Mr. Speaker, I would like to mention that I will be sharing my time with my esteemed and talented colleague from Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix.
We have been living through unprecedented times for a little over two years now. Certainly, this is not the first pandemic. The last one was a hundred years ago. Of course, this is not the first war humans have experienced. Moreover, this is not the first inflationary crisis we have lived through. However, it is the first time that those three elements have overlapped, and during the communication age no less.
The pandemic seems to have been the catalyst that exposed global weaknesses in the supply chain, dependence on foreign production and flaws in long-term political vision. This was compounded by the war in Ukraine, yet that is not the only war being fought. There are other wars in other countries, in different forms, with serious repercussions for the people. However, the war in Ukraine is putting additional pressure on supply chains, especially agricultural and food supply chains. That pressure is aggravating situations that were already tragic in a number of countries, such as those in Africa.
In Canada, that pressure is felt in the form of higher prices, such as input prices for farmers and consumer prices for ordinary Canadians. I could cite a long list of elements that led to the current inflationary crisis, given that inflation is a fairly complex phenomenon that is never caused by only one or two factors.
Just the same, before I begin, I would like to highlight one other factor that increases the pressure on Canadian households. The rise in the cost of housing, whether one is purchasing or renting, is not inconsequential. It is the result of an increase in population, both in Quebec and in Canada, and of a decrease in the amount of social and affordable housing being built. I am talking about housing such as co-operatives, low-income housing and other models that can be found in Quebec, in particular.
Social housing allows low-income people to spend less than 30% of their income on housing, while still living in an environment where they can receive services and support, and where they can participate in a rewarding community life.
To recap, I would say that the current inflationary situation has a direct link to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. As such, it is important to implement solutions with a positive long-term vision. We need solutions that are sustainable and predictable, but also flexible.
We must not forget that the current situation is having repercussions now and that it will continue for a long time if nothing is done. It will have repercussions on the health care system, on the workplace and in community settings.
While we all aspire to reach the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, in other words, meeting our need for accomplishment through self-actualization, by achieving our full potential and our creativity, the current situation directly attacks the first two steps of the pyramid that are physiological needs, or basic needs, and the need for security.
A society has everything to gain by ensuring that the majority of its population reaches the last steps of Maslow's pyramid, the need for esteem and the need for accomplishment. I say the majority because in a person's life there is always a moment or a situation that brings them back to the physiological needs, the need for affection and the need for security.
However, in a strong society, that person can overcome adversity to reach the upper levels, esteem and self-actualization, again. Society has everything to gain, because people who meet their need for esteem and self-actualization tend to be engaged in all the spheres of their lives, professional, social and family. They are happier and healthier, and they take better care of themselves and their loved ones. That directly relieves some of the strain on the health care system and positively impacts workplaces and, by extension, GDP and productivity.
In addition, if we spend less on health care, we can spend more on the second-biggest item in any government's budget: education. A population that achieves esteem and self-actualization is a population that strongly values all forms of education and invests in its education system to enable future generations to achieve esteem and self-actualization too.
The pandemic first attacked the middle part of the hierarchy, in other words, love and belonging. Think of the children and seniors who felt lonely and isolated. Think of the adults who get their sense of self from their jobs or their sporting activities, but they too found themselves stuck at home alone.
After that, the pandemic and inflation combined to attack people's safety needs and essential needs. Here are the repercussions of that: People are exhausted and stressed by the fear of not being able to make ends meet; children are just as anxious because they sense their parents' stress better than anyone else, even though kids try to hide their stress and its causes from their parents. Parents usually try to preserve their kids' innocence and the beauty and generosity of childhood.
The current solution of increasing the GST credit alleviates the stress of people who face the prospect of not being able to meet their basic needs. The fact remains that it is a temporary measure, yet it can do some good, especially as people must purchase necessities for the approaching winter season. However, the current situation will have short-, medium- and long-term impacts. We must have a medium- to long-term vision when implementing solutions. If not, there will be dramatic repercussions for the health and education systems, work environments, communities and community organizations. We cannot let people become overwhelmed by the stress of seeking the means to meet basic needs and the need for safety.
I will come back once again to Maslow's hierarchy. To make it possible for people to reach the higher levels of the pyramid by meeting their physiological needs, safety needs, need for love and belonging, we must have a holistic vision and work on the root causes of the problems in order to find lasting solutions. I would like to humbly and simply list some potential solutions. Unfortunately, I do so without explaining them, but we could talk about this further. I simply want to provide some food for thought.
Since 2016, 100,000 social housing units should have been built every year, but they were not. We need to increase funding so we can make up for some of that delay, which has a direct impact on the current price of housing. Then, we must maintain the funding so that such “gaps” in construction never happen again.
Quebec and Canada are welcoming places. Newcomers must have access to adequate housing, without forcing us to neglect the desperate needs of First Nations or of other segments of the population who have been in Canada for years or even decades.
I remind members that social housing offers rent that represents less than 30% of the tenants' income. It is not 10% off the price of a $2,500 a month apartment rental. For this type of housing, it makes more sense for projects to be overseen by community organizations whose mission is to provide relief to people, instead of by companies whose mission is only to make a profit.
As we have been saying for a long time, inflation has a direct impact on people with fixed incomes. There are those over the age of 75, but there are also those aged 65 to 74, and we must enable them to catch up with inflation and access a tax credit that would allow them, if they so wish, to go back to work and earn a little more, without having their guaranteed income supplement or pension clawed back.
We must also think about developing our regions. Canada is full of beautiful regions to discover, and we must develop them. To do this, we need better means of transportation. It would be wonderful if we had a railway system worthy of the 21st century, not the 19th century. We need companies that will settle in our regions and young people who want to follow them to take advantage of tax credits for new graduates who go work in the regions. I would also like to see an energy transition that allows people to have electricity and heating without falling prey to speculation.
In short, the GST payment is a good thing at this point in time. However, as elected officials, we have a duty to protect the dignity of the less fortunate. It is both possible and necessary to do so in the long term. As elected officials, we must stop thinking only in terms of polls, the next election or the issues of the day.
We need to think in terms of the next 10 to 50 years.
