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

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

Mr. Speaker, it really worries me when the Liberals talk about their rapid response on housing. What will that turn out to be? Is it maybe three units per community per year? That is ridiculous.

In my region, in the city of Timmins, a community of 45,000, we have 800 homeless people. When we add in the opioid and fentanyl crisis, people are dying at staggering rates, and yet we see indifference. Housing is not just for those who are dealing with the opioid crisis; seniors cannot get proper housing and families cannot get proper housing.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague to comment on the vexatious way that the Liberals play with people's hopes on housing but refuse, year in and year out, to actually deliver a coherent plan to get people proper housing so they can be safe and live a good, decent life.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Timmins—James Bay has been fighting the same fight for the most marginalized people who do not have a safe, secure place to live and need the supports to move forward.

We have been hearing from the Liberal government for five years about its robust investments in its national housing strategy, yet we have not seen it. I am in Port Alberni where we have the same situation he has in Timmins—James Bay: people do not have safe, secure housing and are dying on our streets. These lives can be saved.

Everybody deserves a right to a safe, secure place to live. It is one of the United Nations sustainable development goals. It is a priority in the list of 14 sustainable development goals, yet the government likes to talk the talk but never walks the walks. As well, 3,000 units to deal with a crisis of over 300,000 homeless people in our country is absolutely appalling and shameful. The government needs to do something quickly. This is our opportunity for a proper COVID recovery.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I really enjoyed my colleague's speech. He went off the beaten path and talked about his riding's unique characteristics. I am going to do the same in my speech today. People talk about economic measures in such general terms and try to fit everyone into the same box to the point that we forget how different ridings across Quebec and Canada are from one another.

Many aspects of Bill C-14 deserve to be debated, but I would like to offer a more regional perspective.

People know I love faraway places. When the Government of Canada talks about the regions, it does not mean regions like the North Shore or Gaspé. Its meaning is broader. The regional relief and recovery fund, the RRRF, is built around the Pacific region, the Atlantic region, Ontario and Quebec. Those regions are as big as countries. To put it in a nutshell, that way of designating regions is practical for the government because then it can create programs based on thinking that seems arbitrary to us, the people of the North Shore, programs that adopt a “one-size-fits-all” approach.

I will be basing my remarks on that example, because this approach has been, and continues to be, problematic in my region in terms of what the government is offering for COVID-19 through the RRRF, for example. This one-size-fits-all approach means that the money cannot be spent, although it is absolutely needed, of course.

I want to come back to the specific needs of the regions. My colleagues from Abitibi—Témiscamingue and Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou can talk to you about their economies, which include natural resources, forestry and agriculture. People from those regions are concerned about jobs. There is also the Eastern Townships region. My colleague from Shefford might want to talk about agriculture and maple syrup—of which there is a seemingly unlimited global supply—but also about all the economic development and recovery projects happening in her region. The same is true for the Gaspé region.

I would like to look to the future. In the recovery that is just around the corner, we do not want drilling projects. There are the projects in the economic update, but there are also all the future projects that will be undertaken to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Magdalen Islands and the Gaspé want to revive the seal industry, which is a regional feature here too. There is also forestry, heritage and lighthouses to be saved in the Gaspé. My colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia would also be willing to talk about it.

The same is true for Charlevoix, which relies on tourism, culture, gastronomy and international tourism. My colleague from Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix could tell you all about it. There is also Montreal, with its aerospace and artificial intelligence industry. We could discuss it with my colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île, who is a proud Montrealer. There is also Quebec City, the national capital of Quebec, where our National Assembly is located and where culture and tourism are also very important.

Companies like Davie would also like a little boost as part of the economic recovery. We need to put the economic statement in the context of the current needs while looking at what is ahead for us.

I could go around Quebec to showcase all its regions here. What I want to show is that it is difficult to use a one-size-fits-all approach when designing programs and proposing measures, because that means people will not be able to access them.

That is why I feel it is important to talk about this heterogeneity. Although we want to collaborate on projects that affect all of the regions, we need to consider regional particularities, because every region has its own issues and challenges. When you have a one-size-fits-all program that does not benefit these people, everyone ends up penalized. Every region is distinct and has its own challenges and its own aspirations for development.

Speaking of regions, I have to talk about my own. I am the member of Parliament for Manicouagan. Like all members, I am biased. My riding, all 350,000 square kilometres of it, is the most beautiful. It might as well be made up of six countries. There are six RCMs, each of which has its own very different reality. One of my RCMs is the richest in all of Quebec, yet it borders the poorest one. As a member of Parliament, it is my duty to adapt, listen, be understanding and find different solutions for each one of these six different regions that make up the North Shore.

I am very fortunate to represent this riding that includes 1,400 kilometres of waterfront, forests, mountains and fauna. It is a veritable paradise, but at the same time we are facing our own specific challenges. I would have liked to talk about these challenges and the issues that the public would like us to be working on now and in the future. Obviously these are regional issues, but I think it is important to talk about the differences between these places so that people feel listened to and so that we can work better for them, including by adapting programs such as the RRRF. It would be a win-win situation.

There are many challenges in my riding. Take, for example, indigenous issues, which I am very concerned about. In my riding, 15% of people are members of the Naskapi or Innu first nations. These people live proudly in Nitassinan. I would like to lend my voice to the first nations in my region and make their wishes known. There are many issues to address. There is the issue of language, which is currently very important for first nations. This issue is not necessarily being addressed from an economic development perspective, even though it is an economic development issue. It affects education, culture and the importance of preserving the first nations' relationship with the land, water and forest. There is also the issue of police services, the funding for which was cut. There is less and less funding for that.

There is also the issue of housing, which was mentioned earlier and which is very important in my riding. The population is growing by leaps and bounds. The issue of protection officers is also important. Communities need them because fishing is part of their development. There is also the issue of first nations health. There are so many examples that I could give, but I will stop there because my time is running out. I could keep talking about these issues for a long time.

There is also the issue of roads. In my riding there are no roads within a 400-kilometre area. We border Newfoundland and Labrador and there is a ferry. The interprovincial link was not created by the Canadian government. There has to be a way to open up the North Shore and build a road that would also benefit the people living east of us, our neighbours in Newfoundland and Labrador. It could be a development project in our area. As we saw yesterday, there may be exploratory drilling on the lower North Shore. I would prefer that a road be built so that people could travel and we could develop tourism or have more respectful development of the environment, which is what my constituents want. I could go on talking for a long time.

I talked about the regions in general, but, zooming out, my integration model would apply to all of Quebec. We have put forward our agendas for seniors, the environment and health, and I would like the government to listen to what Quebec and the regions want so it can harmonize programs and budgets according to people's needs.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on her speech, although I have to say I am a little disappointed that she described her riding as the most beautiful, when she knows perfectly well that Drummond holds that title. Let us just say that in a beauty contest, her riding on the North Shore would be the runner-up.

Seriously though, she talked about concerns specific to the regions. Her riding is immense and has a lot going for it. Her riding also has problems with high-speed Internet. Our colleague from Salaberry—Suroît talked about this earlier, as did I. I know that my colleague's riding, Manicouagan, made a lot of progress in terms of expanding high-speed Internet access when people took matters into their own hands and got some great projects up and running.

There are still challenges though, and I would like to hear her opinion on programs that subsidize rolling out Internet access in the regions and on what the federal government has been doing in this area.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Drummond. I would say that Drummond and Manicouagan are tied in terms of the beauty of our ridings.

High-speed Internet access is very problematic in my region. As has been mentioned, the riding is very large. These days, high-speed Internet is the driving force of economic development and vital to keeping our people from leaving. A lot of businesses know this. We see it ourselves with teleworking, where we have to use the Internet every day. Not having Internet access means the devitalization of our communities and poorer populations. We need only think of education and the people who cannot attend class online. There are even some witnesses from my riding who cannot appear before parliamentary committees because they do not have access to Zoom. One might not expect it, but it is an essential service.

I think this is taking too long. The money needs to get out quickly. The Quebec government has a faster timetable than the federal government, so I urge the feds to give this money to Quebec City, which can then deploy these services. It is urgent, it is essential, it is necessary and the people are waiting.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleague for the love she has shown for all our regions in Quebec.

I know that my colleague is quite concerned about her region, which has its own specific needs and whose economy relies mostly on seasonal industries. When it comes to the government's vision and specific approaches, what would be her position and recommendations to best respond to the needs?

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Thérèse-De Blainville for her question about the importance of seasonal work in Manicouagan. I did say seasonal work, not seasonal workers. Seasonal work is essential because many people work in tourism, the fisheries or the forestry sector, which are the economic pillars of my riding. These people live in small communities of 200, 300 or 400 people. There are 45 communities in my riding.

These people do not necessarily have access to other employment, and we do not want them to leave, either. We do not want these villages to die off. On the contrary, we want to maintain and develop them. Amazingly, we now realize that the fact that these people have access to EI not only gets them through the spring gap they once had to live with, but also enables them to stay and help develop the region. The EI program has become a tool for regional economic development. I hate to say it, but it is truly an insurance, no pun intended.

The government is introducing many new benefits, and I am pleased that there is money for those who are sick and for caregivers. I truly hope that the available funds will not be divided among more people. I hope that contributions will be adjusted accordingly rather than reduced, which would allow us meet everyone's needs. Our regions really need seasonal work to be recognized.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I find it somewhat ironic that on this day, Groundhog Day, not unlike the plot of the movie of the same name, we find ourselves back in this place making further adjustments to the government's response to the pandemic. I do not offer that comment as a criticism of the government. I raise that point to serve as a reminder that we have been here before.

I also raise the point because we should all recognize that we may be here again, doing something similar in the future. I believe all of us would agree that, ideally, we would prefer that would not be the case. I am certain we would much rather see these troubled times put behind us. However, we know that the vaccine rollout has not, to date, gone well for Canada. We know that new and more deadly variants of this virus are being identified in different parts of Canada, and that should be concerning to us all.

For the record, I do not mention the slow pace of vaccine rollouts in my comments today as a political tack. I am certain that the government, like any government, would like to see a more timely and successful vaccine rollout. I would also add that that is not what we are here to debate in this bill today.

I am raising these concerns for a different reason, and I will come back to that. Let us first acknowledge that this bill proposes measures that we all support.

We support the enhancements to the Canada child benefit. The political notion of providing direct support to families was actually developed by a Conservative government in spite of the Liberals' claims at the time that parents would waste the money on beer and popcorn. When they came to power, the Liberals adopted this program and made other improvements. I have to give them credit for that.

In Canada, during the pandemic, the official opposition also supported programs such as the CERB, the Canada emergency wage subsidy and the Canada emergency business account. There may have been some disagreements about the best way to implement them, however, in principle, we agreed with these programs.

For that reason, I will not be focusing today on the elements of the debate on which we agree. As many of us know, this bill is essentially divided into seven different parts. The official opposition supports most parts of the bill. However, we strongly disagree with part 7.

Part 7 of the bill proposes to increase the Borrowing Authority Act, basically to add another $323 billion in incremental borrowing until March 31, 2024. The official opposition would prefer to split this from the bill so that matters we do agree on can be voted on separately. We believe it is important to have a separate debate on that borrowing, which significantly increases our debt. Before some might say to themselves that I am being a typical Conservative, I would ask that everyone hears me out.

First, let me summarize briefly where we are. In 2015, the Liberal government promised to run modest deficits before returning to a balanced budget in 2019. Every person, whether in the chamber or here virtually, knows this did not happen. I am not here to revisit that, but simply to place it on the record as being a factual point.

In 2019, given the absence of following that fiscal plan, a new fiscal plan came from the government, and it was based on debt-to-GDP ratio. The Liberal thinking told us that as long as our debt-to-GDP ratio remained within certain parameters, everything would be fine. However, every person participating in this debate, whether in the chamber or attending virtually, knows that the debt-to-GDP targets have now been thrown out the window. Again, I raise that because it is factually true.

We are now in a new situation, where the latest Liberal thinking has it that we cannot afford not to borrow more money, since interest rates are so low. Just because interest rates are this low it does not mean that it is okay to borrow so much money.

One has to wonder: What would happen if this plan, much like the Liberals' previous financial plans, proved to be wrong? What will happen if, or rather when, interest rates rise?

It is our job to be asking these questions. We need to ask ourselves how the decisions we are making today will affect Canadians in the future. If we are being honest with ourselves, how would we answer that question?

Some may say that hypothetical questions are irrelevant and that we need to focus on the now, since we are in the middle of a pandemic. I would like to take these people back to the same period last year.

One year ago, we had a health minister who told us that border closures would not work, and that travel restrictions would not only not work, but also could actually be harmful. We were told that they could stigmatize others. On that same note, we were also told that wearing masks was not recommended, as they would provide a false sense of security and should be avoided.

Now we all know how those policies turned out. I am not looking to belittle the government or government members. I am simply looking to point out how spectacularly wrong this advice was. How and why does this matter in the bill that we are debating today? It is because we have to accept that we have new and more deadly variants of this virus and that we are well behind in the vaccination fight against the original variant.

We may be in this fight for much longer than any of us would have ever anticipated or want to be. Obviously, we all have to hope and work hard to ensure that that is not the case. At the same time, we have to be prepared. That brings me back to part 7 of this bill, which fiscally proposes unprecedented borrowing to continue the firehose-like spending.

I would like to believe that most of us, even if it is not all of us, understand that the federal government cannot keep spending at the same rate as it has been. These expenditures are not sustainable in the long term. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said so, as did other leading economists.

Obviously, the government is very much hoping that this record spending will help us get through the pandemic. However, at some point, we will have to step back and ask ourselves whether the rate of spending is commensurate with how long we can actually fight the pandemic.

That brings me to my next question. Do we want these issues to be asked, debated and examined by Parliament or do we want to continue to allow the Liberal government to sign blank cheques and trust it to spend money in secret, just as it has been doing so far?

I think we all know the answer to that question.

We have an official opposition, and a third and a fourth party for a reason. It is to hold the government to account and now, more than ever, we need to do that job. I am hopeful that other members of this House will see the benefits of splitting part 7 from this bill and will agree.

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

Mr. Speaker, I heard a number of Conservatives over the last week and a half go on about how we were told back in the day to not wear masks as it was not important versus where we are today. It goes without saying that the entire world learned and adapted to what it came to understand and know about the virus and the way it spread.

Yes, in the beginning we were saying just washing our hands should be enough. As the world started to understand more and more about this virus, it changed and adapted behaviours and recommendations. I cannot understand why the Conservatives are continuing to critique advice given a year ago versus the advice we have now based on the information we have come to know.

For example, I am wearing this mask, and I do even when I speak. I realize that when I speak, the particles in my mouth might go further than two metres and there is a desk full of people sitting right in front of me. We adapt, we learn and we change our behaviours as we move along.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I support health measures based on science. The point of my speech was that some of the assumptions the government made decisions on a year ago based on expert advice did not turn out to be true. If people came to me and said that they were going to do a two-day trek across the desert but were told by someone they only needed a certain amount of water and they would be just fine, I would tell them that it is always best to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

Unfortunately, if members on the Liberal side will not question the government, then it remains up to the official opposition. As I said, there are various viewpoints from the NDP, the Bloc, the Green Party and independents. However, in this case, as a member of the official opposition, I am asking for a particular section of the bill to be cut out so we can debate it more intensely.

We should not be making such large-scale decisions in such a limited amount of time. Every time we have done that, it has turned out badly for every—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

We will continue with questions and comments.

The hon. member for Thérèse-De Blainville.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member on his French. It is unfortunate we do not always sit together on the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, because the rate at which I am learning English is not the same as the rate at which he is learning French.

I understood what he said about the expenses involved. I would like him to talk in more detail about how that money will be spent. I would like his answer to go beyond the amount of money that is planned. With respect to the economic statement, I am critical of the fact that for some issues there is no sound and no picture as to the sustainability that needs to be given to the issues of health transfers, seniors, the sectoral approach that the government needs to take in areas that are still in crisis because of the pandemic. There are people who are unemployed and without income. It seems to me that the recovery plan must take these issues into account. We must have a vision in this regard.

How does my colleague see spending in this area?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the words of the member and miss the opportunity to sit with her on the HUMA committee.

The fall economic update by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance presented a lot of eye-popping numbers with very little detail. It is my hope that we start discussing. This is why I suggested carving out this section, because I think many members on the Liberal side would agree that there were not enough details as to what $100 billion would do for stimulus.

Doing that over three years, when we do not have a good grasp on where we are at or where we will be based on some of the variants and various issues, is dangerous. This is one of the reasons we should be carving out the section so we can be asking questions.

Anything that brings value for money is important, but some of my constituents have asked why there has been more money set aside for WE Charity than for domestic vaccination production. We an announcement by the government today that it would be far later than what other countries presented. We need to start asking, “What if we are wrong?” What kind of prepare for the worst but hope for the best thinking can we find collectively? This chamber is built for that kind of thinking and consensus building.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-14, the fall economic statement.

I miss being in the House of Commons for these speeches, but it is an honour and privilege to speak in the riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith in the traditional unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw, Snaw-Naw-As, Stz'uminus and Lyackson First Nations.

In the House, I represent the constituents in Nanaimo—Ladysmith, but I also feel a responsibility to speak for the 1.1 million voters who voted Green in 2019. If we do the math and average the number of votes by the number of MPs elected, I represent 387,000 Green voters. By comparison, the Liberal Party received five times more votes than the Green Party but elected 50 times more MPs, averaging 38,000 votes per MP. This is not a true representation of the democratic will of Canadians.

The fall economic statement contains a long list of much-needed spending to help Canadians get through the COVID-19 pandemic. The Green Party welcomes many of the initiatives that are listed in the fall economic statement. Our leader Annamie Paul is particularly pleased to see the government commit to exploring the implementation of carbon border adjustments to protect Canadian businesses and encourage climate action abroad. This is something Ms. Paul was advocating.

What is remarkable about this fall economic statement is what has been left out. This was an opportunity to implement much-needed reforms and improvements to our social welfare and health care systems. There are minor reforms to our tax system, but they do not go far enough to create more fairness in the system. There is program spending for indigenous people, but not enough to deal with the systemic problems with which they are grappling. Minor programs deal with the climate emergency, but not enough bold action to deal with the existential crisis.

I know that members of the Conservative Party, the official opposition, have been cuddling up with conspiracy theorists, with their questions and speeches referencing the World Economic Forum's great reset. Quite frankly, the Conservatives should be ashamed of themselves. I am no fan of the World Economic Forum and its gatherings of unelected billionaires at Davos. These billionaires talk a great game about social responsibility and protecting the environment, while they continue to press governments for more tax cuts for the wealthy and fewer regulations for corporations. It is not a conspiracy theory; it is unfettered greed in action.

The Conservative agenda has been much the same as the World Economic Forum agenda all along: tax cuts and deregulation while pretending to care about working people. When Stephen Harper was the prime minister, he spoke at the Davos conference several times, including the 2012 meeting, which planned for the so-called great transformation: same agenda, different title.

Canadians deserve better. It is time for bold action.

It is time for a guaranteed livable income so we can eliminate poverty by creating an income floor under which no Canadian can fall.

It is time for universal pharmacare to complete our universal health care system. We are the only country with universal health care that does not include universal pharmacare. It could save us billions of dollars in health care spending. We also need to fund proactive therapies, treatments and programs that keep Canadians healthy, and include these in the Canada Health Act.

It is time to fully include the mental health care services and counselling under the Canada Health Act. We need more than half measures to deal with the mental health crisis in our communities. This is particularly true as we near the one-year anniversary of pandemic restrictions.

It is time to fund universal child care and early childhood education. This is especially important to ensure that women can regain the ground they have lost in the workforce as a result of the pandemic.

We need to increase funding to deal with the affordable housing and homelessness crisis.

We need bold action to deal with the opioid overdose crisis.

It is time for much deeper reform of our tax system to ensure that the billionaire class, the big banks and the multinational corporations pay their fair share and cannot use loopholes and offshore tax shelters to avoid paying taxes in Canada.

We encouraged the government to roll out and expand programs such as the Canada emergency wage subsidy to ensure that workers and companies could survive the economic lockdown. However, we were also very clear that government emergency support should not be used by companies to pay CEO bonuses or shareholder dividends as had happened in the past. The government did not include these conditions as part of the relief programs, and this has led to abuse and to corporate welfare.

A recent report found that billions in wage subsidies were paid to 68 companies that turned around and paid more than $5 billion in dividends at the same time.

For example, Imperial Oil received $120 million in wage subsidies and paid out $324 million in dividends during this period. The big telecom companies took in almost a quarter of a billion dollars in wage subsidies. Bell Canada received $122 million, despite having $5.2 billion in available liquidity.

For-profit companies running long-term care homes for seniors have also used government COVID emergency tax dollars to line the pockets of CEOs and shareholders, while the death toll in their facilities continues to climb.

The Green Party is happy with some of the environmental initiatives, but they are clearly not enough to deal with the crash in biodiversity or the climate crisis we face.

There has been a lot of talk about the government initiative to plant two billion trees as part of the Canada climate action plan. This sounds great, but I would like to point out a few flaws in this idea.

A 500-year-old tree sequesters far more carbon in a year than an acre of seedlings can. If the government is serious about using trees as a carbon sink, it should fund an immediate halt to the destruction of old-growth forests, especially in B.C. and on Vancouver Island where only 1% of the big tree old growth forests outside of parks remain standing. The B.C. government talks about preservation, but continues to allow old growth forests to be cut down. This needs to stop. Let us allocate tree funding for old growth.

The other trees we need to protect and preserve are in the boreal forest. The boreal forest is Canada's equivalent to the Amazon and provides enormous ecological benefit to the planet. It is time to leave the virgin forests alone and preserve them. There are plenty of places in Canada where second-, third- and fourth-growth forests can be used for timber supply. The forest companies must be required to replant trees after they have harvested, both on Crown or on private forest lands. It is the cost of doing business and should not be subsidized.

The Green Party welcomes spending on consumer initiatives addressing the climate crisis, including funding for home energy retrofits and zero-emission vehicle infrastructure. However, the climate crisis demands more than consumer initiatives. It is time for the government to take much bolder steps, starting with the cancellation of the Trans Mountain expansion pipeline. Experts have stated that this project is not financially viable and is predicted to become a stranded asset. It will not help finance climate change initiatives.

Fossil fuels will continue to be used in the foreseeable future, but in dwindling amounts. We need to end all subsidies for the oil and gas industry.

The truth is that if we do not take bold action to address the climate crisis, the spending needed to deal with mitigation and the disasters resulting from climate change will make what we are spending on the COVID-19 pandemic look like chump change. Canada is a climate laggard. Canadian governments have committed to nine international agreements and produced zero plans to meet the agreed targets.

Eight provinces and three territories representing 85% of the Canadian population met the Copenhagen target in 2020. However, two provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, increased emissions so much that they completely wiped out the progress of the rest of the country.

Canada has the worst record of the G7 for climate action. The U.K., the country with the best record, has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 41% from 1990 levels, while shamefully Canada has increased emissions by 21%. In order for Canada to catch up with the rest of the wealthy countries, we need to set new targets to reduce emissions by 60% by 2030.

Average Canadian consumers could take their emissions to zero and it would not mean a thing as long as we allow the oil and gas industry to continue to pollute our atmosphere with climate killing gases. The government should not let the conspiracy promoting MPs continue to intimidate it from taking real action. Be bold, that is what our children and grandchildren expect from the government.

Bill C-14 contains some much-needed spending and actions. In our view it needs to be much bolder. The Green Party will support the bill and we will continue to press the government to take bold action.

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

Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to listen to the member's comments. He seems confused about whom he is holding to account with his comments about the Harper government. He has a very interesting perspective on conspiracy theories, given his history with the 9/11 truth movement, and has been involved in looking to free Meng Wanzhou. He also talked about all of the things the Green Party stands against that the government is putting forward, but said that he is going to support the bill anyway.

My specific question for the member is about the parliamentary leader for the Greens celebrating the demise of thousands of jobs for western Canadians and billions of dollars in revenue for the Canadian treasury. While he is supporting the government's initiatives, as he has said, and standing opposed to its plans for the environment, I am wondering what the member's plan is to fund his proposals in the short term, because it seems as though he is happy to—