operandi of the government. It will always put its Liberal friends first. We see examples regularly of Liberals coming first and everyday Canadians coming second.

We need to make sure that we have a government that is willing to collaborate with opposition parties not after the fact, but before legislation is put in place. We have seen Liberals fix legislation, but often the fixes were recommended by opposition parties before the legislation came to the House. However, because opposition parties and the Conservative Party are committed to a team Canada approach, we have not delayed their unanimous consent bills when they looked to implement help that Canadians needed. We recognized that Canadians needed that help very badly.

On Liberals' spending plans, Canadians are left in the dark. The same is true of their plans for our recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, helping Canadians get back to their regular lives and end the lockdowns. We are in a position where Canadians are not receiving the vaccines that we need. We are in a position where rapid tests have not been deployed in a way that would allow us to get back to our regular lives and earn our livelihoods.

Canadians, and the residents of my community in Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, are counting on the government not to just talk the talk, but walk the walk. We need a clear plan from the government. We need to make sure Canadians are able to unleash their full potential so we can get back in the fight stronger than ever. It requires transparency, co-operation and a real team Canada approach from the government, and Canada's Conservatives are committed to being a part of that team.

Throughout this pandemic, the government has been scrambling for quick fixes, trying to ram bills through without proper debate and consultation and letting Canadians slip through the cracks along the way. From the get-go, I was hearing from folks in my riding that they had been left behind by the government's poorly thought out and poorly executed moves, such as small business owners who did not qualify for the CEBA, those who knew a 10% wage subsidy would not cut it and all those people who were ineligible for CERB, just to name a few. Instead of getting the help that Canadians needed to them, the government was more concerned with helping its friends. We do not have to look any further than the sweeping powers the current government tried to snatch in the early days of this pandemic, which would have given it the ability to tax and spend without parliamentary oversight for years. That blank cheque is not the team Canada approach that the government claims to use, and that Canadians so badly want to see.

Regardless of how the Liberals have bent or broken the rules to serve themselves, Conservatives will continue to hold them to account. We know that during this pandemic the Prime Minister took the opportunity to reward his friends at the WE organization, the organization that had given half a million dollars to members of his family. Then we saw the government give a half-billion-dollar contract to his friends to administer.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, my friend and colleague's assessment is not right. In fact, it is pretty far off when he talks about helping friends and says we did not do enough with CERB, the wage subsidy or the rent subsidy programs, and that we could have issued more money and support. Nine million is a lot of friends, Canadians, to have received CERB. Millions received the wage subsidy program, and tens of thousands received the rent subsidy program.

On one hand he is criticizing the government for not spending enough money on these programs, yet the Conservatives are saying we are spending too much money and they are concerned about the deficit.

Can he provide clarification? Are we spending too much money or not enough money?