Bill C-30

Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 1 (Targeted Tax Relief)

An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (temporary enhancement to the Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax credit)

This enactment amends the Income Tax Act in order to double the Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax (GST/HST) credit for six months, effectively increasing the maximum annual GST/HST credit amounts by 50% for the 2022-2023 benefit year.

Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 1

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, this Liberal government's inflationary policies have made Canadians so poor that the only outing they can afford each week is to go and pick up their mail at the mailbox. They go and pick up the bills that they cannot afford to pay because of the Liberal policies that have been in place since 2015. Canadians deserve better. Canadians deserve change. That is what they are going to get in the future.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his colourful speech. I personally confess to being a great admirer of our colleague, and I do not think I am the only one in our party to feel that way.

There is a problem that is even bigger than consumer prices, and that is housing prices. There is truly a lack of available housing. Home ownership is really problematic. I would like to know the position of my colleague and his party on that subject, because that, also, is scandalous.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. It is really very important to be able to give Canadians back the hope of being able to stay in or own a home or a house. In a society such as ours, in Canada, a responsible government must give future generations and everyone a chance to exercise their right to fair and affordable housing. The opportunity to access housing is really very important.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I will give him the opportunity to clarify a little the remarks made by the Conservative Party in recent weeks. They seem to be confusing a tax with a contribution.

When people contribute to EI, they are putting money aside for the day when they will need it because they have lost their jobs. When people contribute to the Canada pension plan, they are putting money aside for their golden years so they can have it when they retire. These are not taxes, they are contributions. These are investments, an insurance in the event of unemployment and a means to live with dignity upon retirement.

Does my colleague not want seniors in his riding to put money aside and have a good retirement?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, yes, before 2015, Canadians could think about saving because they paid less taxes and had the chance to have a future. At present, with all this inflationary government's taxes, Canadians are stretched to the limit and are tightening their belts to the last notch to survive. To give all Canadians hope, there must be real change, and that is what will happen in the future.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, my question is very simple. We have proposed several measures over the last couple of weeks to help with the affordability crisis and inflationary crisis that exist for Canadians, like lowering taxes.

I wonder if the member has a comment on that.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is really important that the government cancel all tax increases. It must stop increasing the carbon tax to help Canadians live because everything is more expensive. People need money to live. If people need money to live, they need to be left with more in their paycheques so they can pay their bills.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-30, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (temporary enhancement to the Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax credit), be read the third time and passed.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, not 10 days ago I spoke at second reading to Bill C-30. In fact, it was the deputy government House leader who asked me at that time to compare Canada to the rest of the world in terms of economic performance. I told him that Canada's record should be able to stand on its own and that he and his government should not continue to push up inflationary spending.

I have good news, and that is that I am not alone in my thinking. As of yesterday, an article by Diane Francis was published, and it reads, “Canada need only look to Australia to see how badly Liberals have messed up”.

I am going to quote from this article. It says:

The current government is economically illiterate and the result is the country is slowly sinking in the rankings of most economic metrics among the world’s developed nations who are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development...An OECD report from October 2021 predicts, according to Business Council of British Columbia commentary, that Canada “will be the worst performing advanced economy over 2020 to 2030.” It also forecasts that Canada will have the worst economic growth among advanced economies over—

Wait for it.

—2030 to 2060. “In other words, Canada will be dead last not only for the next decade, but also for the three decades after that.”

Canada's former central bank chief, Stephen Poloz, at the recent Global Business Forum in Banff, said that Canada is a chronic underachiever, a condition caused by poor political decisions and the failure to address unresolved issues.

He also went on to say, “We get in our own way.”

We get in our own way. What is he really saying? I believe he is saying: “Government, get out of the way.”

He went on to list a few problems. He started by indicating “a political quagmire that requires a crisis to make decisions”. For example, I have this article here that states that the transport minister knew in May 2021 that the “federal airport security [workforce] was short-staffed by [up to] 25%, according to a briefing note”.

At the time, he blamed airport delays on Canadians who were eager to travel. The article continues:

In a May 13 briefing note titled “Airport and Flight Delays”, staff told [the minister] that the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority...was [short] a quarter of its employees due to layoffs during COVID.

“The Authority retained 75 percent of its workforce during the pandemic to assist with recovery,” wrote staff. “Screening contractors called back all available personnel in preparation for the summer peak.”

Here was an example where we had a political quagmire that required a crisis to make a decision.

Mr. Poloz went on to cite “layers of regulation”. I have here an example in which the National Capital Commission decided not to grant a permit for a lemonade stand as a result of regulation:

In 2016, those regulations were the basis for which the Crown Corporation shut down a lemonade stand operated by seven- and five-year-old sisters—

It is unbelievable.

—on NCC property in Ottawa. Their transgression: the girls had failed to acquire a $1,500-per-day permit from the NCC. The incident garnered Canada-wide media coverage and the NCC quickly apologized and backtracked, allowing the children to resume selling lemonade the next weekend. To avoid similar incidents, the NCC developed a special permit for the following summer that would allow kids to sell lemonade or other goods on specific NCC property during nine Sundays. The new permit had 15 requirements, including but not limited to a requirement for bilingual signage, stand size restrictions, adherence to municipal and provincial health and safety regulations, an indemnification clause, and reporting of all revenues to the NCC.

This was for a lemonade stand.

These are layers of regulation from the government that are causing problems here.

Next in the list was “permit and consultation that take ages to complete”. Well, the Trans Mountain pipeline comes to mind, and Mr. Poloz also noted that “Canada is one of the most highly taxed economies on earth, which is discouraging”.

I have some information on that. G20 countries with a lower tax rate than Canada include Saudi Arabia, Russia, Brazil, India and Indonesia. This is the company that the current government is keeping at this time.

As well, Mr. Poloz's final comment was on “interprovincial barriers that cost four per cent a year in GDP alone to Canada”. In fact, a study done by Deloitte indicates that, by removing current interprovincial taxes, which remain unfixed by the government, “average Canadian wages would climb by 5.5%”—if the government would address this—“resulting in a 5% increase in household income and more than $2,100 in real GDP per person. Corporate profits”—which I know the NDP does not like—“would increase by 2%.”

All of these actions result in Canada not living up to its economic potential, but the sad thing is that this does not simply rest with numbers and the economy alone. These numbers have real effects on people, as is evidenced by the article by Alicja Siekierska on an MNP survey, which says, “Canadians are finding it more difficult to pay for food, housing and transportation and nearly half are on the brink of insolvency as rising interest rates and soaring inflation continue to weigh on household budgets.”

I hear this from my constituents in Calgary Midnapore all the time. Gregory writes:

I would like to express further concern regarding our family's electricity and gas bill. It has skyrocketed—

Perhaps it has tripled.

—while our usage has remained the same...We have no option other than to pay, as we can't let our children freeze in the winter, but we cannot afford this dramatically rising cost. Please use your influence to fight for a regulation of this industry to bring the cost down.

Thank you for your efforts on our behalf. We are growing increasingly horrified by our federal government and appreciate your efforts to stand up for us.

From Alicja Siekierska's article, the MNP survey:

also found that 45 per cent of respondents say it’s becoming less affordable to pay for transportation, up nine percentage points from last year, and another 45 per cent say it is becoming more difficult to pay for clothing and other household necessities, an increase of five percentage points from last year. Paying for housing is also a challenge for many Canadians, with 37 per cent saying it is becoming less affordable....

At the same time, Canadians are finding it more difficult to save. The survey found that 49 per cent say it’s becoming less affordable to put money aside for savings, up five percentage points from last year.

Canadians, as the Conservative leader has pointed out, are putting more of their paycheques toward paying for basic necessities as the cost of living rises, which is, in turn, leaving less of a financial buffer to manage the impacts of current and potential future interest rate hikes. Again I hear from my constituents about this. Cindy wrote that she is worried about supply chains, “This is directly impacting our jobs and has been for 12+ months now.” The government has had lots of time to respond to this as well. She continues, “The impact of supply chain issues is going to become such a global tragedy very soon.”

As for the rising cost of living, she lists exactly the things we have been talking about in the House, “Heating, gas, food, housing — all four areas are of concern for our home. The increase in overall federal tax is criminal. They have misspent billions of taxpayer dollars and it is a feeling of helplessness to the average Canadian.” Regarding a “tax on sale of home”, she says, “Again, this is criminal for the federal government to even consider this as an option”—which it has flirted with doing—“due to their lack of fiscal management. Someone has to stop these decisions.”

I can say that my Conservative colleagues and I are here to stop these decisions. Along with Diane Francis, Alicja Siekierska, and my constituents Gregory and Cindy, we say to the Liberal government, “Government, get out of the way.”

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Madam Speaker, I must admit that I found it very shocking to hear that somebody would be told that they have to shut down a lemonade stand. I googled it and in fact the member is right. Back in 2016, there were two 11-year-old sisters who set up a lemonade stand and made $52 in less than two hours before a cyclist stopped to tell them they were not allowed to be doing that. Then, of course, as she said shortly thereafter, somebody from the NCR showed up and told them they had to stop. It is ludicrous that would happen. When young kids are trying to pursue an entrepreneurial spirit like that, I would agree completely.

However, is the member aware that this happened in 2016? The government was elected in the fall of 2015. Does the member think that this government, on day one, instituted rules with the National Capital Commission that prevented the ability to sell lemonade, or perhaps would there have been an opportunity in the preceding 10 years with the previous government to do something about it?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I want to correct the member for Kingston and the Islands. It is the NCC, not the NCR, and they were seven and five years old, not two 11-year-olds.

On that point, I will say that this is the mentality of the Liberal government: It wants to keep the Canadian people down. It wants to control the Canadian people by taxing them to death and by taking $1,000 and giving them two dollars back. We are not going to tolerate it. Neither I nor my Conservative colleagues are going to tolerate that, and certainly not under our new leader, the member for Carleton.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my energetic colleague what she thinks about this. The Bloc Québécois proposes to do two things to control the cost of living. First, to help seniors in particular, we want to see no reductions in the guaranteed income supplement for those who received the Canada emergency response benefit or the Canada recovery benefit during the pandemic.

Next, the Bloc Québécois would like to increase old age security to preserve seniors' purchasing power.

What does my colleague think about these two proposals?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, I think the Bloc Québécois and we Conservatives care about seniors. It is very clear that the government does not care about seniors.

I think the member has some good ideas, and I am sure we can talk more about how we can work together for seniors, because it is abundantly clear that the government has not done anything for them.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Madam Speaker, I was interested to hear the member opposite's speech. She talked about comparing Canada to other countries. She read off a number of news articles, and it sparked me to think about articles I have seen recently. One was about how Liz Truss came into power with the Conservative Party in the U.K. with promises of tax cuts, and then miraculously there was this huge U-turn because it crashed the economy into a horrible descent. The next article was about how they were desperately trying to figure out how to save the U.K. economy, and the next one was about how the Labour Party was about 12 points up in the polls because of this disaster with the Conservative Party of the U.K.

In comparison, Conservatives in this country are doing the exact same thing, so I would love to hear her comparison of their plan with that of the U.K. Conservatives.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am not concerned because, frankly, we are leading the polls. We are rocking the polls, so I think we are doing the right things that Canadians want to see. We are going to continue doing them alongside our new leader, the member for Carleton.