Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise here this afternoon as one of the final speakers on Bill C-9. It is a key piece of economic legislation with much-needed support programs for businesses, not only in eastern Ontario where I reside but in every part of the country.
I have said this before during debates, particularly ones where we are dealing with economic measures for small businesses. I am not a fan of pushing bills through at some of the pace and time that we have done during COVID-19. I was not a fan last time when we only had about four hours of debate back in September to put some of these things through. I am happier with the process this time around. Albeit not perfect, it is a step in the right direction in terms of the committee of the whole and more debate. I appreciate the chance to rise here today.
A lot of times people see us in the chamber and see their local member of Parliament put their speeches up and wonder why we go through what we do with the legislation. They think that once we see the bill, we should vote on it and get it over with, whichever way we fall. We have to keep reminding not only us here in the chamber but all Canadians that this process is so fundamental to getting the best piece of legislation we possibly can. We need proper scrutiny of legislation to make sure that we get it right and get the best bill possible, and now, more than ever.
We are spending billions and billions of dollars of new money in the new programs in a very quick period of time. This scrutiny, the back-and-forth debate and discussion that we have, is so key.
When things are rushed through too fast, mistakes sometimes happen. We learned this morning that, for the Minister of Finance and the House leader's team, one of the amendments that was proposed or suggested by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, a reasonable proposal, was actually struck down by the Speaker earlier this morning because it was not organized and prepared properly. I think the term used was that it was a procedural error. The reality is that it was a mistake on the government's part because we are rushing things through at the last minute, and it was not able to be votable in that circumstance.
We were told with the prorogation of Parliament for six weeks that the government was going to be doing a reset. That was the real reason we had, apparently, for prorogation for six weeks. It was in the name of getting organized, having a cabinet retreat and getting all these bills lined up and ready to go.
As much as I talk about the concerns and sometimes about the lack of debate, my understanding is that this amendment is now going to have to be brought forward likely in a separate piece of legislation with debate and scrutiny, so we are going to have more time in this chamber and hopefully in committee to look at some of these issues and their responses in the coming weeks.
On Bill C-9, the vote was unanimous at second reading. I think the way the direction is going today we will find the same thing again, in favour of these programs and sending the message to small businesses wherever they are in this country that their Parliament and their MPs understand the seriousness and severity of the situation they are in.
We said that where things are good we will support the government and where scrutiny is needed, we will certainly give it. Because of that scrutiny and feedback, I am going to say that, in this legislation, the government has taken up some of the good ideas and good fixes.
There is one thing this pandemic has created. There never was a shortage of acronyms in the parliamentary world, and there certainly have been a few more in the last seven months. We have the CEWS, the Canada emergency wage subsidy. We have the CERS, the Canada emergency rent subsidy, which replaces the CECRA.
Before I get into some of my comments about the details, I want to first thank the businesses in my riding of Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry. I am very fortunate as I am one of the few members of Parliament who can drive back to my riding in about an hour or an hour and a half.
One of the things I enjoy every weekend, lately by Zoom, is having a lot of meetings with chambers of commerce and local business owners, and dropping by with what I call a bit of a wellness tour, asking for their feedback and if they were able to get the CEBA emergency business loan or able to get the wage subsidy. It is from those tours that I am able to share on social media some of my visits and encourage constituents to learn about the businesses in our community. More importantly, it is a good way to get feedback that I can bring back here to Ottawa to say, “Look, this program is not running effectively. There are gaps and there are holes in there”.
The wage subsidy was a perfect example. In the opening days of the pandemic, the government proposed a 10% wage subsidy. That was not helpful in the minds of many businesses. Many did not find it would be enough to keep their employees on the payroll. Many transitioned to CERB.
We advocated for a much higher number, and at 75% it was certainly an improvement. We appreciated the government taking up the calls we heard from businesses and the calls we made. In created a bit of chaos in terms of businesses laying some people off onto CERB and then coming back, but nevertheless, we will take that step in the right direction.
One of the other things I know our shadow finance minister, the member for Carleton, raised several times as well was that the cut-offs are an issue in a lot of these programs. It was actually pitting businesses when it came to the rent subsidy and the wage subsidy and their drop in revenues, where if they were able to recover 70% of their pre-COVID revenues, they were totally cut off the program. By finally taking the idea of indexing these programs, it was not an “all or nothing” situation.
We actually had businesses saying they did not want to bring on more staff or that they wanted to be careful about the number of hours of their stores because they did not want to lose the benefits keeping them afloat. It is really more of a cliff's edge. I feel this legislation had some challenges, and I am glad to see our idea of indexing it and having a sliding scale being used, as it is certainly going to help businesses in the country.
CERB was the same way. If someone made more than $1,000 they were cut off. There were people who wanted to go back to work but could not get full-time hours. They had to decide whether to take the $2,000 in CERB or go back. There was no hybrid model on that. We are seeing that advocacy from our side of the aisle, which will be continuing as these programs continue and we go through the second wave and back to more normal times.
On the rent program, the original program was rushed, and frankly, I do not think it was very effective. My understanding is that 10% of businesses were eligible for that program. It was a messy situation with landlords and tenants, and there was sometimes the sharing of financial information by tenants with their landlords, who had to apply. It was just not the best program. Thankfully, months later, the government has now listened to opposition members and made some changes to it.
The big thing I want to mention on the rent subsidy program is why opposition parties matter when it comes to this kind of matter, and why parliamentary scrutiny and asking the tough questions and digging a little are so important. When I saw the rent subsidy program being announced, I thought, yes, we do need this support program, and I thought CRA, the Canada Revenue Agency, would be the natural body to administer it. We then received information that it would be the CMHC, another acronym for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. I thought that was kind of weird because it handles residential mortgages, not commercial ones. I thought it was kind of a strange organization to run the program.
We were told by the government that there was nothing to see, that we should stop complaining, stop delaying, stop attacking, and that we were team Canada and all in this together. That is the case, but we also need to make sure we are scrutinizing each other in the decisions we are making, so we started to dig and ask questions. All of a sudden, we found out that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation was in fact not administering it. It was the organization that had it from the top but it was now subcontracting it to MCAP.
Who is at MCAP? It would be the Prime Minister's chief of staff's husband. We were told there was nothing to see, that we should stop suggesting a conflict of interest and that it was a ridiculous line of questioning. Now we realize there were inappropriate meetings at the Prime Minister's Office, and the lobbying commissioner is now investigating this potential scandal. Actually it is not “potential”; it is a scandal now. I am just waiting for the report to come out from the lobbying commissioner.
The bill would correct a lot of the things that were rushed through earlier, and now have the CRA involved in the process. I will wrap up my comments by making two key points on dealing with this economic legislation. The reasons for rushing things through, and the lack of ability to scrutinize and hear committee testimony from stakeholders like the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, are a challenge. With proper scrutiny, we get better bills. We get better legislation that does not need corrections to be brought in, and we are able to expose corruption, conflict of interest and wasteful spending when it happens.
Second, to my colleagues on the government side, the take-it-or-leave-it approach we saw earlier needs to end. We see that when we have reasonable ideas, work better in collaboration and do not bring these bills up at the last minute and say to take it or leave it in a rushed manner, we can actually get better scrutiny, better bills and better confidence from Canadians on the things we are presenting.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak here today and I look forward to hearing questions and comments from my colleagues, as always.
