Bill C-9 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy and Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy)

This enactment amends the Income Tax Act to revise the eligibility criteria, as well as the level of subsidization, under the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) as part of the response to the coronavirus disease 2019. It also extends the CEWS to June 30, 2021. The enactment further amends the Income Tax Act to introduce the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS) in order to support those hardest hit by the coronavirus disease 2019. This subsidy provides relief in respect of rent and interest on debt obligations incurred to acquire real property used by businesses, charities and not-for-profit organizations in the course of their businesses or other activities. The rent subsidy is effective as of September 27, 2020.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy and Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy), as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

There are three motions in amendment standing on the Notice Paper for the report stage of Bill C-9.

The Chair will not select Motions Nos. 2 and 3, since they require royal recommendation.

The remaining motion has been examined and the Chair is satisfied that it meets the guidelines expressed in the note to the Standing Order 76.1(5), regarding the selection of motions in amendment at report stage.

Motion 1 will be debated and voted upon.

I will now put Motion No. 1 to the House.

Motion in Amendment

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

moved:

That Bill C-9, in Clause 2, be amended

(a) by adding after line 34 on page 3 the following:

“(5.1) The definition eligible entity in subsection 125.7(1) of the Act is amended by striking out “(entité déterminée)” at the end of paragraph (f) and by adding the following after that paragraph:

It does not include a political party within the meaning of subsection 2(1) of the Canada Elections Act or of any Act of the legislature of a province relating to provincial, municipal or school board elections. (entité déterminée)”

(b) by replacing line 20 on page 14 with the following:

“(23) Subsections (1) to (10), except subsection (5.1), and subsections (14) to (17) are”

(c) by replacing line 35 on page 14 with the following:

“(24) Subsections (5.1), (11) to (13) and (18) to (22) are”

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the House that the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-9 and is in favour of passing it quickly.

We had several opportunities this week to share our reasons for this. The bill extends the Canada emergency wage subsidy in order to give businesses more security, which is something that we have been calling for for a long time. We have also been calling for the creation of a program that provides businesses with real assistance with their fixed costs, and the Canada emergency rent subsidy meets that need.

However, there is a still a problem with this bill that dates back to the initial bill to create the wage subsidy that was introduced in the spring, and that is the fact that the political parties can apply for the program.

The wage subsidy is an emergency program designed to respond to an emergency. We are in the midst of a pandemic and some businesses were or still are being forced to scale back their operations or even close. In order to stabilize the economy, we are asking taxpayers, through their taxes and future debt load, to collectively support these businesses and help them survive the pandemic.

If we have learned one thing from the field of economics over the past century, it is that it is better to go into debt and pay more to support the economic fabric in times of crisis, since that is the lesser of the evils.

Why are millionaire political parties availing themselves of the wage subsidy when, even in 2020, they are still able to raise millions and millions of dollars through their funding mechanisms?

An article by Catherine Lévesque in The Canadian Press reports that the Liberal Party has received more than $1.25 million through the wage subsidy program. However, in 2020 alone, the Liberal Party has managed to raise nearly $9 million in political contributions. The year is not even over yet, and we know that November and December are generally important months for filling the coffers.

Was the program intended for political parties? In my opinion, no. Is this a serious ethical breach? In my opinion, yes. Why? Because if we look at the legislation that created the wage subsidy, political parties are not listed and even seem to be excluded.

Even so, the Liberal Party opted to apply, and the Canada Revenue Agency chose to say yes and give it the funding. That is unacceptable. It is deeply unethical.

I therefore call on the Liberal Party and all parties in the House to vote in favour of the amendment to close that loophole, clarify the scope of the bill and send a message that those actions were contrary to the spirit of the act. I am also asking the Liberal Party and all parties that received money from the wage subsidy to pay it all back. It is a matter of principle. It is not up to taxpayers in Quebec and Canada to fund political parties through the wage subsidy.

According to the act that created the wage subsidy, an “eligible entity” can be a corporation or trust. Is the Liberal Party a business whose activities are intended to enrich it? Maybe that is how it qualified for the wage subsidy.

Item (b) of the definition of “eligible entity” indicates “an individual”. Clearly, the Liberal Party is not a person or an individual.

Is it then “a registered charity”? I say no. However, if we expand this definition to include crony judges or Liberal cronies winning contracts, like the directors of WE Charity or the former member for Pierrefonds—Dollard, who was awarded an untendered contract to produce medical ventilators at twice the price when he has never made them before, then we could say that the Liberal Party is charitable with its friends. However, serving the public does not seem to be its objective.

The definition then indicates at item (d), “a person that is exempt from tax under”. Here it is referring to unions such as farmers' unions, which the Liberal Party is not, obviously.

Item (e) reads as follows: “a partnership, all of the members of which are described in this paragraph”. This is known as a limited partnership.

Is the Liberal Party a limited partnership? Their experience is in sponsorship, not partnership. In any case, once again, it does not apply. That is what the amendment specifies. It clarifies that political parties, within the meaning of the Canada Elections Act or similar provincial legislation, are not eligible entities. That closes the loophole.

To access the wage subsidy, there must be a 30% drop in the average revenue for January, February and March. A political party can easily meet that requirement by delaying fundraising by one month in order to qualify. Just because we are in a pandemic does not mean that the cupboard is bare. There is approximately $9 million in the Liberal Party's coffers. They have the money. It is a millionaire party that is continuing to raise funds.

The other criterion for the wage subsidy is to compare a given month in 2020 with the same month in 2019. The year 2019 was an election year. All political scientists know very well that during an election year, every party tries to raise more money. Therefore, it was only natural that revenues in 2020 would be lower than in 2019, and not because of the pandemic.

Why should taxpayers, people who are struggling right now, working-class people who pay their taxes, who are in debt and who are having a hard time making ends meet, be asked to make an extra effort to support millionaire parties? This should not even be a question. This is another dirty trick to warp the spirit of the bill in order to make a buck at the expense of taxpayers. That is not why we were elected to the House. We must vote in favour of this amendment.

I believe that the state should provide public financing to political parties, as it did before. When Jean Chrétien was looking for a way out of the sponsorship scandal, he decided that each political party would receive a small amount of money for each vote received. This was intended to cut down on shenanigans and shell games. It was an attempt to put less emphasis on money and to avoid putting parties that defend the interests of the wealthy at an advantage. The point was to improve democracy.

This worthy measure was unfortunately eliminated, and the Bloc Québécois has since been calling for it to be reinstated. That is how it is done in Quebec and in the majority of western democracies. It is obviously less common among Anglo-Saxons, and that culture surely had an influence on this Parliament's decision. The idea of public financing is to level the playing field and support each party based on the number of votes it received.

Letting political parties receive the wage subsidy does not level the playing field. It actually increases disparities because the parties that get the most money will hire the most people and will therefore receive more wage subsidies. This creates an imbalance that is unacceptable.

The Bloc Québécois is not against the principle of public financing, but we are absolutely against the notion of warping the spirit of the wage subsidy bill by claiming that they gave it a shot and got it. This is unacceptable and needs to be fixed. That is the purpose of this amendment. I urge all political parties in the House that accessed the wage subsidy to pledge to immediately pay back the money they received. It is a matter of honour.

[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]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member that there is a principle here. The principle is that there are thousands of businesses across our country that have issues related to the pandemic. The government developed a wage subsidy program and, through that program, hundreds of thousands of jobs have been saved in all regions of our country.

The Bloc wants to try to create a scandal of sorts. In the election, members of the Bloc party beefed up their expenses in order to get larger rebates. That is something that I would suggest is scandalous. With hindsight, I wonder if the member would agree that it was wrong of the Bloc party to do that.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am outraged by what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons said.

Quite frankly, we are not the ones who tried to create a scandal with the wage subsidy. It is the Liberal Party that is not playing by the rules and not acting in an ethical manner above all suspicion. It put its hands in the cookie jar, betraying the spirit of the law. Why is the member accusing the Bloc Québécois of beefing up election expenses to get a larger rebate?

During the last election, the Bloc Québécois was not sure whether it would be entitled to have its election expenses reimbursed, unlike the Liberal Party. If members look at the expenses per riding, they can see that the Bloc's expenses are actually far below those of the Liberal Party and Conservative Party candidates. The Bloc Québécois follows the election rules and the ethics rules. That is why, from the start, we said that we would not apply for the wage subsidy, even if the other parties were doing so. In our opinion, that is unacceptable. We did not want to play that little game.

Quite frankly, I am outraged by what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons said.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, speaking of election campaigns, I would like to know what my colleague thinks of duplication, which means being paid twice for the same thing. The money they got from the wage subsidy goes in the kitty for the campaign. Then they spend it on the campaign and get reimbursed.

What are my colleague's thoughts on that? Is that not scandalous?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue for his comment.

It is a big problem, actually. According to the Bloc Québécois's House leader, the member for La Prairie, what is happening now is double dipping. They collected $1.25 million from the wage subsidy. That helps the party because they can use the money to fund their next election campaign. Once the money is spent, Elections Canada reimburses half of it. In this case, that adds up to about $2 million.

I am calling on the government, the Liberal Party, to pledge to pay back the wage subsidy. It was not entitled to that money and it needs to do the right thing.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his work.

Yesterday in the House I had the chance to ask the President of the Treasury Board questions about Bill C-9. He admitted that the wage subsidy was meant for people with urgent, pressing needs, as my colleague said earlier. He also admitted that recipients cannot double dip. For example, a restaurant cannot receive the same subsidy twice for the same location.

Then I mentioned that the Liberal Party was not in that situation, but it received the same amount twice, as my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue just said.

Is this a double standard that applies to the Liberal government? In this case, the government is both judge and jury.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Manicouagan for her intervention.

To begin with, I commend my colleague because successfully getting an answer from the President of the Treasury Board in the House is no small feat. He is good at congratulating the member on his or her question, but he never answers with anything concrete. I congratulate and pay tribute to the hon. member.

Now I will get to the subject at hand.

Under this program, the public will pay taxes and go into debt. The public knows that a crisis is gripping the economy and that we must all pull together to get through it. However, what are we seeing here? We see the government acting in its own interest. The governing party drafts the legislation then puts its hands in the cookie jar behind closed doors. As my colleagues have noted, it will then get paid a second time through election rebates. It is unethical. The government has lost the public trust. According to a poll from June, the government has even lost the confidence of Liberal voters.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the government's plan to support businesses and the economic recovery in response to COVID-19.

Since the beginning of this pandemic, the government has had two main goals: to protect the lives of Canadians, and to protect and preserve Canada's businesses, jobs and economy. In the face of an uncertain economic situation, our government took decisive action to support businesses affected by COVID-19 and to help protect the jobs that Canadians depend on.

While some sectors of the economy are recovering, others are still struggling with declining revenues, increased costs and uncertainty because of the pandemic. Many entrepreneurs and businesses in Canada still need help with cash flow and operating costs. That is why our government introduced an act to amend the Income Tax Act with respect to the Canada emergency rent subsidy and Canada emergency wage subsidy.

Bill C-9 would implement new targeted supports to help hard-hit businesses. These measures are designed to help businesses get through the second wave of the virus so that they can protect jobs, continue to serve their communities and be positioned for a strong recovery.

From very early on in the first wave of the pandemic, it was overwhelmingly clear that one of the most important ways to help businesses survive these trying times was through rental supports. Many Canadian businesses either had to shut down for months on end or lost a significant percentage of their revenues, yet still had to pay their landlords.

That is why our government quickly responded and developed a program: the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program, or CECRA, to help businesses with rent so that they could stay afloat during the pandemic. One of the problems with this program was that it required landlords to apply for assistance, rather than the businesses themselves.

Businesses reached out to me when this program was announced to let me know that, while they needed the rental support in order to make it through, their landlords refused to apply for the program. They were being forced to pay full rent amounts with almost no revenues. As much as I tried my absolute best to help my constituents and the businesses in my riding asking for help or trying to access programs, I had no idea what to tell these people. They were at the mercy of their landlords.

I raised the issue at caucus, as did many of my colleagues, and we were very happy to see that the government listened. Our comments were listened to, and the new and improved version is being discussed today: the Canada emergency rent subsidy. We are proposing to provide an easy to access commercial rent and mortgage program until June 2021 to organizations and businesses affected by COVID-19, with a subsidy of up to 65%.

The new rent subsidy follows the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program, which targets small businesses and has already helped more than 133,000 such businesses and supported 1.2 million jobs in Canada. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been working closely with small businesses. The new rent subsidy will be better targeted and easier to access. On top of that, it will be paid directly to small business tenants.

What would this look like in real terms for Canadian businesses? Let us consider a hair salon owner, for example, who followed public health safety precautions and closed to the public in March or April. They then opened during the summer as they were allowed to serve the public at a much lower capacity, and limited the number of customers in order to follow social distancing rules.

In Quebec, they had been given permission to remain open until further notice and were open during the months of September and October. Let us say that in October the revenues were down 25% compared with last year. On top of this, they incurred $2,500 in eligible rent costs for the first period of their rent subsidy. For this period, thanks to the new Canada emergency rent subsidy, they would be eligible for a rent subsidy of 20%. However, we know that not all businesses have been able to remain open.

The Speech from the Throne underscored our commitment to providing direct financial support to businesses that had to temporarily close their doors by order of local public health authorities. We are following up on this commitment by also proposing lockdown support, which would provide an additional subsidy of 25% for organizations required to temporarily close their doors as a result of an order issued by an eligible public health authority.

This support would be on top of the Canada emergency rent subsidy, which could cover up to 65% of rent, resulting in a total subsidy of up to 90%.

Take, for example, a chain of restaurants that saw its revenues down by 70% in September, and then 80% when six of its 10 locations were shut down under a regional public health order effective October 1. If this chain of restaurants incurred rent costs of $400,000 for the eligible period, $120,000 of which related to the six locations closed by the public health order, then under the rent subsidy the chain would be eligible for a base subsidy rate of up to 65%, plus the new lockdown support of up to 25% with respect to the six locations closed by the public health order, for the days that they were affected. The base subsidy would apply a benefit of $195,000 and the lockdown support would be $16,071, for a total rent subsidy of $211,071 for the month of October. This would go a long way in helping the chain of restaurants cover its total of $400,000 for 10 locations, of which more than half were significantly impacted by closures due to public health orders.

In addition to this assistance for fixed costs such as rent, employers can also apply for the Canada emergency wage subsidy to keep their employees on the payroll. The subsidy will also encourage them to rehire workers they have laid off, which will put them in a better position to prepare for a strong economic recovery.

The Canada emergency wage subsidy has supported more than 3.8 million Canadian employees. More than $45 billion has been disbursed under this program.

Throughout the summer, my colleagues and I heard from witnesses at the industry, science and technology committee. One of the very clear messages was that the wage subsidy had to be extended in order for businesses to keep their employees on the payroll.

The extension of the Canada emergency wage subsidy until June 2021 proposed by the government in this bill will continue to protect jobs by helping businesses keep their employees on the payroll and by encouraging employers to rehire their workers. What is more, the wage subsidy will remain at the current rate of up to 65% of eligible wages until at least December 19, 2020.

This extension is part of the government's commitment to create more than one million jobs and restore employment to pre-pandemic levels.

Our government continues to assess the impacts of COVID—19. These programs are built to be flexible in order to help the businesses that have been hardest hit. As circumstances improve, the level of help will decrease, and as circumstances get worse, more support will be given to businesses and organizations.

As we have said since the start of this crisis, we are ready to take additional actions when needed. That is why I would encourage all members in the House to put the immediate needs of Canadians and businesses first, and support Bill C-9.

Canadian businesses need this new rent subsidy and the extension of the wage subsidy to get through the crisis. This bill will enable us to help them.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would be curious to know how my colleague defines fixed costs.

When will the federal government create a real program to respond to needs related to fixed costs?

Quebec has taken action on fixed costs, namely by including commercial rent, municipal and school taxes, interest on mortgage loans, hydro and gas fees, insurance, telecommunication costs, licences and association fees in those costs. Why is Canada not providing assistance as effective as that provided by Quebec?

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue for his question.

I would say this bill is a great start. Fixed costs include rent, and we are helping businesses pay their rent. We are also helping them pay their employees' salaries. I think supporting this legislation is a step in the right direction.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned the number of phone calls she received at the beginning of the pandemic, when so many businesses were hurting because of the way the CECRA came out and because of some of its restrictions. She indicated that she had spoken to the government, just like I believe everybody on these opposition benches did as well, but it still took six months for it to respond. This was brought out on April 24, 2020. We are talking about the beginning of December before this unfolds, and we see businesses closing now.

What does she have to say regarding the delay by the government in bringing these changes?

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the government did act and responded accordingly. When it comes to rent, this is the jurisdiction of the provinces in most cases. There was a lot of red tape around this program in the beginning.

I am really glad to see that we have come a long way and that we will be offering assistance directly to businesses as of now.

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

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague identified so many reasons why the commercial rent assistance program needed to be fixed.

I appreciate her advocacy within her caucus, but what I do not understand is that the Liberals rejected our amendment today to backdate the program to April 1 for those who could not get rent support because their landlord would not apply. We appreciate the Liberals making this a tenant-driven program, but why would they not backdate it for the six months to allow those who were excluded from the design-flawed program to apply to get the support?

I hope the member can actually answer the question. The Liberals talk about moving forward, but she knows very well that the debt moves forward for those small businesses that did not get the help they needed. They closed their doors for public health. They need government support.

Will the member go back to her caucus and advocate for it to backdate the program?

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, of course it has been a very difficult time for all businesses across Canada or at least for the majority of them. We know we are not anywhere near the end of this pandemic. We know that businesses will continue to need our help in the months to come, and perhaps in the years to come.

I am glad we have made progress, and I will keep advocating for more supports to businesses. I am sure everybody in our caucus will do so. As time goes on, we will continue to provide the help as needed.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Mr. Speaker, I hear the opposition party members speaking to this program, but I am curious about the member's thoughts on the safe restart program of $19 billion, including $2 billion that was added to it for schools. This is part of the way in which the provincial governments have responded.

Is it surprising that the opposition members do not give credit to the federal government when the provincial governments spend our money to make these programs a reality?

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the federal government has taken huge steps to support Canadians and their businesses. Using Quebec as an example, they were very late to respond and to offer help.

Many of my constituents were saying that the only help they were receiving was from the federal government. I am honestly proud of our government's response to the pandemic and of the supports it has offered to businesses and Canadians in general. I know we will continue to be there to support Canadians.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House will be supporting Bill C-9, a bill that will be providing rent subsidies to Canada's small business community.

Quite frankly, this is a welcome bill although it has many flaws in its history. Over six months ago our party was encouraging the Liberal government to adopt many of the amendments and changes to this program. Unfortunately, at that time, our pleas for amendments and changes fell on deaf ears. Primarily, I think it is because the Liberal government does not understand the plight of small businesses.

On the Conservative side, we most certainly understand. I know, for example, many small businesses in my province of Saskatchewan are not only struggling, they are on the verge of bankruptcy primarily because of the pandemic. There is no question about that. I am not trying to sugar-coat this by saying the program the Liberals brought in was a flawed program. It was brought in during a time when the pandemic was first rearing its ugly head across Canada.

I appreciate the fact that the Liberals acted quickly. They acted quickly with the CERB. They acted quickly with the rent subsidy program, however, it was flawed. What we have been doing consistently since that time is trying to point out, not only to the Liberal government but to Canadians, where the flaws are in this program and encourage the government to make positive changes to help small businesses across Canada.

I will give credit where credit is due. Although six months too late, the government actually did make some positive changes that will help small businesses across Canada.

Initially, as many Canadians and many small business owners know, the restrictions placed upon them were too onerous. The uptake of the initial program was less than 10%, primarily because the program was designed to go through landlords rather than directly to tenants. Because of that, many landlords chose not to apply. Therefore, their tenants, the small business owners or leaseholders, were left in a very uncomfortable position, because their landlords would not apply for the rent subsidy program. That way it left the small business owners, who had to pay rent on a monthly basis, in a position where they were offered no relief whatsoever. That was almost untenable.

Now, however, there have been some positive changes and, as I said earlier in my remarks, I applaud the government for doing so. However, let us take a look back, a short brief view of the history to see exactly how we came from the initial bill that was introduced by the government six months ago to today's debate on Bill C-9.

As I mentioned, initially the government proposed that this rent subsidy program would be designed in such a way that landlords would have to apply. If they were successful in their application, then they would be the ones who would offer rent relief to their tenants. While some people may say that sounded like a reasonable approach, in reality it was anything but, as evidenced by the fact that less than 10% of landlords actually made application.

What should have been done initially is what the government has finally done in the current Bill C-9, and that is to offer rent relief directly to tenants so that those most affected by revenue drops and revenue losses will be able to gain relief and some financial assistance.

Initially, not only did the government fail to see that, it chose a very onerous and bureaucratic way in which to deliver this program. Initially the government decided that CMHC should be the delivery mechanism to bring this program into the pocketbooks of small business owners across Canada. However, CMHC was simply not designed to administer such a program, and that was discovered very early on in the process. Then the government doubled back and decided that if CMHC was not the way to deliver this program, it would find another way, and it came up with MCAP. MCAP is a mortgage insurance and financing company that the government determined, for whatever reasons, would be appropriate to deliver this program to small business owners.

However, shortly thereafter it was discovered that one of the principals of MCAP was a gentleman by the name of Rob Silver. In fact, he is a vice-president of that company and very influential because he is married to the current Prime Minister's chief of staff.

Anyone with any knowledge of how governments work would recognize that this was a complete conflict of interest. Here we had an individual, Mr. Rob Silver, who had been a spokesperson for the Liberal Party on many occasions over many years, now contracted by the government to deliver a program that would assist his company. That is absolutely a blatant conflict of interest that should have been obvious to anyone, anyone except, of course, the Liberal government.

However, we should not be surprised. We have seen conflicts of interest arise so many times before with the Liberal government. Whether it be the Prime Minister accepting gratuitous gifts to the Aga Khan's island or whether it be the Prime Minister embroiled in the WE Charity scandal, we have discovered time and time again that the ethical compass of the government has long been missing. The delivery of the government contract to MCAP is one more example of that ethical wrongdoing.

Thankfully, however, saner voices were heard and MCAP was removed from the bidding to deliver this program. The government avoided another messy ethical conflict that would have proved to be incredibly disappointing and embarrassing for the government. It finally took our advice and gave the administration of this program to CRA, which is where it should have been delivered in the first place. CRA has proven, through its administration of CERB and many other government delivery programs, to be the most effective mechanism that the government has at its disposal. Therefore, we are to a point now where, I think, the government has finally got it close to being right, but it is still not perfect.

What this has done over the past six months is demonstrate to small business owners that the government, despite the Liberals' protestations, does not in fact have their backs. If they had the back of small business owners, the Liberals would have employed the changes that we had suggested long ago.

Let us make no mistake. The small business owners across Canada are in an untenable position. Many of them, for example in the restaurant industry, are facing a reality that once rent and wage subsidies expire, come the summer of 2021, they may be forced to close their doors. In fact, many independent analyses have been done and have shown that over 60% of restaurants could be shuttered permanently unless these temporary wage subsidies are extended. Whether that will happen, I do not know.

We need many things to combat this pandemic. I believe, in all sincerity, that the government is working as hard as it can to try to find a vaccine, and I hope a vaccine is found because the lives of Canadians are at stake. The economy of Canadians is at stake.

The small business community in our country is the backbone of the Canadian economy. Small businesses have to be protected. They have to be given an opportunity, as they would be given with Bill C-9, to be able to tap into the government largesse and, at least for the foreseeable future, see a light at the end of the tunnel.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of his speech, the hon. member was starting to head down a path where we could see a bit more information coming from him; that the landlord tenant acts are under provincial jurisdiction. The federal government looked initially at doing something through CMHC to get relief to landlords as well as tenants at the same time. As a member of Parliament, I work with landlords and tenants who are both facing revenue drops during this crisis. I was able to connect landlords and tenants to federal support through CMHC.

Could the hon. member comment on how Saskatchewan is structured with respect to landlord-tenant agreements being under provincial jurisdiction. In Ontario, 97% of funding has been coming from the federal government. Is the Province of Ontario doing any better providing support for businesses in his province?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I believe my colleague misspoke when he asked if I could make comment on whether the Province of Ontario was better positioned, as it was actually the Province of Saskatchewan.

I am speaking, holistically, about the fact that small business owners across Canada, regardless of region, need support. They desperately need support. I can assure my hon. friend that small business owners in Saskatchewan are no different than small business owners in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia and right across this great country of ours.

They are not looking for handouts. They are just looking for a level playing field that allows them to be able to put food on the table for their families, operate a business, and be able to walk home each month with pride to their families and say that their business is still alive and operating.

That is the purpose of Bill C-9, and for that we offer our unqualified support, but it has taken far too long to get to this point.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the commercial rent subsidy program was flawed when it was first introduced because only landlords could apply. As a result, many small businesses, including those in Vancouver East, were not able to access this support.

Now, with the new program, the Minister of Finance yesterday said it would only be retroactive back to September 27, not to April 1. Consequently, many small businesses would not be able to qualify under this new program. It is not as though they do not have to carry that debt forward from the first wave.

Does the member agree that the government needs to fix this program once and for all and allow for small businesses to apply for this program retroactively to April 1?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with my hon. colleague that this program was flawed from the outset. Mistakes were made by the government and not rectified for a full six months. I believe that most small business owners in Canada would love to see a retroactive aspect to this bill, so that going back to April 1 they would be able to have taken advantage of the current provisions within Bill C-9.

However, I do not believe the government is going to be listening to that or acting upon that, although I would encourage my friend from Vancouver East to keep pressuring the government. Perhaps we will see some relenting in its approach in the future.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my hon. colleague could tell me if I am understanding him correctly.

We were not able to get this done properly the first time, we were told, because it was provincial. Now, suddenly, we can do it federally, and is that because the wife of the man in charge of MCAP actually wanted to make sure it went through his organization?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my earlier remarks, yes I believe this was a huge conflict of interest. Initially, the government was considering giving this contract to administer the rent subsidy program to MCAP, a company that had direct ties to the Prime Minister's Office.

This delivery mechanism would have benefited MCAP directly. We have a situation where Mr. Silver, on many occasions, directly lobbied the federal government and had complete access to the Prime Minister's Office because of his relationship to the Prime Minister's chief of staff, who is his wife.

This was morally repugnant, quite frankly. When I say it was an obvious breach of the conflict of interest code in Canada, that is an understatement.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a huge privilege to speak on this bill and also to be able to represent the federal NDP as a critic for small business, tourism and economic development.

Before I get started, I do want to give a huge shout-out to someone special in my life, my mom. It is her birthday. I appreciate the round of applause in the House of Commons.

Speaking about my mom is so relevant today because moms are really so important, as we know, in times of crisis. We see them bringing food to a neighbour if they have been sick, or if they see an injustice in the community, they are the first to rise up.

In times of desperation, when people are in difficult times and in crisis during this pandemic, we expect our government to really take that motherly approach, so it is so relevant that it is my mom's birthday today and we are talking about this important bill. People expect the government to take that “mother bear” approach and make sure that everybody is taken care of and looked after. That is something I appreciate about moms, not just my mom, but moms across this country. We expect our government to take that approach.

Sadly, when this crisis broke out, we saw the government step forward with an initial wage subsidy offering 10%, which was clearly not close to adequate. We saw Ireland, the U.K. and Denmark offering wage subsidies between 70% and 80%. With our pressure, working beyond the normal means of lobbying and advocacy, we worked together with organized labour, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Our party, our leader and I signed a letter calling on the government to raise that wage subsidy. We were glad to see them do that.

My colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby brought forward a proposal to bring forward a commercial rent program, similar to what they were doing in Australia. I know the government likes to say that it is difficult in the federation of Canada to be able to take on issues like rent, but other countries were able to do that. They were able to work collaboratively to bring forward programs to help people.

Today we are really glad to see the government come back with a fix when it comes to the commercial rent assistance program and extending the wage subsidy, but there are still a lot of unknowns, such as the wage subsidy and what it will look like moving into the new year. We know that for tourism and hospitality businesses, certainty is so important.

I want to give a huge shout-out to Charlotte Bell, of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, and Keith Henry, from the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada, for their advocacy in calling on the government to extend that wage subsidy.

However, these businesses need certainty, not just on the wage subsidy, but also around financing programs such as the BCAP program, which only 14% of tourism businesses have actually been successful in receiving financing from and 43% have been flat out denied. We know liquidity is going to be a big issue.

These are a lot of issues that have not been addressed. I am going to get into the importance of the government working with everybody, especially during this pandemic.

My big concern is the disconnect of the government not completely understanding the challenges small businesses are facing. We heard last night from the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance that the government is not willing to support our motion, which they flat out denied today, to backdate the commercial rent assistance program to April.

It baffles me that the government understands it had designed a flawed program and admits it made a mistake, which it is willing to fix it here today, moving forward, but it will not backdate it to April 1. By not doing so, there is a serious injustice going on. We heard the Deputy Prime Minister say that the government is forward-thinking, but the debt comes forward for all of those tenants who were denied access to the landlord-driven, flawed program. Basically, many people were not even able to apply because their landlords would not participate. Two-thirds of Canadian businesses were excluded from that program.

This is so unfair because many of these business owners were denied, although their neighbour got access to the program. They will also be responsible, like all Canadians, to paying back the debt that we are accumulating to help save small businesses in this country.

The fact that the Liberal are unable to backdate the program shows the disconnect. It shows they do not understand the debt that these businesses are accumulating and the challenges they are facing. While they talk about being equitable, there is nothing equitable about them not backdating their broken and flawed program.

The Liberals were actually threatening to go to an election without providing these emergency supports, and then there was the delay. Here we are on the final day of three weeks of sitting before a break week fast-tracking legislation to get help to people. It just shows that the government really does not understand how serious this issue is for small businesses.

Many small businesses are watching today. Many of them are steeped in debt or are in arrears with their landlords. They are looking today to see if the government is actually going to backdate the program, or if they are going to have to go file for bankruptcy, because that is what many businesses are looking at.

I remember being self-employed in the 2008 recession, and that does not even pale in comparison to today. I remember the injustice of the government of the day, the Harper government, bailing out the big banks and big corporations and leaving small businesses to hang out to dry. This is unacceptable. We need the government to move much more quickly.

I want to thank so many different groups, but I particularly want to identify one. Savesmallbusiness.ca identified really important opportunities, solutions and flaws in the program. It advocated for rent relief and for the government to fix the program. It identified that there were huge problems such as a slow rollout, over-complicated paperwork and banks being let off the hook. It also identified that the government failed to bring in help.

We look at other countries such as Australia, for example, which commissioned a group of business leaders quickly to come together from various sectors to provide help. The government here also did not listen to real people on the ground and put away the hammer to bring out the scalpel. It needs to listen to people on the ground when it deals with these issues.

As well, the government did not demand more from the financial industry. We saw the big banks once again get off the hook from doing the right thing of contributing and participating.

There are so many things we saw with the rollout of the commercial rent assistance program, including assigning the contract to administer the contract to MCAP, with $84 million for a broken design program.

What breaks my heart is seeing and reading stories about places like the Golestan Bakery in Vancouver. It has been running for 23 years, and it has just been evicted by its landlord. This what we are going to continue to see. This injustice is going to be carried on by the Liberals, who are refusing to fix this program.

I have to give a huge shout-out to all the small businesses that reached out to my office, and to MPs across this country, to organize labour to come together and stand in solidarity with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the local chambers of commerce. As I said, savesmallbusiness.ca, Startup Canada, various business organizations, indigenous organizations that were initially excluded from the subsidy because it excluded indigenous-led organizations, and Chief Dennis from Huu-ay-aht, have all stood together.

Here I am rising for the 40th time since the pandemic broke out to speak on small businesses and the commercial rent assistance issue, and it is bittersweet. I am glad to see the changes, but we need to save those businesses that are steeped in debt, in arrears and need help. I am urging and begging the government to get on board, and I am asking the Conservatives to also get on board in pressuring the government to force it to create an opportunity for those who were excluded get access to the funding they so deserve.

I appreciate the opportunity to raise these issues.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni will have five minutes for questions and comments when the House next gets back to debate on the question.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy and Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy), as reported (without amendment) from the committee, and of the motion.

Income Tax Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech given by my colleague from Courtenay—Alberni.

There are some things we agree on but others we do not.

The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-9. We think that the criteria for the Canada emergency wage subsidy should have been changed well before this in order to ensure greater stability.

With regard to the commercial rent assistance program, we already knew in May that it would not work. At the time, I called upon the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry to make changes to that program, but it was easier for the government to shut down Parliament and prorogue than to change a program that we knew was ineffective from the start. Access to commercial rent assistance was on a voluntary basis.

My colleague from Courtenay—Alberni and I do not agree when it comes to political parties being able to receive the wage subsidy. We are trying to understand how on earth it is fair that political party employees are protected from being laid off when employees of other businesses that are suffering greatly are not. These businesses are on the verge of collapse too, and it is very difficult for them.

It is outrageous that the Conservative Party, which raised $13 million from its supporters in three quarters, collected close to $1 million from the emergency wage subsidy. The Liberals also took in $1.2 million in public funds from the emergency wage subsidy, and they raised $8.6 million from their supporters.

The NDP cashed in on the emergency wage subsidy starting in May. In June, we learned that the NDP would be getting about $60,000 per month. Yesterday, November 5, reporters asked the NDP how much money it would be getting. They did not get an answer.

My question is simple. Does my colleague support the Bloc Québécois's amendment to make the emergency wage subsidy off-limits for political parties?

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

Mr. Speaker, we are all in this together, and I agree with my colleague that the delay in the rollout was absolutely horrible. So many people were let go from their jobs, whether they were working at a non-profit or charitable organization, a small business or even a political organization.

What we all set out to do was to make sure that we did not discriminate against anyone, wherever they worked. It was for all workers and their families. Including in projects that the NDP has raised concerns about, we decided that we were supporting all workers and their families to make sure that they had job security and also that they were not disconnected from their benefits. People were absolutely scared and they have been scared throughout this whole pandemic.

We would be absolute hypocrites to abandon staff, regardless of whether they work for the NDP or for a local charity or whatever. We cannot pick and choose. We have to support workers. Those are the values of our political party. We will support all workers to ensure that they get the support they need throughout this pandemic.

That is why we have been consistent in not being vocal and speaking out against anyone getting support. Everybody should get treated equally throughout this pandemic and very difficult time.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, today, we are talking about how to support Canadians through the pandemic. As Remembrance Day approaches it is important to be thinking of our veterans.

I was shocked and outraged this morning to read that Whole Foods, a grocery chain owned by Amazon, was telling its employees they could not wear a poppy. I was particularly outraged by the lame excuse it offered that it was not in keeping with its uniform policy and seen to be supporting a cause. I think today in the House we saw all parties agree unanimously to motions calling Whole Foods onto the carpet for this ridiculous policy, because showing respect for the fallen and remembering the horrors of war is not a particular cause. That all-party support was good to see today on the floor of the House of Commons. I am wondering if my colleague would like to comment on that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for that important question, which is relevant to today's debate.

The whole reason we have democratic institutions, this opportunity to talk about helping Canadians and the freedoms we enjoy is because of the sacrifices made by Canada's military and RCMP veterans and their families. For Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon and Whole Foods, to direct his employees and prohibit them from honouring our veterans, which is sacred to Canadians and important to our value system, is absolutely appalling and shameful.

I hope the Minister of Veterans Affairs or the Minister of Industry calls Jeff Bezos and asks him to apologize to his employees, all Canadians and especially to all military and RCMP veterans and their families, because that is what he needs to do immediately. No one should be prohibited from standing up and honouring the very people who have put their lives on the line and made sacrifices for our democracy and freedoms.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am joining members virtually from the traditional unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation.

It is an honour and privilege to speak here today on behalf of the constituents of Nanaimo—Ladysmith.

As we watched the COVID-19 pandemic unfold across this planet, this Parliament came to the realization that we needed to take drastic action in Canada to avoid a severe outbreak here. Our first priority was to protect the lives of Canadians, particularly those among us who are most vulnerable to succumbing to this virus: seniors, people with disabilities and people who are marginalized.

From the start of the pandemic, the Green Party suggested that we look at the measures other countries were taking to limit the spread of the virus. In particular, I highlighted the situation in Taiwan and how it closed its borders and used masks and hand sanitizer to stop the spread of the virus. At the beginning of the outbreak, Taiwan was in the top 10 of countries affected by COVID-19. Those simple technologies, masks and hand sanitizers, were very effective, and now Taiwan is ranked at 178th of the countries affected by COVID.

Unfortunately, we did not have the supplies of personal protective equipment we needed across the country for our health workers, never mind a supply of masks for Canadians. We were told by public health officials that masks were not an effective solution to slowing the pandemic. Thankfully, that advice has since changed.

Instead, the drastic action we took included a complete lockdown of our communities and our economy. We took the precautionary approach as we learned about the COVID-19 virus, and we put human lives ahead of money and our economy. We knew that we needed to limit the spread of the virus through social contacts.

As our economy shut down across Canada, we also knew that we needed to do everything we could to protect the workers who had to stay at home and the businesses that needed to lock their doors. As a Green Party MP, I pledged to my constituents that I would work across party lines to do what is best for my constituents and for Canadians, and as the pandemic unfolded in Canada, the Green Party caucus did exactly that. We stood proudly as members of team Canada and did everything we could to put the interests of Canadians first during the pandemic.

We put forward good ideas, such as the guaranteed livable income, to ensure that no citizen would be left in dire economic circumstances in which they could not pay their rent or mortgage, or could not put food on the table for themselves or their families. This is a program we have championed for over a decade, and we are happy to see other parties and MPs picking up on the idea. Unfortunately, the government has not adopted a guaranteed livable income. Instead, it has created a flawed, patchwork system to help individual Canadians.

My riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith is like many ridings across Canada. Small and medium-sized enterprises are the engine of our local economy. They employ almost 90% of the private-sector workers. These small and medium-sized businesses needed help to get through the economic crisis that was created by the lockdown. They needed help retaining their workers, paying their rent and covering the hard costs associated with running a business.

The Green Party caucus looked at what other countries were doing to deal with the economic fallout of the pandemic and how they protected their workers and businesses, and we put forward those ideas to the federal government. When the federal government first proposed a 10% wage subsidy, we, along with other MPs, said that was not good enough. We proposed the same 80% wage subsidy that Denmark had established. The government listened and increased the wage subsidy to 75%.

We heard from local businesses, chambers of commerce, business associations and the non-profit sector that businesses were going to need help paying their rent and covering the hard costs associated with running a business. We passed those concerns on to the government, and the government responded with programs such as the Canada emergency business account and the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. I commend the government for taking these actions, but just like the initial wage subsidy, there were serious flaws with these programs.

Green Party MPs, along with MPs from all the parties, heard from small and medium-sized businesses, including indigenous-owned businesses, that they were not eligible for the programs for one reason or another. The parameters were too tight and the gaps in the programs too large. There were many businesses in my riding that were not able to take advantage of these programs because they did not fit the criteria. Again, the government listened, and some much-needed changes were made, but there were still problems.

Many small businesses in my riding had serious problems trying to apply for the emergency business account. The big banks kept rejecting their applications based on weird technicalities. They then passed the buck to the CRA, which passed the buck back to the banks, leaving small businesses in a lurch with stressful uncertainties and feeling like ping-pong balls.

The rent subsidy program to help small businesses also had serious flaws because landlords had to apply for their business tenants. This ended up being onerous on landlords, who had to be responsible for the declarations of their tenants. Many small businesses were unable to take advantage of the program because their landlords were not willing to take part.

As a result, many small businesses have not been able to pay their rent, or have incurred serious debt in order to do so. The new rent relief program needs to be retroactive to April 1 to help those businesses that are surviving on a razor's edge.

There are business sectors that have been hit much harder than other sectors, in particular the tourism, hospitality and entertainment sectors. They have very little hope of recovering in the near term. These businesses need sector-specific support.

If we do not support these small businesses, the goods and services they provide will be swallowed up by multinational giants, and we will see the wealth and prosperity sucked out of our communities.

In my constituency of Nanaimo—Ladysmith, many businesses have not been able to make it through the pandemic. They have already closed their doors for good. At the same time, companies like Amazon are making money hand over fist as more Canadians shop online. It is clear that companies like Amazon need to pay their fair share of taxes in Canada and contribute to our government coffers to assist Canadians through this pandemic.

We have also seen how the extremely wealthy in this country have been making huge profits during this pandemic. The richest 20 billionaires in Canada increased their wealth by—

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, point of order. I am having trouble hearing my hon. colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith, and I do not want to miss a syllable, as he is so darn good.

[The Acting Speaker, Joël Godin]

I thank the hon. member for her remarks.

I would like to remind all members participating remotely to turn off their microphones so we do not hear all their conversations.

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

Mr. Speaker, the richest 20 billionaires in Canada increased their wealth by $37 billion in the first six months of the pandemic alone.

These billionaires clearly need to be paying their fair share of taxes. Their companies utilize the public infrastructure paid for with tax dollars, including the roads, bridges, law enforcement services, and sewage and water infrastructure. They benefit from the free education and health care their employees receive, and from the public transit their employees use to get to work.

We keep hearing that we are all in this together, but if we compare COVID-19 to a storm at sea, while it is true that we are all facing rough seas, some people are clinging to pallets without life jackets while others are in luxury liners. We have a growing wealth disparity in this country, and nowhere is it more apparent than in Nanaimo.

One can walk past a homeless camp on the way to the harbour to see Jim Pattison's 150-foot, $25-million yacht when it is docked for a visit. This yacht is almost as large as the coastal defence vessel, the HMCS Nanaimo, which also visits our port. This is obscene and ostentatious wealth.

It is time that Canada's ultrawealthy do their fair share to help Canadians during this pandemic. It is time for a wealth tax in Canada, and for taxes on extreme profits gleaned during the pandemic.

Interest rates are at a record low and Canada's big banks continue to make massive profits, but we have still not seen any relief in credit card interest rates, credit card charges or banking fees for Canadian small businesses or consumers. The big banks continue to fleece Canadians during this pandemic.

During the financial crisis in 2008, these same big banks received taxpayer-funded bailouts reported to be as high as $114 billion. It is time that Canada's big banks returned the favour and do their fair share to help Canadians during this pandemic. They need to reduce credit card interest and banking fees now. Throughout this pandemic, these have caused economic hardship.

The Green Party caucus has listened to constituents, local businesses, labour unions, chambers of commerce, organizations and associations. We are now in the second wave of this pandemic. We need to do all we can to ensure that our small businesses are protected as further measures are taken to ensure the most vulnerable members of our community are kept safe from this virus.

The Green Party supports this legislation, which introduces the new Canada emergency rent subsidy—

[The Acting Speaker, Joël Godin]

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[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]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is really important to emphasize that it appears all political entities in the House will be supporting the legislation. It is nice and encouraging to see that in terms of how important the two programs of the rent assistance and the wage subsidy, in particular, have been for our small businesses.

At the same time, we need to recognize that there is a suite of programs that have been introduced in the last eight months to support small businesses. When we take a look at this bill, it is a substantive piece of legislation that looks at modifications to programs that will ultimately continue to support entrepreneurs and small businesses in all regions of the country.

Could my colleague provide his thoughts of how important it is, when we take a look at the suite of programs, that we be flexible about making the changes that will continue to help our small businesses through the second wave and beyond?

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the suite of programs we have available for small businesses across the country, but we need more flexibility built into them. That is what we have been asking for all along.

As these programs have been introduced, we have seen problems with them. We have seen hard lines and parameters that make it difficult for many small businesses to eligible, so we have asked for the flexibility. Granted, the government has provided some flexibility in these programs and improved them. It is taking an awful long time, though.

The problem we are seeing with many small businesses in my community and in other communities is that this aid is coming too late for many of them. We need to figure out that issue, because people are losing their livelihoods and life savings. It is crucial that we provide support to people who have really poured their lives into their small businesses.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith for his words in support of small businesses and in support of making the wealthiest pay their fair share.

Like the member, I have heard from countless small businesses that are struggling, for which the wage subsidy was a lifeline. Many are now facing having their doors shut forever They cannot afford their rent, because they did not qualify for the flawed program put forward by the government.

This is a step in the right direction, but I am curious if the member agrees that these changes should be retroactive. Businesses that did not qualify for the rental subsidy, because their landlords did not participate, should get the same fair treatment as those businesses whose landlords participated before.

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

Mr. Speaker, I absolutely agree with the hon. member for Victoria. Yes, these programs should be retroactive. There are small businesses that did not get this rent subsidy because their landlords refused to apply. As I said, some small businesses have already shut down. It is too late for them, but others have racked up huge amounts of debt. Some of that is credit card debt that the banks have padded their wallets with. Again, we are seeing huge profits by big banks. If we do not protect these small businesses, we will have more multinationals taking care of the goods and services in our communities and sucking all of that wealth out of them and putting it offshore.

We absolutely need to protect our small businesses. These programs should be retroactive.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for standing up for small businesses as well.

Jon Shell of SaveSmallBusiness.ca gave quotes from people during this crisis. One person said, “I have so much fear. How will I feed my family?” Another person said, “I’ve stopped working to save lives, but am about to lose everything I’ve built.” Another stated, “This is scary as ... I have employees to pay. Kids to feed.” These businesses are still in the same situation. They need the rent program backdated to April.

Could the member talk about constituents in his riding who were prohibited from accessing the rent program because their landlords would not apply?

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Courtenay—Alberni because both of us are fighting for our local first nations businesses, owned and operated by first nations, to get their companies eligible for these programs as well: the wage subsidy and the business loans programs. I could provide a list of companies that were unable to get the help with the rent subsidy. I am sure the member has a list from his riding as well.

[The Acting Speaker, Joël Godin]

The hon. member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup on a point of order.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to know exactly how much time is left in this debate.

[The Acting Speaker, Joël Godin]

The debate ends at 1:30 p.m.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to stand today and speak to Bill C-9, an act to amend the Income Tax Act.

The legislation has three main components to it. The first is to create the Canada emergency rent subsidy, which would provide rent relief for qualifying businesses until June 2021. The second is to provide some lockdown supports, providing a top-up from the Canada emergency rent subsidy. The third is to extend the Canada wage subsidy until June 2021. All these pieces have been called for by the business community, as a whole, due to the conditions they are facing during this pandemic.

I will talk about some of the concerns the opposition had with the legislation. These things could have been dealt with had Parliament been sitting, as the opposition was calling for. Members may recall that the Conservatives were the only party consistently calling for the return of the House to deal with the hundreds of billions of dollars that were literally going out the door with little to no debate. Of course this caused some problems.

In the last rent program, in order for businesses to qualify, they to prove that had a 30% drop in revenue. That caused a number of problems. Obviously, a great number of businesses, mostly small business, had that hurt.

In part, this was due to provincial restrictions as they were told to lockdown. I will not even go into the side of the debate where the big box stores were allowed to stay open, many of which provided the same service small businesses provided. However, the mom and pop shops and stores on main street were told to lockdown and their employees were told to stay home. However, the big box stores continued to operate, most likely stealing some market share on top of what they already had and increasing their profits as a result, while almost breaking the backs of small business.

In order to qualify, businesses had to show that they had a 30% revenue drop during this pandemic. Obviously, some sectors are doing very well during this pandemic. Some sectors are hurting. What it did is it caused some businesses to watch that 30% line that had been drawn by the government. If a business earned $1 more, it would not qualify for that subsidy.

The other problems we had were that the initial rent subsidy only covered about 10% of businesses across the country, which left 90% of businesses without that coverage. If anyone needed more proof that this was a complete disaster, the Prime Minister initially gave control of this program to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which does residential mortgage insurance and not commercial rent. Incapable of running that program, the Crown corporation subcontracted that to a company whose vice- president was married to the Prime Minister 's chief of staff.

We have businesses that are hurting, trying to get by and figuring out a way through. They are being hampered because of problems with government legislation. As I have mentioned before, the House was not back in a meaningful fashion to debate these pieces of legislation.

Early on, we saw problems with the CERB. We had problems with the wage subsidy. When it first was announced, the government said someone would only get 10% of the initial wage subsidy. Thankfully, through opposition parties, business communities and stakeholders alike, they were able to raise that level. Other countries such as Germany already had upward of 70%.

These key pieces in the legislation should have been debated. However, Parliament was then prorogued. The Liberals said that they were so focused on looking at the programs and developing them. This was done basically in a silo because Parliament was not sitting and legislators were not allowed to debate in this place.

As we move forward, we need to talk about recovery and how we do that. Rapid testing is a key part. Rapid testing has been approved in numerous countries around the world. There are products available in the European Union and the United States, but not approved here in Canada. If we want to return our economy and give it the firepower it needs, without a cure, vaccine or treatment, tools like rapid testing are our path forward.

We can imagine tourism, which has been massively impacted. We can talk about local marathons or running events. Any event and any kind of travel has been severely impacted. Hotels are feeling it. Restaurants are feeling it. However, if people can get on an airplane knowing they can take a test and in a few minutes have their result, it is our path forward. They can know the results with confidence because a number of these tests have a higher accuracy rate than the swabs that are being done now. Anyone who has had a swab knows it is not the most pleasant feeling in the world. This is our path forward. If people want to go on a cruise ship, they could go with confidence, knowing that everyone was tested and everyone had a clean result, yet the government continues to drag its feet on this.

Yes, we are in a pandemic and yes, Canadians were told to stay at home, lock down and stay safe and we continue to do that. However, we also need to talk about those businesses that are able to reopen in a safe manner because, at the end of the day, outside of all the printing the government is doing of hundreds of billions of dollars out of thin air, we still need the tax revenue coming in to continue to spend into the future. If the businesses shut down, where is the government getting the money from? If people who are working in these businesses are unemployed, where does this money come from?

The simple truth through all of this is that if we want to ensure economic expansion as we move forward, and we talk about it all the time, we need to ensure that we are prepared for this.

A number of anchors within our economy, such as the oil and gas industry and the mining industry, have taken a hit because of the current government's policies. I can name a few: Bill C-69 and the tanker ban. I could go on and on. We have, coming up, the clean fuel standard, which would significantly increase the price of food that is produced in our country. Of course, I am sure the government will come up with yet another program to solve the problem it caused in the first place, and around and around we go.

When the economy is firing on all cylinders, more people are able to keep more of their money, and that means more spending outside their necessities of housing, clothing and food. They have more discretionary spending. With discretionary spending, people are able to make purchases beyond those needs that I just listed. There are some people who believe it is just frivolous. Why would anybody want anything extra? It is because we like it. It gives us joy in our lives.

If our factories are shut down, people are not able to go back to work because we have seen uncompetitive advantages that the government has brought in through the tax code, that are forcing jobs elsewhere. I can give an example. Here in the province of Ontario, where there are some of the highest electricity prices of anywhere in North America, manufacturing is running out the door. During the Ontario Liberal rule, we lost 300,000 jobs in manufacturing.

As we go on, we need to ensure that businesses remain strong, that these programs are debated in legislatures such as this, and that the provinces work with the federal government within their own jurisdictions to manage this pandemic. Also, we need to work to ensure that we are able to safely reopen the economy. Rapid testing is one way, but so is ensuring that the programs, as in Bill C-9, are implemented in the best fashion possible. We do that through debate back and forth in chambers like this.

I appreciate the time and I look forward to the questions.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, today Stats Canada updated job numbers show that Canada's labour market gained another 84,000 jobs and 2.3 million Canadians have returned back to work after losing their jobs. That means the supports for our businesses, such as the CEBA, the Canada emergency wage subsidy and our rent assistance programs, are working. The hon. member opposite presented a very dim picture and I would like to hear what he has to say about today's job numbers and the positive way the trend is moving.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have been talking all along about the need for Canada's economy to get on track and the government to fine-tune the programs it implemented with basically no oversight, because in large part it hampered the role of Parliament. With respect to these jobs, we in the opposition had come back with a number of solutions to the programs that were not working in the past. My friend from Carleton wrote to the government a number of times as the finance critic with possible solutions and I see many of those are in Bill C-9. We could have dealt with this months ago. We could have fine-tuned these programs months ago so we could get on a better trajectory to get back to normal or get to the new normal, yet we were not given the opportunity because the Prime Minister was trying to hide his WE Charity scandal problems.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my good friend from Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock. I appreciate him talking about the tourism and hospitality sectors and how deeply they have been impacted by the pandemic.

He also talked about spending. What I am concerned about when I hear the Conservatives say we are spending too much is what programs they want to get rid of. They keep voting for the programs we are passing through Parliament and have not voted against any of the spending.

Most importantly, with respect to the commercial rent assistance program, we the NDP have been calling for the government to backdate it to April 1 for those who were not able to apply for the funding because their landlords would not apply on their behalf. I am disappointed that the Conservatives have not joined us in calling on the government to backdate it. Can the member explain why the Conservatives are not calling on the government to backdate that program so that those who were not able to apply for the design-flawed program could get access to that funding? Many of them are steeped in debt or facing bankruptcy.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from my friend from the NDP. He has been very busy today. It is always good to see his face and hear his contributions to this debate and other debates going on today.

To the surprise of the NDP, when my friend asks what programs we would cut, we are talking about what programs would have done better. A lot of the solutions the Liberals put in Bill C-9 are things we have been talking about for months. I am sure my friend from the NDP is hearing these very concerns that have finally been addressed in Bill C-9 from his own community, his own chamber of commerce. I know I have.

The rent subsidy was a horrible disaster as 90% of businesses did not bother applying. That was a complete travesty, but something that could have been fixed had the House of Commons been in session. Therefore, I would ask my friend this. Why did the NDP support the Liberals in shutting down this place?

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Mr. Speaker, based on the member opposite's feedback, I assume he and the Conservative Party will be supporting Bill C-9. As he mentioned in his speech, when the pandemic hit we were building the plane and at the same time we were flying it. Was it perfect? No. Through collaboration, through debate and through this process we can make things better.

Will the member opposite be supporting this legislation?

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I believe I mentioned a number of the issues and concerns we had with the original pieces of legislation for the rent subsidy and others that are, for the most part, being addressed in here. We appreciate that there was collaboration finally on this subject, especially now that we are able to get back to Parliament. I know we are doing it in cohorts, but this is some of the work that we can do together. The fact is that we can have a point-counterpoint discussion and fine-tune some of these programs.

At the end of the day, we may disagree on some options and some programs, but I think we all want the same thing. That is a strong Canada and the fact that our main streets are not decimated and people are able to go work and earn a living, so I think we are on—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Surrey Centre.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here today. I am joining members virtually from my home in Surrey Centre, B.C., to speak to Bill C-9, an act to amend the Income Tax Act, Canada emergency rent subsidy and Canada emergency wage subsidy. This bill has been very anticipated.

The topic of these subsidies came up earlier this week when I had the pleasure of welcoming the Prime Minister to my round-table meeting with the Downtown Surrey Business Improvement Association. The new rent subsidy is especially on the minds of the members of the downtown BIA. My office has been responding to many questions over the last few weeks from Surrey business owners who were wondering when these subsidies would be available.

These subsidies in their previous forms have been vital to the survival of many businesses. Small businesses are the heart of Surrey Centre, and we know that they are the backbone of the Canadian economy. It is why I am so pleased to support Bill C-9 today.

Bill C-9 would address some of the key areas where businesses are still feeling a real pinch from the pandemic. It would create access to the new Canada emergency rent subsidy, which would give businesses, charities and non-profits rent and mortgage support until 2021. It would create the new lockdown support, which is an extension of the rent subsidy, in the event of a closure ordered by public health. Lastly, it would extend the Canada emergency wage subsidy until next summer.

For small businesses in Surrey and across Canada, this support will be essential. For employers and employees, certainty and surety are vital. To know one has a job, that the rent will be paid and that business will survive and be carried until next summer allows SMEs to plan, pivot and retool for the new post-COVID economy without laying off employees or being kicked out of their leases.

More than $2 billion has already been distributed to 138,000 small businesses, through the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program, to support their rent payments. This has, in turn, supported 1.2 million jobs in our country.

The new rent subsidy would address some of the challenges that business owners continue to face and would close the gaps in the previous rent subsidy program. We know that some landlords were not keen to sign on to the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program, and that left some renters without access to this important support. In contrast, the new Canada emergency rent subsidy would go directly to small business owners and tenants. That way, if they qualify for the subsidy, they will receive it. There is no middleman to approve or block the much-needed support for small businesses.

The new rent subsidy would work much like the wage subsidy in that it would go directly to the tenant through the CRA, making it easier and simpler to access. This new subsidy would help businesses that were left out of the program previously or that had difficulty accessing the support because their landlords would not sign on to the program. The new rent subsidy would work on a sliding scale of up to a maximum of 65% of eligible expenses until December 19, 2020. Organizations would also be able to make claims retroactively for the period that began on September 27 and ends on October 24, 2020.

The next important aspect of this bill is the newly created lockdown support. An additional 25% allocated through the Canada emergency rent subsidy would go to eligible organizations in the event of a closure issued by public health. It would support businesses as public health officials work to keep communities safe from the spread of the virus. The lockdown support would have an important role to play as our businesses and non-profits manage getting through the second wave and any future waves of this virus.

We have already seen the impact of the second wave on businesses. Targeted restrictions on certain industries that operate in areas with high case numbers have meant that many businesses, such as restaurants, gyms, banquet halls and event centres, have needed to reduce their capacities again or close altogether. It has been a very challenging time for businesses, like the banquet halls in Surrey, which have been particularly hard hit because of public health closures. When businesses are not able to generate any income to pay rent, the mortgage or hard-working employees, support from our government will be their only way through the pandemic.

In May 2020, and then again in September, local businesses that were severely affected by the public health restrictions met with elected officials and asked for assistance. They appreciated, in particular, the federal government's assistance for rent and wage subsidy but were worried that it was coming to an end. Their ask was that we support them if things continued the way they were, and be there for their employees if health restrictions during the pandemic continued.

I am proud to say that, as a government, we have and will be there for them. This new bill would extend and simplify the support we have given to Canadian small and medium-sized businesses, and would continue to keep our main streets alive.

Businesses like Bozzini's Restaurant and Nahm Thai Bistro, which were hit hard with provincial health restrictions, would be able to continue to stay open and pay their hard-working employees. They would continue to serve the best pasta and Thai cuisine Surrey has to offer. It would help banquet halls and conventions centres like Aria, Crown Palace, Mirage, Grand Taj and Taj Park pay their rent or mortgages and keep their chefs and server staff, despite having to close down because of provincial health restrictions.

As it is Veterans' Week, I want to offer my appreciation for the courage, bravery and sacrifice of our veterans, who have put their lives in harm's way so that we can live free and safe. We are forever indebted to them.

The bill would help Tony Moore and Jim Holland of the Whalley Legion. They have had to temporarily rent a building for their Legion hall while their new state-of-the-art Legion village is built. This would help with their rent and wages for staff to keep their facility open and help it thrive once again when the pandemic is over.

The bill would help Nazia Bajwa from Beautyland Salon pay the rent and keep her employees. It would help Andy Dhaliwal from Top Quality Lumber and Surinder from Mill & Timber Products continue to pay their employees so they can put food on the table and pay their rent and mortgages.

This support helps. It helps people continue to have meaningful work and helps SMEs keep their businesses open, pay their rent and mortgages, and avoid bankruptcy. It helps real Canadians, the Canadians who have built this country and now count on the government to support them in their time of need.

The sliding scale of up to 65% support in the Canadian emergency rent support, combined with lockdown support, would mean that hard-hit businesses subject to a lockdown could receive rent support for up to 90%.

Finally, the bill would extend the Canada emergency wage subsidy to June 2021. So far the wage subsidy has protected the jobs of more than 3.8 million Canadians by helping employers keep employees on the payroll and rehire their workers. Continuing to support employers in this way will mean that Canadians can keep their jobs despite decreases in business or in the event of future closures ordered by public health.

In my riding of Surrey Centre, this has helped local restaurants, trucking companies, hair salons and retail stores stay open; has given a sense of certainty; has alleviated the anxiety of employees by letting them know they will get through the pandemic; and has protected business owners from collapsing.

We had to move quickly at the beginning of the pandemic to get support to individuals and businesses as quickly as possible, and we knew there was a chance that gaps would need to be filled as a result of that speed. I know my constituents have been reassured to see the evolution of these programs over the course of the pandemic, as they have addressed the gaps. This bill would do just that. It would ensure that our small businesses have the support they need to keep their businesses up and running and keep their employees on the payroll.

I am grateful to the Minister of Small Business, the Deputy Prime Minister and their teams, who have taken the time to listen to the needs of Canadians to make the necessary changes to the rent subsidy, create the new lockdown support and extend programs like the Canada emergency wage subsidy. As we continue to navigate new waves of the pandemic, these business subsidies will help businesses stay afloat and help Canadians keep their jobs while we continue to recover.

I hope we can work together to quickly pass this legislation and get help to our struggling small businesses, charities and non-profits as soon as possible.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Surrey Centre for articulating the benefits of the changes before us. As I have heard in the communities I represent, they are much needed.

What we have not heard in the debate yet is a clear explanation from the government as to why it refuses to make the changes to the the commercial rent assistance program retroactive to April 1.

Could the member explain to the House why there has been so much reluctance to make those changes retroactive and to correct what was really an unfair disparity between tenants whose landlords were up for participating in the program and those whose landlords were not?

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question. It was a question we asked as well in the beginning. We wanted to know why this was the way it was. We have to remind ourselves that the previous incarnation of this bill was done by 10 provincial premiers and three territories, so 13 bodies plus the federal government. It had to be supported by all of them. I think the question goes back to some of the premiers who were reluctant at the time to endorse a program that was more liberal and more accommodating to others.

However, this is a program that goes above and beyond. We know that rent and housing are in the purview of the province, but in times like this the provinces need support. The federal government is there for them.

This program is the federal government's program in its entirety. Federal taxpayers are paying for it. The other one was a joint program that had to have consensus from and support of all 10 premiers and three territories. That is why this program was different. We are hoping the new one is going to alleviate some of the gaps that were caused by the previous—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Guelph.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I feel as though we are on one of those nightly conference calls we had every night of the week, seven days a week, in the first two and a half months of the pandemic, given what was happening in our communities.

The member mentioned by name the businesses he has been advocating for. We all had a list in our communities. I was also working with the downtown business association in Guelph to try to get direct support.

Going through the province was difficult. As the member said, the coordination with the province would be eliminated by this new program, and it would introduce a scaled approach. That was another thing we were advocating for internally: How can we do this for businesses that do not quite meet the thresholds?

Could the member comment on how this is going to improve as business volumes go down or up during the pandemic? Will this will be able to match the needs of businesses?

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely. I sincerely appreciated the federal cabinet ministers, who listened not only to the governing side, but also to members of the opposition when they gave suggestions and provided the input of their BIAs and small businesses.

The bill would help those with the most need, such as a business that is in complete lockdown. In Surrey, it is the banquet halls that have been completely shut down. They have a large square footage, huge rents and huge tax bills. They did not get much support from the provincial government and were left out, in fact, but now all will be supported. They will get up to 90% until they are able to get back to business. Changes will also help restaurants that have had to shut down a large capacity of their seating. They have still been able to do some business, so they might not need 100% of their full rent. They might need 50% or 40%.

The scaling will help them, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all program, which was for businesses that had a reduction of, say, 30%. They would get 75% or 50% from the federal and provincial governments. The new program will actually incentivize them to do better in their businesses, get back to 100% and, in fact, increase business. It is a very good model that incentivizes business growth and helps businesses in this most difficult time.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

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.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great fascination to my hon. colleague's discussion. The issue before us is a very serious issue. There are small businesses across this country that have been hammered by the first wave of the pandemic, and now the second wave, with winter coming.

I feel that in the first stages, with the rent subsidy plan and the government moving fast, there was a need for urgency. We had to get stuff out the door because we knew businesses could go under, but we learned very quickly that there were problems with the program. That was the issue, and I think we were all shocked at the attitude of many landlords who would let their businesses go under, rather than respond.

When we knew there was a problem, that was when we needed to start fixing it. We have been, for a number of months, waiting and waiting, and businesses are hanging by a thread. To my hon. colleague who talked about moving too quickly, there was a need to move fast, but given the crisis of the pandemic, there is a need now to be able to fix things as we are moving so that we are not leaving businesses hanging and waiting for a good piece of legislation that might come too late for them.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I agree. We needed to have a quick response to get assurances to businesses as quickly as possible. Having said that, the one thing I have always said is to spend the extra hours here debating, scrutinizing and going back and forth and to spend some time at committee hearing from stakeholders. As an example for this piece of legislation, I am a big supporter of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the advocacy it does.

If it had the opportunity to bring these things forward at committee, when we have all these things going back and forth, for example the rent subsidy program, we would have had a better bill months ago. We would not be having tenants having to wait months and months on end for a fix that has finally come. We could have had a better bill and a better solution, by taking a bit more time when it originally happened. The lesson is learned. Let us not do that again.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

It being 1:30 p.m., pursuant to an order made on Wednesday, November 4, 2020, it is my duty to interrupt proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the report stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on Motion No. 1.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wants to request a recorded vote or request that the motion be passed on division, I invite them to rise and so indicate to the Chair.

For the sake of clarity, I am now inviting a member present in the House to rise to indicate whether the motion is agreed to on division or whether a recorded vote is requested.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would request a recorded vote.

And one or more members having risen:

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Accordingly, call in the members.

(The House divided on Motion No. 1, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #21

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I declare Motion No. 1 lost.

Pursuant to an order made on Wednesday, November 4, 2020, Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy and Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy), is deemed concurred in at report stage without amendment, on division.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Pursuant to an order made on Wednesday, November 4, Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy and Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy) is deemed read a third time and passed on division.

(Bill read the third time and passed)

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

It being 2:43 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.