Bill C-2

An Act to provide further support in response to COVID-19

Part 1 amends the Income Tax Act and the Income Tax Regulations to extend subsidies under the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS), and the Canada Recovery Hiring Program until May 7, 2022, as part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Support under the CEWS and the CERS would be available to the tourism and hospitality sector and to the hardest-hit organizations that face significant revenue declines. Eligible entities under these rules would need to demonstrate a revenue decline over the course of 12 months of the pandemic, as well as a current-month revenue decline. In addition, organizations subject to a qualifying public health restriction would be eligible for support, if they have one or more locations subject to a public health restriction lasting for at least seven days that requires them to cease some or all of their activities. Part 1 also allows the government to extend the subsidies by regulation but no later than July 2, 2022.
Part 2 enacts the Canada Worker Lockdown Benefit Act to authorize the payment of the Canada worker lockdown benefit in regions where a lockdown is imposed for reasons related to COVID-19. It also makes consequential amendments to the Income Tax Act and the Income Tax Regulations .
Part 3 amends the Canada Recovery Benefits Act to, among other things,
(a) extend the period within which a person may be eligible for a Canada recovery sickness benefit or a Canada recovery caregiving benefit;
(b) increase the maximum number of weeks in respect of which a Canada recovery sickness benefit is payable to a person from four to six; and
(c) increase the maximum number of weeks in respect of which a Canada recovery caregiving benefit is payable to a person from 42 to 44.
It also makes a related amendment to the Canada Recovery Benefits Regulations .
Part 3.1 provides for the completion of a performance audit and tabling of a report by the Auditor General of Canada in respect of certain benefits.
Part 4 amends the Canada Labour Code to, among other things, create a regime that provides for a leave of absence related to COVID-19 under which an employee may take
(a) up to six weeks if they are unable to work because, among other things, they have contracted COVID-19, have underlying conditions that in the opinion of certain persons or entities would make them more susceptible to COVID-19 or have isolated themselves on the advice of certain persons or entities for reasons related to COVID-19; and
(b) up to 44 weeks if they are unable to work because, for certain reasons related to COVID-19, they must care for a child who is under the age of 12 or a family member who requires supervised care.
It also makes a related amendment to the Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1 .

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague across the aisle for her intervention.

As I was saying, in my riding, a large number of students are obliged to live together in small and increasingly expensive apartments.

There is also a real homelessness problem, and providing more housing is an obvious solution. I am thinking about the organization L'Anonyme, which, thanks to funding from the Reaching Home program, was able to offer housing to people who do not qualify for social housing, and the organization CAP-CARE, which used the $1 million in funding it received to provide more than 22,000 overnight stays to people dealing with homelessness. Today, these people are living in uncertainty, not knowing whether they will be able to find a permanent home to meet their urgent need.

I would also like to point out the close connection between poverty, access to housing and drug addiction. Poverty and homelessness are among the major causes of the opioid crisis. Across Canada, 17 people die of drug-related causes every day, and in Montreal alone, 14 die every month.

Montreal's regional public health care department recorded a 25% increase in drug-related deaths between March 2020 and March 2021. Organizations such as L'Anonyme, Dopamine and CAP-CARE are on the front lines of the opioid crisis. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their commitment, their dedication and all the work they do every day on the ground.

The government and I are aware that there is still a lot to do, especially in the riding of Hochelaga. From coast to coast to coast, our government will work tirelessly in collaboration with the provinces and territories to improve access to housing, free up funds for more housing units and protect Canadians' rights.

Access to housing is an essential need, but access to high-quality green spaces close to home is good for physical and mental health. Access to a high-quality living environment is also a right. Our government is investing more than $60 million to reduce pollution, adapt to climate change and support clean economic growth. These are our priorities.

Hochelaga and Montreal East are particularly affected by climate change. Our industrial past has left its mark, with highly contaminated land, heat islands, a lack of transportation infrastructure and bike paths, and, of course, a conspicuous lack of green spaces.

In fact, a group of doctors recently wrote the following in an open letter in La Presse:

...the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods, such as Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, have a greater lack of green spaces and a higher number of heat islands.

Let us be clear: This is a deadly combination.

It is vitally important for all of us to move forward with strong, bold measures. That is why the government wants to cap and cut oil and gas sector emissions, invest heavily in public transit, and mandate the sale of zero-emission vehicles.

We need to support local initiatives so that all communities across the country can help fight climate change. One concrete example in my riding is the funding of a vertical greenhouse in a major industrial area. This is a first in Montreal East. This farm will eventually be able to grow 80 tonnes of vegetables for food banks and for the community. Not only do we need a roof over our heads and a high-quality green community, but we also need full refrigerators.

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge organizations working in the food banks and on the front lines. We are lucky that they have been there to support everyone in the community, including seniors, families, and people experiencing homelessness. I want to thank them very much.

A resilient and inclusive economy means that we as a government will be there to help families, workers and businesses get through the pandemic.

We are people of action. We know that my colleague, the Minister of Finance, tabled Bill C-2 to extend certain programs to support the economic recovery.

We will continue to make sure that no workers are left behind by establishing the Canada worker lockdown benefit and extending the caregiving benefit and the Canada recovery sickness benefit.

Not a day goes by without employees, employers and community organizations telling me that they and their businesses were saved by the measures we took during the pandemic.

One important measure in the throne speech is the first-ever Canada-wide early learning and child care system. This will not only support the economy, but it will also help women get back to work. We know that women have been hit hard by the pandemic.

It is unacceptable that families should have trouble finding affordable day care for their children. It is unacceptable that fathers and mothers should have to choose between their career and their children. Our government has reached an agreement with the government of Quebec. This historic $6‑billion agreement will help improve Quebec's child care system, a system we have been very proud of for more than 20 years.

Many members of the House came to Canada as immigrants. We rely on many entrepreneurs, artists, restaurateurs, scientists, professors emeritus and workers from other countries, to name but a few. These people have helped build a resilient and competitive country, and they continue to do so.

Our economy's vitality will depend on our ability to welcome new Canadians, and our government is committed to streamlining that process. I would like to thank the team in my riding and my colleagues' ridings for their work. My team has worked on more than 400 immigration files since I was first elected.

The most important issue for our government is the fight against COVID-19, and I think that we can all agree that it is the number one priority. We have seen with the variants that we still need to remain vigilant. That is what we need to do and will do in collaboration with the other levels of government. We gave health care workers across the country the tools to fight COVID-19. I do not have strong enough words to thank our health care workers and frontline workers for what they have done. We can now be proud that 85% of Canadians aged 12 and over have been vaccinated. This is a good example of how we can do anything when we work together. We are aware that there is still work to do when it comes to access to health care. We need to work with the provinces and the territories to strengthen the health care system and find solutions to specific problems, in particular mental health issues.

As a racialized woman, I have been a victim of racial profiling. My children, who were born in Quebec, have also been profiled. We need to recognize that systemic racism exists and that we need to do something about it. It is time for a change, time to make sure that people are protected against discrimination. That starts with reforming the criminal justice system and policing.

As a proud francophone, I am pleased to see that the modernization of the Official Languages Act is one of our governments' priorities. We need to protect and promote the French language, which is a minority language in North America.

I will conclude my speech by talking about the Broadcasting Act. There is a climate emergency, but there is also a real francophone cultural emergency. I urge all of my colleagues in the House to vote in favour of the upcoming bills aimed at safeguarding the French language in Canada.

[Yves-François Blanchet, Bloc, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak in the House again now, at the beginning of a Parliament that I must remind my colleagues should not exist. We should be continuing with the previous Parliament. Clearly, that was the view of both Quebeckers and Canadians.

All of us, all governments, all countries, all hospitals and all seniors' residences, are desperately trying to really, truly emerge, once and for all, from a crisis where the main issue, besides the economy and the pressure that the crisis is putting on the health system, remains a human issue: the fear, anxiety, illness and distress of loved ones. We seem to be having great difficulty in emerging from this crisis, and once again, this applies to all governments, but this does not free us from the solemn obligation to do everything in our power, at all times, to come out on the other side in better shape and, shall we say, with as many people as possible.

It was in the wake of this human tragedy with far-reaching economic impacts that the Prime Minister of Canada decided, out of the blue, to call an election in the middle of the summer, although it did not come as a surprise to anyone because the writing had been on the wall for a long time. He was kind enough to explain the concept of urgency to us. Obviously, this all-powerful being had to be given a strong mandate to tackle the pandemic head-on and get us out of it once and for all.

I had my doubts, as I am sure many others did, the day after that very poorly timed, extremely disorganized, ill-conceived election. Some polling stations did not have enough staff. Things were done in haste and risks were taken, particularly with regard to health measures. The directives were unclear and applied differently from one polling station to another. If this election had been urgently required, we would have understood, but it was neither urgent nor necessary. The credibility of the democratic system was somewhat undermined when some MPs were told that they had been elected, only to be informed later that they had not actually won. It was completely ridiculous.

In addition, Canadians and Quebeckers asked, what is this nonsense? They felt so strongly about it that they re-elected the same Parliament. It is almost the same in Quebec. The people told the government that they had given it a mandate, so it should get to work and stop bothering them. The government should not betray or pervert its mandate out of sheer ambition by saying it would like to outnumber the other party. Clearly, that is not what voters wanted.

We were sure all of this would be explained in the Speech from the Throne. It is not the Speech from the Throne; it is more like the speech from the timeout chair. I took the liberty of saying that, even read slowly, it was very short. Any college or university student, such as the former students of my esteemed colleague from Mirabel, who is here with us, could have written something more creative, clear and captivating.

That is the throne speech. That is why we went out and spent $600 million. That is why Parliament shut down for five months. That is why it took two months to write something that could have been written in two hours and probably was.

People feel like the government is laughing in their faces. Is it any surprise that they are not engaged in our democracy?

The throne speech was an amateur job with no real substance. It did not offer a pandemic recovery plan or a specific agenda. I know we will be hearing more about that during and after this particular debate. There is no vision, no statement of intent. For crying out loud, it is a whole lot of nothing.

There is something of substance we have already touched on: Bill C‑2 on pandemic recovery programs, which is quite a bit clearer and more specific. There is more in the first bill they introduced than there was in the throne speech, which was supposed to put us on a four-year path to glory, prosperity and good health, or so they would have us believe. That is a bit odd.

When the government puts forward a good plan, we respond positively. Bill C‑2 is a bill that calls for collaboration, and we are ready to collaborate. Naturally, there is room for improvement; that is what the democratic legislative process promotes and demands.

In the meantime, the government's mandate, which was to manage and overcome the crisis and to pass this legislation much earlier, has not been fulfilled, and people have told the government to go do its job.

The Speech from the Throne contains the buzzword “collaborate”.

Not so long ago, there were expressions like “we walk hand in hand with Quebec and the provinces”. My God, I hope there were handcuffs involved, because the hands would not have been close for long.

We have everything but collaboration. Does the word “collaborate” in the Speech from the Throne, which was skilfully read out in several languages, mean “we will listen to what the provinces want”?

What the provinces and Quebec want is simple: an immediate, unconditional transfer of funding to cover 35% of health care system costs. Without this transfer, in the short term, the provinces and Quebec will have to divert resources to the health care system that should be allocated to other things and, in the medium term, some provinces will basically go bust, go bankrupt. This is because the great federal tradition, especially the Liberal one, is to try to bring the provinces, which are conquered territories if ever there was one, to their knees in exchange for a little money.

The Liberal approach is “sell us your jurisdictions”, which is why the throne speech ignored, or mentioned only very quickly, the fact that collaboration means a give-and-take on both sides. That left us dangerously dissatisfied and reveals something a little shocking. In the last few days and weeks, a lot of attention has been paid to the magnitude of the tragedy, to figuring out what led to a such a high number of deaths.

Sometimes the media will also try to politicize it and point fingers—

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is great to see the leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition back in this House. It is great to see him in the same seat as in the 43rd Parliament. He mentioned during his speech $400 billion that the government had perhaps overspent. I do not have the words right in front of me. By rough math, that is about two-thirds of what the government took on during the height of the pandemic to be able to support Canadians with the wage subsidy, the emergency business account and the CERB.

I think it is important for him to be able to come clear with Canadians what programs he would not have supported. The problem I have, if I may, as a backbench MP being able to address him, is that I hear in one moment from his colleagues that we should do more and are not doing enough and in the next breath that too much has been done and that there are deficits and debt.

What is the member's position? There has been flip-flop, whether it is on guns or vaccines. It is not clear to Canadians what this party stands for. We talked about tourism and small businesses. Will this party support Bill C-2, the measures to protect our tourism-related and hardest-hit sectors, in the days ahead?

An Act to Provide Further Support in Response to COVID-19

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I have had the opportunity to ask a number of Conservative colleagues across the way what their personal intentions might be with respect to Bill C-2. I would be very much interested in the member's insights as to whether he would see fit to personally support the principles of the bill, recognizing the pandemic is not over, that we still need to be there for Canadians in a very real and tangible way. That is what this bill would do, whether it is supports for business or for people. Could we expect to see the member personally voting in favour of the bill in principle going to committee stage, given the comments he has just made?

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Chair, I like to call where I come from the promised land. We have the honey capital of Canada and 7,500 dairy animals, so it is literally flowing with milk and honey.

I want to start by thanking my team back home. Starting on the home front, I thank my wife for putting up with me and delivering a baby smack dab in the middle of the election. I told my campaign manager that the due date was the third, so I would just book that day off and we should be good to go. Right on schedule little Claire showed up, so I took the day off. I was there for a little while, but she did come on the due date, which was like winning the lottery, so we were pretty excited about that. Claire is doing well and her mother is doing well, for sure.

I want to thank my children. They came out door-knocking with me. Nothing is better than a bunch of little kids coming along to do the door-knocking. They run a lot faster than I do, and they get pretty good at finding the doorbells and making friends with all the puppy dogs everywhere we go. I think there is an average of one dog per house where I come from, so I met a lot of nice puppies along the way, no doubt.

I also want to thank our volunteer sign guys who put on over 7,000 kilometres putting up signs in northern Alberta. It is a few days' ordeal to put up signs where I come from, so I want to thank John and Richard and Stan. They really did a good job.

I want to thank our door-knocking team and Liam in particular. One of the things that I was going to get to later on in my speech is that with all the job opportunities out there I have been harassing Liam that he has to go and get a job. He just told me that he has finally landed a job. While he was a great asset to my team, door-knocking every day for us, it turns out now that he has a job. I hope that he can now put all that door-knocking experience to use in his job, although I am not exactly sure where it is.

I want to thank my extended family and my sister in particular, who goes above and beyond in keeping everything organized, and her husband as well. They do a great job.

I want to thank my campaign manager, Josh. He is all the way from Calgary, though we do not hold that against him. We cheer for different hockey teams, but we are good friends, nonetheless, and he delivered the win again in northern Alberta. Congratulations to Josh, and thanks.

I also want to take this moment to congratulate the elected senators in Alberta. Bang, bang: Right after each other, we ended up having two elections simultaneously. The municipal elections were happening during the federal election, so we had those together. It was great to see that the Conservatives on the ballot took the number one, two and three spots here in Alberta. I look forward to the senators' rapid appointment so we can get some representation for Alberta in the Senate as we go forward. I note that Senator Scott Tannas is still there, but I am looking forward to the rapid appointment of two new senators representing Alberta.

Bill C-2 is the bill in front of us. I want to talk a bit about what should be in this bill and what is missing from it.

During the last few months, I went for dinner at Brothers Diner in Whitecourt. It is a great little place and has a 1950s retro feel. When I am sitting in there, I feel like I have stepped back in time, but I wish that all the 1950s cars with the big wings were parked outside there, with the high-rise tails and the round cars. A lot of them were aviation-inspired, so while they were not the fastest or the best-handling cars in the world, they were some of the coolest-looking. If I say “Cadillac Eldorado”, people are probably thinking “1950s car”.

It was my first time ever being in that little diner, and I was chatting with the waitress. I said, “I was here last night and the place was shut down. I was here at about 7:30.” She said, “Oh sorry, we close at 4.” I said, “This is a diner, and diners do not typically close at 4.” She said, “We only have three waitresses, and when none of us are available the restaurant is closed.” It was a Tuesday afternoon, and she said they close at 4 on Tuesdays.

That was the situation in northern Alberta. There are just not enough workers to keep the restaurants open, never mind having people come to the restaurants. Folks who started new restaurants during the pandemic were concerned about how this was going to go and they said they have the customers but do not have the employees. We see temporary foreign workers being brought in during the time of a pandemic to staff the restaurants in the area.

One of the other things that the bill does not correct as well is the following. I am thinking about folks who started a Dairy Queen in my riding in January 2020. The owners are unable to collect some of these benefits because their business was started in January 2020. The decision to start a new Dairy Queen did not come overnight, so the decision was made months, maybe years, in advance. A large amount of money was laid out, yet they had no revenues until January 2020, so they did not have a revenue drop from 2019 to 2020. They had no revenue in 2019; they were busy building the building. The grand opening was January 2020. That was one of the things I was hoping we would see fixed in the bill. We did not see that.

The other thing is around getting the pipelines built, supporting oil and gas in northern Alberta, supporting the industry that is the largest percentage of GDP in this country. I was looking forward to having support for that in the bill, to talk about how we can people get back to work and make sure people feel safe, but also make sure the pipelines are defended and promoted in this country.

President Joe Biden in the United States wrote a letter to OPEC asking them if they could increase production by 500,000 barrels a day so that they could reduce the cost of fuel in the United States. The Keystone XL pipeline would deliver about that many barrels a day of oil if it were operating. The president could knock on our door and could approve Keystone XL and could be getting ethically sourced oil from northern Alberta supplied to the United States. He did not do this. Then he said he would lower the price of fuel by using up some the reserves in the United States. The reserves are 1% of 1% of their annual consumption of fuel, so that is going to make a short blip and really is not going to solve the problem.

Between Line 5 and Keystone XL, we see that the bill says nothing about what the plans are for ensuring that the oil patch can continue to operate and get its product to market. We do not see anything like that. The oil patch is also looking for workers. I talked to my friend, Murray, in Slave Lake. He runs an oil field service company and he said he thinks he is going to have to bring in temporary foreign workers to work in the oil patch, starting at $55 an hour. That is the challenge he is facing. He has to bring in presumably Mexican oil field workers because he cannot get workers from northern Alberta.

This is a tragedy. We have people from across the country who have traditionally worked in northern Alberta, but are unaware that the oil patch is up and running again and who are making a calculation between government subsidies and paycheques and deciding that the government subsidy is a better deal.

We warned the Liberals not to mess with the labour market with their subsidies, however, they did not listen to us. They say no, no, hurry up and pass this legislation. We said we will not stand in the way of it, but it would be good to scrutinize this and send to committee to ensure the best ideas come through and that there is no impact to the labour market as we go forward with this $7-billion bill.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Madam Speaker, that was a great question from my colleague across the aisle.

Bill C-2 covers all of the industries that are hard hit. It is based on the economic hit that the industry has had and whether it has reached the threshold. Those that are hard hit will receive the wage subsidy, as required, and we know that the tourism and hospitality sector have been the hardest hit currently and the slowest to recover, due to the travel restrictions. I think that those industries and those pilots will benefit from it. The larger industry, as a whole, has been provided assistance and those in smaller industries will also get the assistance they need.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Madam Speaker, we welcome the fact that the tourism and hospitality sectors were included in Bill C-2. However, the bill does not currently cover upstream industries in the supply chains of those sectors, such as aircraft or bus manufacturers, or those that manufacture goods for the tourism and hospitality sectors.

My question is this: Do you think that the list currently included in Bill C‑2 is exhaustive?

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to be here today to speak to Bill C-2, an act to provide further support in response to COVID-19. Our government is moving into the next phase of the recovery, with more targeted support for Canadians, as our economy continues to reopen. The benefits outlined in this bill are and will continue to be essential for Canadians who will be impacted by the pandemic in the months to come.

I do not think any of us in this room could have imagined the immense cost that the COVID-19 virus was going to take on the world when we left the Hill for the weekend and headed home to our constituencies on March 13, 2020. However, here we are about 20 months later continuing to find new ways to respond to the individual and collective toll that the virus has taken on us all.

In the midst of all this hardship and heartbreak, we have also seen incredible resilience and innovation. We have seen health care workers, first responders, service providers and government employees work through continually evolving situations for months to take care of patients, provide essential services and ensure that our country was able to continue to function. We saw the creation, clinical trials, approval and distribution of multiple vaccines for COVID-19.

I heard from many Surrey Centre constituents who expressed how important the previous round of pandemic benefits were for them. I would like to extend my extreme gratitude to all those constituents and stakeholders who have provided very important feedback to us throughout the last year and a half, as well as to the government officials, who have listened to that feedback to make our pandemic supports stronger to support more individuals and businesses.

As we continue to see the evolution of the pandemic, we will continue to adapt our approach to address it. That is what our government is doing with Bill C-2. Our strategy to support Canadians is evolving with the situation, and we are now shifting our focus from blanket support measures to a more targeted approach. By taking a more targeted approach, we will reduce our spending on COVID support while continuing to support those who have been hit hardest by the health and economic impacts of the virus.

I would like to take this opportunity to talk about the proposed support and extension of support in this bill for individuals and businesses. They will be essential to Canadians as we move forward through pandemic recovery.

The bill proposes extending some existing COVID support benefits, including the Canada recovery hiring program; the Canada recovery sickness benefit, which has given income support to employed and self-employed individuals who are unable to work because they are sick or need to self-isolate because of COVID-19; and the Canada recovery caregiving benefit, which has given income support to individuals who are unable to work because they must care for a child or family member who needs supervised care. This applies if their school or care facility is closed or unavailable to them because of COVID-19, or if they are sick, self-isolating or at risk of serious health complications because of COVID-19. These three benefits will be extended until May of next year when this legislation is passed. This bill also proposes the creation of new benefits, including the Canada worker lockdown benefit, a measure that will support workers who are unable to work because of a government-imposed public health lockdown; the tourism and hospitality recovery program; and the hardest-hit business recovery program.

We all know that the tourism and hospitality industry, in particular, has been extremely hard hit by the pandemic. With most of world shutting their doors to non-residents in the early months of the pandemic, the tourism industry faced a sharp decline. Canadian cities and towns across the country rely heavily on the tourism industry to support their local economies. According to Statistics Canada, in March 2020, Canada saw a nearly 55% decrease in international arrivals. With travel and movement restrictions across the country, hotels were at less than 20% occupancy levels. Restaurants and bars were also hard hit during this time, when real GDP dropped by 39.5%.

I met with many constituents and local stakeholders to hear about their concerns, especially restaurant, hotel and banquet hall owners and operators in Surrey. The hotels, restaurants and banquet halls in my riding were particularly hard hit by the lockdown, with local lockdown restrictions forcing many establishments to close their doors completely for a few months, which meant cancelling weddings and other events, and requiring them to switch their service operations to provide takeout and delivery options. Similarly, restaurants had to shut down dining rooms and have takeout only, therefore having to let go of the servers and staff who normally worked there.

Surrey's hotels, like the Civic Hotel, rely on business travel, most of which had come to a virtual halt. That made it very difficult for them to survive. Surrey has a large banquet and wedding industry that was also hard hit due to severe restrictions on the size of weddings. Therefore, many venues and vendors were completely shut down, leaving hundreds out of jobs.

Things have begun to look up for these industries. In the second quarter of 2021, there was an increase of employment generated by the tourism industry with 453,200 jobs added. This time also saw an increase in tourism spending in Canada by over $10.6 billion. We may not have the international travellers coming and going as we are accustomed to, but Canadians have been stepping up and increasing local travel within the country.

With winter coming, though, we know that many businesses and workers will need support as tourism winds down for the season. I am confident that the travel and tourism industry will come back after these hard times. They have shown their resilience and the support offered through these proposed benefits will help this industry though the end of the pandemic.

Our government is committed to working with our international partners to ensure that countries around the world have fair and equitable access to vaccines. As we continue to see the rates of vaccination increase, we will be able to continue to reopen our beautiful country to the world once again, with the knowledge that our families, friends and neighbours will be protected.

We know that winter will most likely bring more challenging times related to the pandemic in different regions across the country. I am very pleased to see that this bill addresses the possibility of local lockdowns, with the Canada workers lockdown benefit. Anticipating these events now will ensure that Canadians have the support they need to get through these challenging times, whether it be to support an ill relative, care for their children or ensure that they can continue to put food on the table should they become ill and need to take a few days off work.

Our health care providers have done a phenomenal job of getting Canadians vaccinated well ahead of our original schedule. We now have 76.3% of the population who have received the full dose of vaccines and the numbers continue to grow.

As vaccine manufacturers continue their clinical trials for younger children and with the approval of the Pfizer vaccine for children ages five to 11 by Health Canada, we are well on our way to ensuring that all Canadians who are able to receive the vaccine have access. As we continue to move through the changing circumstances of this pandemic, our government will continue to be there for Canadians and Canadian businesses.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Madam Speaker, today I rise to continue debate over Bill C-2, the government’s inaugural post-election spending bill, targeted to support businesses and those impacted by COVID-19 lockdowns. This $7.4-billion piece of legislation may seem like a drop in the bucket compared to the spending that was approved in the last Parliament, but we know our nation’s finances are increasingly in precarious shape.

As we seek to navigate our way out of this pandemic, the responsibility we have as parliamentarians to do our due diligence is vital to our recovery. There are many examples from the previous Parliament on why it is so essential to do our due diligence and ensure that this and other spending bills are providing targeted support to precisely the sectors that need it the most.

The fact is that in the last Parliament, billions of dollars in taxpayer funds were needlessly directed to otherwise profitable businesses in the form of wage subsidies and other subsidies. In fact, even in 2020, with the carnage of the COVID-19 lockdowns from March onward, the TSX, the Toronto Stock Exchange, was still able to post a modest gain of over 2%.

In 2021 alone, year to date, with wage subsidies and other subsidies in place, the TSX has grown by over 20%, dwarfing the 10-year annual return of around 6%. It is abundantly clear that the fiscal stimulus, provided by the Liberal government through taxpayer resources and debt-financed by those taxpayers, and the unprecedented amount of quantitative easing by our central bank, have significantly propped up the returns of Canada’s biggest businesses.

These same factors have also led to a massive rise in inflation that is unrivalled in most of the developed world. The price of housing in some parts of Canada has skyrocketed to all-time highs, with prices in Ontario jumping between 20% to 35% this year alone. It is no wonder so many people in my generation, the millennial generation, and following generations will have to wait years longer than previous generations to own our very first home, if we ever can.

Those millennials who are fortunate enough to be able to purchase their first home are often doing so through generous gifts from their parents or grandparents. Otherwise, they are often leveraging themselves to the hilt, sometimes by 20 times, just to afford a modest townhome in the suburbs. We know this is unsustainable. We know interest rates are going to increase, making the cost of servicing that massive mortgage debt for young families more and more unaffordable.

As well, we know the government, while trying to get families into their first overpriced home, will do nothing or little to avert or mitigate the carnage we will see when mortgage rates reset over the next few years.

If the increasing price of housing was not bad enough, the increases to other essentials for families due to inflation and flawed government policies will also contribute to major economic problems for Canadian families. The prices of inputs into agricultural production are growing fast. The prices of fertilizer and fuel, the cost of drying grain due to carbon taxes, clean fuel standards and now inflation threaten to make all food products less affordable for families.

The price of a pound of bacon is up over 20% since January 2020, and that is just one example from hundreds where food prices are going up. Consumers are getting big cost increases, while the government, the central bank and the big producers pass along the costs.

Sadly, many of the farmers I know and have the honour of representing, especially the cattle ranchers, are not benefiting from these cost increases. While beef at the grocery store may be up 20% since the beginning of 2020, the price of a head of beef cattle has gone up by only 2.7% since 2017. It is not the farmers who are getting rich off the government's inflation.

Across Canada, we also see that there are over a million job vacancies. This labour shortage affects all regions of Canada and it persists in all sectors of the economy. Supporting Canadians in need was the right thing to do, and it always will be. That is why the Conservatives supported help for Canadians who were prevented from working because of the COVID-19 lockdowns.

However, we cannot continue to support people to not work while our economy is open and there is a nationwide labour shortage. The hospitality and food service industries are experiencing an all-time high in job vacancies, with over 89,000 vacancies. In manufacturing and construction, there are over 60,000 job vacancies. In the retail sector, we are seeing 84,000 unfilled jobs. How will this bill address those vacancies?

The Business Development Bank of Canada has reported that 64% of Canadian businesses say that labour shortages are limiting their growth. These labour shortages are severely impacting the ability of Canadian businesses to recover from COVID-19. As a result, our economic recovery in Canada is stalling. I see nothing in Bill C-2 that would address or alleviate these rampant job vacancies across the country.

Getting back to the specifics of Bill C-2, it is positive that the government is taking a more targeted approach to pandemic stimulus. I have been calling for that in the House for the past year. It is critical that the industries that are the most impacted, like tourism, hospitality and travel, get the resources they need so we can ensure job creation, retention and a strong economic rebound.

That being said, I am deeply concerned that the government is seeking to fast-track this legislation before the House of Commons has even convened its finance committee to undertake a review of it. I like that one of the Liberals who spoke earlier did admit that the programs were not perfect, but given how flawed some of the pandemic spending is, we have seen that negative consequences have been created. Should the government not be welcoming strong oversight from opposition parties to ensure the strongest possible legislation?

Here are a few examples of how previous pandemic spending was flawed.

I had constituents reach out to me who needed to access the CERB. They were seniors who are not used to using a computer. Instead of accessing their benefits through the Canada Revenue Agency portal, they felt prey to a third party group that promised to process their benefits for them. In fact, the Competition Bureau of Canada is investigating one such firm for suspected deceptive false and misleading practices that saw Canadians lose out on 8% to 10% of their entitled benefits.

These constituents, when accessing the website of this third party, believed that they were being assisted in accessing benefits directly from the government. The reality was that they were accessing these benefits through a deceptively designed website that charged significant fees for their services. Those who did not want to pay those fees were subject to an aggressive collections campaign that threatened to ruin their credit scores.

Why did the government design this legislation to allow unscrupulous businesses to benefit on the backs of unaware Canadians? Why is it that when I raised my concerns with the minister, I was told that it was not illegal?

We have heard multiple times already that prisoners, suspected fraudsters and members of organized crime have accessed pandemic benefits, and there is no plan from the government to recoup those monies. Canadians are furious that this happened, and they want a full accounting of those funds and a plan to ensure that this abuse does not happen again. So far I do not see that with this legislation.

It is therefore critical that we bring the finance committee back into session so that we can thoroughly examine the bill. Enough is enough. The trust that opposition parties gave to the government in the last Parliament to fast-track legislation for pandemic benefits has been abused. This is unacceptable and it demonstrates the need for a thorough study by the finance committee before moving forward and passing this bill. Once we are assured that this due diligence has been done, we can move expeditiously to ensure that Canadians who need their benefits can get them. I know many in the hospitality industry and in the independent travel agents sector who desperately do need support to keep their businesses alive until we can get through the pandemic.

In closing, we have seen how well-intentioned spending designed to help Canadians who are in need can be misused or used by those who do not really need it. It is critically important that we get the finance committee in order so that we could thoroughly study this bill to ensure that spending goes where it is needed and it does not contribute to the further rising inflation that we see in this country.

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

Mr. Speaker, the last time I got up to speak, I do not think you had yet been appointed as Deputy Speaker. Your predecessor, who was also a member of the Conservative Party, was an excellent Speaker and I have no doubt that you are already on your way to following in his footsteps in that regard. Congratulations on your new role and I look forward to working with you in the months and years to come.

We are talking today about this very important legislation, Bill C-2. It is a bill that would continue to provide necessary supports for businesses and individuals, in particular the hardest hit. This is part of a phase-out program. It is part of moving toward getting back to normal in terms of our economic activity, but it is still extremely necessary.

Before I go down the road of talking about why the bill is so important, I want to go back to a number of things I have heard from the opposite side of the House today. The last speaker, in particular, mentioned it, but a number of other Conservatives have as well, which is the rollout of the initial programs back to March of 2020 and those that followed. I believe I am quoting the previous speaker correctly when he said that it was a poor rollout.

Let us go back to March of 2020 for a second and consider exactly what was going on. The world was in confusion and chaos not knowing exactly what was in front of us, not knowing how long it was going to last, not knowing how people were going to be supported and yet our incredible public service was able to put programs together and get them out in lightning speed, when we think about it. I have said this many times in the House before that it only took four weeks to go from the World Health Organization declaring a global pandemic to getting money into the bank accounts of 5.4 million Canadians.

When we talk about the rollout, it is important to reflect on the fact that there was a lot of confusion. Perfection was not the goal back then. The goal was to help as many people as possible and then deal with the imperfections later on. I will be the first to admit, as I did in a previous question, that a lot of those imperfections that were identified and addressed came through deliberations and discussions with the other parties and debate in the House.

That is why, in my opinion, all members of the House supported those measures through unanimous consent motions at times. For those who do not know, a unanimous consent motion basically means everybody agrees without debate and we move on. That is how we were passing a lot of those measures back then.

For members of the House to be hypercritical of the rollout and of the measures that were put in place is absolutely confusing when they participated in these unanimous consent motions. Nonetheless, here we are.

Let us talk about Bill C-2 in particular. This is about helping businesses that are still struggling. As we know, a lot of businesses are not struggling anymore, but many are.

There are three main components or programs in the bill.

The first is the tourism and hospitality recovery program. As we know, a lot of tourism operators are still struggling, and this is one of the most affected industries by this pandemic. We know we need to continue to deliver supports. A lot of these businesses are seasonal by nature, so as we push toward getting through this pandemic, they may have lost a significant chunk of income or revenue stream in the season that just passed, being the season that a lot of people travel. That is why ensuring the subsidy of 75% of wages can continue is extremely important. There are a number of criteria. Not all tourism sectors are included. Some are hit harder, so the program is designed in a way to be reflective of the actual need.

The next one is the hardest-hit business recovery program, and this is to help those businesses that have been hit the hardest by this pandemic. I think of a good friend of mine. He is an audio engineer. When we go to conventions with several thousand people, we go into a ballroom and we often see all the lighting and sound equipment that is set up. There is a lot of work that goes into that, and an audio engineer is somebody who will go in and assess a room to determine exactly what is required to put a production on. My friend, in the beginning of March 2020, had nine months' work ahead of him. He is a contractor who contracts out his services. In a matter of 48 hours, he went to no work at all. Every single contract that he had lined up for the next eight to nine months had been cancelled, all at once.

In this particular sector, we see a lot of people coming together, with people moving around like at conventions, which are unlike a hockey game, where people are stationary for the majority of the time they are there. What makes it worse for these sectors is that they are going to come back the latest. They are the ones that are taking the longest to come back online. This particular sector, when we think about it, was hit immediately, right at the beginning, and is going to be one of the very last to come back online. That is what we are talking about when we talk about the hardest-hit business recovery program. This is about providing subsidies to make sure eligible organizations can continue to get through the rest of this pandemic.

Finally, there is the local lockdown program. This one is probably, in my opinion, the most important. What we have seen through the pandemic, at least as I have been able to observe in Ontario, is that putting in the hands of the local or regional health units the power to implement lockdowns from time to time really gives an opportunity to spread out the need for various different tools at various different times. While one region might have a lockdown and another one does not, it gives those localized areas that have really been affected the opportunity to have different supports in the event that they are going to be locked down. Therefore, this is a program that is extremely important in terms of continuing to provide a wage subsidy and various other supports.

The only other thing I wanted to touch on is with respect to the discussion that has been going on today around inflation. We heard it a lot during question period. We heard it a lot from the opposition in terms of questions in this debate. It is important to point out that despite the rhetoric in everything we are hearing, we have to look at this in a global perspective. I find it quite hilarious that the Conservatives, who have for so long criticized this Prime Minister and this government for not being able to accomplish anything, have now suddenly given them credit for being able to control global inflation, as though the Prime Minister and this government can now set global inflation.

Let us look at what is actually going on in the world. Let us look at the OECD countries. These are the developed countries that we do all our trading with. These are the countries that are quite often in the same boat as we are. We are well below the OECD average for inflation right now. Let us look at our neighbouring partner, with which we do the most trade, the United States. It is almost a full two points higher than Canada in terms of inflation. Although we must treat inflation extremely seriously and we must be very careful with the tools and with what we are doing right now, it is germane to at least recognize that it is not a problem that has been created by this Prime Minister and this government. It is indeed a global problem that is going to have to be addressed through various different policies from various different governments throughout the world.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, at times, the Conservatives can be very confusing on whether they support the legislation or they do not support it. Depending on the member who speaks, we often get the sense that the Conservatives do not support the monies that the government spent to provide support to Canadians through a wide spectrum of programs. Then there are other members who seem to feel that we should have been spending more money in different areas. This legislation, Bill C-2, is all about the extension and providing supports for Canadians during the pandemic and going forward.

Could the member clearly give some indication, if not for the Conservative Party, how he will be voting on the legislation?

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his concern for seniors. As I mentioned in my intervention, it depended on how seniors applied for the program. For some it was counted as taxable income and others it was not. The ones where it was considered as taxable income are now seeing their GIS payments clawed back.

We have had constituents in tears on the phone because they cannot afford their rent, or their groceries or their medications. They do not know how they are going to move forward because of the poor rollout of the programs and the poor explanation given to the individuals. Those people are asking for compassion.

I hope as Bill C-2 rolls out and we get a better look at it that there is more consideration for those negative effects that can happen if the bill is not drafted properly.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this House today. Once again, I thank the voters of North Okanagan—Shuswap for trusting me to represent them here in Parliament.

As I open, I must also recognize the individuals and organizations in British Columbia and beyond who stepped up and continue to mobilize in support of British Columbians during wildfires and flooding this year. While all British Columbians have been affected by these disasters, some have lost everything except hope and perseverance. Across British Columbia, including the North Okanagan—Shuswap, recoveries and rebuilding are under way. We have strong spirits and we will continue to rebuild together as a province. I certainly hope the federal government will be a partner in that recovery.

It is an honour to rise to speak to Bill C-2, an act to provide further support in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that has ravaged our nation for the past 20 months. Canadians are continuing to reel from the impacts of COVID-19. Some of the impacts have been evident for months, others are becoming apparent just now. Early impacts included business closures, job losses, social isolation, families not able to get together and more. Now we are witnessing mounting inflation and rising costs of living that are affecting all Canadians, including those most vulnerable.

When we take stock of the many layers of crisis and instability facing Canadians today, there is a thread of commonality woven into each layer: the absence of prevention. I hope that all members can agree that a primary responsibility of the Government of Canada is to take responsible and reasonable steps to ensure collective security and to prevent crises.

Twenty months ago the pandemic's first wave was mounting and the government failed to deliver enough action to protect Canada. It failed to prevent all the crises that COVID-19 has inflicted on Canadians. The government was slow to close borders and shut down flights from hot spots where the pandemic was burning through populations. The government failed to initiate vaccine deals with the right vendors early on, because it chased a doomed partnership with Beijing, down a rabbit hole.

Then there was the government's erratic communications that sowed uncertainty and division around health guidelines and risks of the pandemic. All these instances represented failures because they were missed opportunities to prevent dangers from taking hold and proliferating across our nation and throughout our society.

Then, a year and a half after the pandemic started, and which had claimed tens of thousands of lives, the Prime Minister called an election that only he and his Liberal caucus wanted. It was not because an election would fight the pandemic or help Canadians, but because they saw an opportunity to win more power. At the exact time that Canadians needed their federal government to be laser-focused on working for Canadians, the Liberal government elected to serve its own narrow political interests.

After the pointless election was over, the Liberal government delayed the return of Parliament for nine weeks. Now that Parliament has finally resumed, we are once again debating legislation that is a necessity due to the government's inability to prevent harm. Today we are assessing Bill C-2, a bill that proposes business and personal income supports announced by the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister on October 21, 2021.

The bill represents a move away from broad-based support to more targeted programs, a move that Conservatives have previously called for because it is important to focus resources on the specific needs they are meant to meet. While Conservatives supported getting help out to those who needed it early in the pandemic when businesses had to close and travel was restricted, the mismanagement of funds since then has led, and is leading, to headaches and hardship for many others.

My office has received many calls from seniors who were provided benefits in error and are now seeing their GIS payments clawed back. These seniors are unable to afford rent and groceries, because the government failed to provide clarity on eligibility and taxation implications as programs rushed out the door. These situations could have been prevented.

I have also been contacted by businesses from every sector, from food service to professional offices, that have been unable to fill job vacancies because too many are finding it easier to stay home on relief benefits.

One of the most impacted sectors I have heard from is the food production and processing sector, the people who provide food on Canadian dinner plates.

I see orchards in my riding of North Okanagan—Shuswap with thousands of pounds of apples hanging frozen and withering on the trees because the orchardist could not find pickers to hire.

I have heard from meat processors that are running 30% to 40% short on staff and are unable to process food for Canadian dinner tables because they cannot fill shifts. This is food that is not grown or not processed that will never reach the dinner tables where Canadians need it. All this lost food and increasing cost of processing what does get processed will be adding to the already high inflation rates Canadians are paying as a result of the current government's money management policies, or I should say lack of money management policies.

It was our illustrious Prime Minister who in the middle of the election when asked about the rising cost of living stated, “you’ll forgive me if I don’t think about monetary policy.” Because the Prime Minister and his cabinet have not been thinking about monetary policy, Canadians are now having to do much more of that thinking just to make ends meet. Groceries, home heating costs, repairs and maintenance are all costing Canadians more because of the lack of attention by the Liberal government on money management. Those same seniors who are having their GIS payments clawed back are facing higher costs of living, adding to the unbearable stress they are already experiencing.

How does all of this relate to Bill C-2? The bill before us has been introduced because the Liberal government has failed to lead the country and its citizens out of the pandemic. Individuals and businesses are still needing assistance because previous relief programs and measures have failed to target where they were needed and have left businesses unable to rebuild.

As I conclude, I want to thank all the individuals and businesses in North Okanagan—Shuswap for their perseverance through this challenging time that we have all faced. I recently had the opportunity to attend the Greater Vernon Chamber of Commerce business excellence awards program, where businesses were recognized for the ingenuity and creativity in their operations, such as expanded patios, new delivery systems, improved online information and ordering systems, all to provide their customers with the services they needed in the safest and most efficient ways possible.

We as legislators in the House must strive to find the same ingenuity in the legislation we introduce and debate to provide the programs and services that Canadians need the most. We as Conservatives will continue to review Bill C-2 to see if it will provide what Canadians need in the most efficient way possible.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my hon. colleague's comments. Whenever he gets up, it is always interesting. We never know quite what he is going to say.

Let me speak to the importance of getting Bill C-2 through, as the next piece of the pandemic recovery, so that we can then be focusing on the financial economy, the economic plan that I know is being worked on. We will bring it forward so that we can help people. However, I think we have to give people the confidence that they can go out to restaurants, maintain their six-foot distance or book travel for this coming summer. That is what is going to help people, if we can start getting people out into the business community, to move forward.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, Humber River—Black Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, congratulations again. It is always interesting to see different people sitting in the chair, and I think your French is very good. I am probably learning and picking up a few words from you as you proceed.

This is my first opportunity to stand in the 44th Parliament. I am not sure if this is my ninth time or my 10th time here, but it has been quite a few times. I have to thank the people of Humber River—Black Creek.

I have a very interesting riding. I am next to Etobicoke North and just up from York Centre, which are all ridings that have tremendous challenges. A lot of new immigrants who come to Toronto and region end up in these particular communities, so naturally, their needs are enormous. There are new immigrants trying to settle and so on, and then along came the pandemic. We really had our hands full trying to deal with all of that.

Before I go too far, I must do what my other colleagues have done and thank my husband of many years. I am not going to say how many years that is either, but it is many years. Sam is the one who loves politics in the family, much more than me, and he is very engaged in everything that goes on here in the House and in the community. Then I have my daughters, Cathy and Deanna; my son, Saverio; and my sign chairman, my wonderful son-in-law, Graziano. Without him, it would have been really difficult to get through this year.

While we are here, spending the amount of time we spend here in the House, we have to rely on our constituency staff because that is where it all happens. We can make policies, do all kinds of things, yell at each other and all of that, but the real work happens in our constituency offices.

I have been blessed over many years to have had fabulous staff, dedicated people. My staff are Amy, Albert, Juan, Abby, Mitch, Patrick and of course, my dear friend Mary Anne, who was a campaign manager for me in my very first election in 1989 for city council, and she is still there with us. Without having those kind of people around, I do not believe I would have been here the amount of years I have been. Everyone is committed, and I want to sincerely thank all of them for their commitment, not just to me, but to the people of Humber River—Black Creek. This is about caring for people who live in Humber River—Black Creek, recognizing their needs are enormous and looking to see what we can do for them.

Some of the volunteers who came out in this past election are Lena Muto, Lucia Catania, Mr. Tran, Alicia, James, Grant, Syam and Nero. The list could go on, but I tried to pull out just a few to give an example of the diversity of the volunteers who came out in the riding.

The pandemic hit, and like everywhere else across the country, the ridings were devastated. I never thought in our lifetime that we would end up having to deal with a pandemic, and many people did not understand half of what was going on, but the community mobilized very, very quickly. We had people delivering food. Wherever we found out that there was a family in distress, we made a point of getting to them, communing with them and supplying them with food or even toilet paper. Whatever they needed, we tried to find it to help them out.

When our government started with the various programs, it was an absolute life saver for thousands and thousands of people who live in Humber River—Black Creek who needed the support. They had no way to pay their rent, and with the rent subsidy program, they were able to get their rent paid. With the CERB, they were able to help get bills paid and put food on the table.

I am immensely grateful to our government for what it did and for those programs, and they went all the way across the country. It does not matter what party someone is in or anything else. The people needed help, and we all worked together to make sure that help was going to be given to them in various different programs.

There were many phone calls that we would have with the ministers, and questions for them where we identified a particular problem in an industry, or this group or that group, and immediately a program would be created. We know this is not always easy.

Government does not turn on a dime, but with respect to the pandemic it had to turn on not only a dime, but a penny, because it had to create programs to get money out there to help people, such as seniors, children, families and many other people.

The Humber River Hospital mobilized, along with the Black Creek Community Health Centre, to try to reach the people who were reluctant to get vaccines. We had a very high proportion of people who did not want to get vaccinated. Between the Humber River Hospital and the Black Creek Community Health Centre, they literally went to the lobbies of apartment buildings, educated the residents as to why it was important to get vaccinated and would then administer the vaccines. That happened a lot to try to get our numbers up into a higher rate.

Of course, we also had the school issue, with children in schools and those who were home. The TDSB and the Catholic board were able to get iPads for many of the children to be able to work from home and also paid for the Internet in order to be able to educate the children. I have to say that the work the school trustee for the Catholic Toronto District School Board, Ida Li Preti, and the public school board trustee, Chris Mammoliti, did was unbelievable to try to protect families and children as much as possible. In fact, last weekend and this week, there are 12 schools that are open and providing vaccines, which was organized between the two school boards to make sure those children are getting vaccinated. However, in all of those lineups on the weekend, there were a lot of parents and other people who were not vaccinated either. It was not just children in those lineups, so we are continuing to push to make sure we are educating people to understand the importance of vaccines.

I need to recognize the Jamaican Canadian Association, the Belka Enrichment Centre, the Jane and Finch Boys and Girls Clubs, the Afri-Can FoodBasket and Kitchen24 as examples of organizations that helped to deliver food and hot meals to many of the people who were struggling in the riding.

I will move on to Bill C-2 and the small businesses that still need help. I am very pleased to see Bill C-2. It is so important. I will tell the House about Islington Travel Agencies on Islington Avenue. I believe it has been there for 35 years. It is owned by a sole proprietor who is a woman. She used to have six people working for her. She has been trying to carry the business forward by herself. She gets some help, but she owns the building, so it creates other problems with respect to some of these different programs.

I believe Bill C-2 will really target the tourism and travel industry. When we talk about what we have to do to get through this pandemic and get over it, and unfortunately it looks like we are heading for another challenging issue, we need to give people the confidence that they can travel, go to restaurants or go out and feel safe, but wear their mask if necessary. Unfortunately, I see far too many restaurants with very few people in them. People are still very intimidated regarding any exposure they might have. Dolcini's is another business that without the help of the government would no longer be in business today. It used to provide beautiful sweets to the major hotels and banquet halls in the city. Once those businesses were no longer functioning, it no longer had a business to serve. It has managed, little by little, with the help of the government, to be able to move forward.

All of these different companies are so grateful, as am l, for what the government has done. I hope we can pass Bill C-2, get it to the finance committee and ask the questions that are necessary to make it better and stronger. From here, I hope we will move into the economic recovery that we all want to see.