Bill C-32

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2022

An Act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 3, 2022 and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022

Part 1 implements certain measures in respect of the Income Tax Act by
(a) providing that any gain on the disposition of a Canadian housing unit within a one-year period of its acquisition is treated as business income;
(b) introducing a Tax-Free First Home Savings Account;
(c) phasing out flow-through shares for oil, gas and coal activities;
(d) introducing a new 30% Critical Mineral Exploration Tax Credit for specified mineral exploration expenses incurred in Canada and renounced to flow-through share investors;
(e) introducing the Canada Recovery Dividend under which banks and life insurers’ groups pay a temporary one-time 15% tax on taxable income above $1 billion over five years;
(f) increasing the corporate income tax rate of banks and life insurers’ groups by 1.5% on taxable income above $100 million;
(g) providing additional reporting requirements for trusts;
(h) providing rules applicable to mutual fund trusts listed on a designated stock exchange in Canada with respect to amounts that are allocated to redeeming unitholders;
(i) providing the Minister of National Revenue with the discretion to decline to issue a certificate under section 116 of the Income Tax Act in certain circumstances relating to the administration and enforcement of the Underused Housing Tax Act ;
(j) doubling the First-Time Homebuyers’ Tax Credit;
(k) expanding the eligibility criteria for the Medical Expense Tax Credit in respect of medical expenses incurred in Canada related to surrogate mothers and donors and fees paid in Canada to fertility clinics and donor banks;
(l) introducing the Multigenerational Home Renovation Tax Credit;
(m) allowing access to the small business tax rate on a phased-out basis up to taxable capital of $50 million;
(n) modifying the computation of income as a result of the adoption of a new international accounting standard for insurance contracts;
(o) introducing a new graduated disbursement quota rate for charities;
(p) providing that the general anti-avoidance rules can apply to transactions that affect tax attributes that have not yet been used to reduce taxes;
(q) strengthening the rules on avoidance of tax debts;
(r) modifying the calculation of the taxes applicable to registered investments that hold property that is not a qualified investment;
(s) modifying the tax treatment of certain interest coupon stripping arrangements that might otherwise be used to avoid tax on cross-border interest payments;
(t) clarifying the applicable rules with respect to audits by Canada Revenue Agency officials, including requiring taxpayers to give reasonable assistance and to answer all proper questions for tax purposes; and
(u) extending the capital cost allowance for clean energy and the tax rate reduction for zero-emission technology manufacturers to include air-source heat pumps.
It also makes related and consequential amendments to the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act , the Excise Tax Act , the Air Travellers Security Charge Act , the Excise Act, 2001 , Part 1 of the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act and the Income Tax Regulations .
Part 2 amends the Excise Act, 2001 and other related texts in order to implement changes to
(a) the federal excise duty frameworks for cannabis and other products by, among other things,
(i) permitting excise duty remittances for certain cannabis licensees to be made on a quarterly rather than a monthly basis, starting from the quarter that began on April 1, 2022, and
(ii) allowing the transfer of packaged, but unstamped, cannabis products between licensed cannabis producers; and
(b) the federal excise duty framework for vaping products in relation to the markings, customs storage and excise duty liability of these products.
Part 3 amends the Underused Housing Tax Act to make amendments of a technical or housekeeping nature. It also makes regulations under that Act in order to, among other things, implement an exemption for certain vacation properties.
Division 1 of Part 4 authorizes the Minister of Finance to acquire and hold on behalf of His Majesty in right of Canada non-voting shares of a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Canada Development Investment Corporation that is responsible for administering the Canada Growth Fund and to requisition the amounts for the acquisition of those shares out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
Division 2 of Part 4 amends the Bretton Woods and Related Agreements Act to increase the maximum financial assistance that may be provided in respect of foreign states.
Subdivision A of Division 3 of Part 4 enacts the Framework Agreement on First Nation Land Management Act .
Subdivision B of Division 3 of Part 4 contains transitional provisions in respect of the enactment of the Framework Agreement on First Nation Land Management Act and makes consequential amendments to other Acts. It also repeals the First Nations Land Management Act .
Division 4 of Part 4 amends the Government Employees Compensation Act in order to fulfil Canada’s obligations under the Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America concerning Cooperation on the Civil Lunar Gateway.
Division 5 of Part 4 amends the Canada Student Loans Act to eliminate the accrual of interest on guaranteed student loans beginning on April 1, 2023.
It also amends the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act to eliminate the accrual of interest on student loans beginning on April 1, 2023.
Finally, it amends the Apprentice Loans Act to eliminate the accrual of interest on apprentice loans beginning on April 1, 2023 and to clarify when the repayment of apprentice loans begins during the interest suspension period from April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2023.

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2022

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, one of the things that has really hit Canadians across this country is the high price of gas. It has gone up almost a dollar in my part of the country.

The Conservatives seem obsessed with stopping the increase in the carbon tax that comes into effect in April, which would amount to about two cents a litre. They are ignoring the fact that oil and gas companies have had immense windfall profits, billions of dollars, record profits this year because of the high price of world oil. The U.K. has instituted a 35% windfall tax on oil and gas companies. The CEO of Shell has asked the federal government here to tax them more.

I am wondering why the Conservatives are so silent on this way of really bringing help to Canadians.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Madam Speaker, on the surface, that would seem like a plausible argument. What I did not hear was the books of our oil and gas companies being brought to the fore in the six years previous due to the policies of the Liberal government.

Record profits are not only being incurred in different parts of the country; that is how a market works.

Is there a role for the government to step in there? That is what the House is to decide.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Other countries are doing it.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Some are; some are not.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

This is not a discussion.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Madam Speaker, the reality is that the government needs to look at the impact of all of its policies on consumers, who are facing 10%-plus food inflation and 6% to 7% on a monthly basis on all other costs of living. The impact of that on our most vulnerable is what concerns the members on this side of the House.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour, as always, to rise in this place, and especially so when it comes to important decisions around helping Canadians get through these times of inflationary pressure, with a housing crisis and a health care system in chaos. Today we are debating the implementation of items included in the fall economic statement, which the Minister of Finance produced a couple of weeks ago.

The NDP is always focused on helping Canadians. That is why we were happy to see NDP initiatives that are clearly designed to do just that, help Canadians who need the support the most, included in that fall economic statement. There are initiatives like providing dental care for kids who do not have access to a dental plan now, like doubling the GST rebate for low-income Canadians to help them deal with the rising costs of food and gas, and like providing a $500 boost for low-income renters so they can afford to keep a roof over their heads. I would like to point out that the dental care provisions in the fall statement are not in Bill C-32, which we are discussing today, but were in Bill C-31, which received royal assent yesterday, so that was a great day for Canadians.

I am also happy to find a couple of paragraphs in the statement about credit card transaction fees, an issue that the NDP has been raising for decades. Jack Layton brought this up time and again. Canadian small business owners pay some of the highest credit card transaction fees in the world, and in this world of online shopping, the fees make it even more difficult for them to compete for Canadians' shopping dollars.

As the NDP critic for small business, I have talked with executives from Visa, Mastercard, Moneris and other companies involved in these transactions. I know it is a complex issue and that these fees vary with the business volume and the credit card type, but the fact remains that small business owners pay the highest rates, and these are the highest rates in the world. These are the business owners who can least afford those high fees. Now consumers are concerned because business owners have been given the okay to pass these fees on to consumers.

I was happy to see a pledge in the fall economic statement that the government will move forward on regulating credit card transaction fees if negotiations with the industry do not bear fruit. The NDP will be watching this issue with great interest because we want to make sure this actually happens. We want to make sure that real, concrete action is taken to ease the pressure on Canadian businesses and consumers.

I want to spend the rest of my time discussing some items that were not included in the fall economic statement and therefore are not in Bill C-32. They are items that I was hoping would be there as they would have helped Canadians this winter before we get another update in the spring budget.

There was something in the fall economic statement about eliminating the interest on federal student loans, which is something again that the NDP has been calling for. However, there was nothing for one of the most blatant aspects of student underfunding in Canada. That is the scholarships given to graduate students who are working full time on their research. These federal scholarship amounts provided by the three funding councils have remained unchanged since 2003. That is almost 20 years ago, when housing costs were a fraction of what they are now. Master's students now work full time on their research for the princely annual salary of $17,500. Ph.D. students work full time for $21,000. Regular Canadians would have a very difficult time surviving on those wages, but these students have to pay thousands of dollars in tuition on top of that as well. This is below minimum wage. We are forcing our best and brightest to live in poverty.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Science and Research recommended in a recent report that the government increase these scholarship levels to rectify the situation. I also sponsored an e-petition, e-4098, organized by scientists across the country and signed by thousands of Canadians, that asked for a 48% increase in the value of those scholarships to match inflation over the past 20 years. The petition also asked that the number of scholarships be increased by 50% to match the demand for graduate students across the country.

Once students get their Ph.D.s, they must compete to get post-doctoral fellowships. It is an essential part of the career track of young scientists. Last year, 840 master's students received scholarships, and 750 received Ph.D. scholarships, but only 150 post-doctoral fellowships were provided. The petition mentioned above asked that the number of post-doctoral fellowships be doubled so that we can keep these students in Canada.

We are forcing young researchers to leave the country to continue their education. These are students we have educated here in Canada since they were in kindergarten. The numbers tell the story: 38% of graduates leave Canada to do their postgraduate work. They go to the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia. They go to a host of other countries that know the future of their economies relies on innovation and well-educated workers.

The negative impact of this neglect of young researchers on the Canadian economy is incalculable, but even the lost cost of that training is estimated to be about $640 million every year. I was disappointed that this issue was not dealt with in the fall economic statement, but I can assure the House that I will keep up the pressure on the government to ensure that it is fixed in next year's budget.

Another issue that was not dealt with in the statement was the automatically escalating alcohol excise tax. This tax will increase by over 6% in the coming months because of the high inflation rate. Distilleries, breweries and wineries, which are already facing the rising costs of packaging and production, will have to swallow that increase in their costs to consumers. These are costs that are not faced by their foreign competition.

My riding makes the best wine in the country. My hometown is the epicentre of craft brewing in Canada, and there are more craft distilleries in my riding every year. However, these small businesses, which are an important and growing part of the economy in my riding, now face this increase of costs that was never part of their business plans.

I have talked to representatives from these distilleries, breweries and wineries, and they have practical solutions for this problem. They have no objection to paying the excise tax, but they want to make sure it is fair compared to what their international competitors pay.

The United States has a system whereby smaller producers pay a smaller rate of tax for distillers and breweries. Other wine-producing countries support their industries in ways that are trade legal. Canada came up with a similar support for our wine industry, but it is set to expire next year after only 18 months. This program needs to be extended to 2030, at least, to make sure our industry, especially the smaller producers, can continue to thrive.

Most Canadians are struggling to get by these days, but wealthy Canadians and many big corporations are making record amounts of money. Oil and gas companies are making record profits based on the windfall of world oil prices caused by international events. Big grocery stores are making record profits, even as many Canadians are forced to cut back on their food purchases.

The Liberal government could have instituted a windfall tax on these excess profits, which could have generated billions of dollars in revenue to really support the Canadians who need it most. Even the Conservative government in the United Kingdom is taxing these windfall profits. In fact, it just raised that windfall tax from 25% to 35% yesterday. The CEO of Shell Canada literally told the federal government that their company should be taxed more.

Why is the CEO of Shell more progressive than the Liberal government, to say nothing of the Conservatives?

The fall economic statement included a modest increase in the tax rate for banks and other financial institutions, but totally ignored the big corporations that made the biggest profits in this difficult time for Canadians. I hope that, by the time the spring budget rolls around, the Liberal government will have found the courage to bring in windfall taxes to make sure that companies that are making record profits on the backs of Canadians pay their fair share.

In conclusion, I will be voting in favour of this bill. It brings several supports to Canadians that will truly help those who need it most, and it takes some hesitant steps toward a more sustainable future.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, the member recognized some valid points that the government is seriously considering, and some issues we can address. I want to also highlight and get the member's perspective on a couple of progressive measures that we have seen.

Within this legislation, we now provide support through getting rid of the interest on student loans. Prior to that, we had the children's dental program, where we are providing dental supports for children under the age of 12. Both issues are very much on the progressive side. They are going to have a wonderful impact in communities throughout the country.

Could he provide his thoughts on the importance of progressive policies, such as the two I cited?

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, if the member had listened to my speech, he would have heard that I mentioned both of those items. They are things that we support as the NDP, because they were literally our ideas, especially the dental care proposal that the Liberals voted against a year ago. However, we were very happy to see that being carried forward. We look forward to next year when it will be expanded to include seniors and people with disabilities, and in the third year to all Canadians who need dental care who do not have that coverage now.

I am very much in favour of getting rid of the interest on student loans. It is something we have been calling on for a long time, because students are our future. That is why I care so much about the graduate student situation, where we are forcing our best and brightest to live in poverty. We should fix that right now.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate hearing from my fellow Okanagan member of Parliament. It is always good that we can talk about issues that we agree on. I really do hope he will support any future legislation that the Conservatives would bring to eliminate the excise tax on our small and medium-sized wineries, distillers and breweries.

The member mentioned student loans and the charging of interest. The government actually increased the interest rate this year and it is now only pledging to go to zero. The pledges of the government seem to go back and forth, most importantly, on credit card fees. I agree that credit card interchange fees are high in Canada, but the government has promised to change that not only in this economic statement, but also in the previous budget that was tabled in the spring and in the last budget.

Why do NDP members continue to allow the government to have an infinite amount of time and options, and not use their supply agreement with the government to force it on these issues?

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola for those comments, and I agree with him right up to the very end of them.

I do not know if the member knows how supply agreements work, but we do not get everything we ask for from the government when we enter into those agreements. The Liberals agreed to bring in dental care, and that is something that will change the lives of millions of Canadians. I know that the Conservatives are against providing dental care for poor kids across this country, but the NDP is proud to bring that forward.

However, we are very suspicious of the government when it says that, yes, it is going to fix the credit card interchange fees. As the member mentioned, the government has not done it before, and this is all about talking to industry. Therefore, we are going to be watching those pieces very carefully.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

In his speech and during questions and comments, the student loan measure was mentioned. The Bloc Québécois supports this measure because we see that it will help students in the rest of Canada.

However, I would like to remind my colleague that Quebec is not part of that program because it already has its own loans and bursaries program that works well. An agreement with Ottawa gives Quebec the right to automatically withdraw with full compensation, which we are pleased about.

With regard to the dental insurance set out in Bill C-31, however, it is important to note that Quebec already has its own dental insurance program for children aged 10 and under. We thought that the programs would be harmonized with, for example, funding to extend coverage to children up to the age of 12, especially since Quebec's program is a real program that works well.

However, there is absolutely nothing about that or about a right to withdraw with compensation. To make matters worse, the government has imposed a super gag order to prevent the bill from being examined in committee. That means no amendments can be proposed.

What does my colleague think about that?

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, as for the dental care provisions that received royal assent yesterday, this is a temporary interim measure. Since the government did not act quickly enough, we could not bring in the real dental care program that we would have liked to see. People in Quebec can apply for that funding if their children are not eligible for the funding under the provincial program, and we have heard a lot—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Resuming debate, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Madam Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate on Bill C-32, the fall economic statement and its implementation. It is critical to address this kind of issue. It is critical to the constituents I represent in Parkdale—High Park in terms of the cost of living crisis that so many Canadians are facing and in terms of addressing affordability.

I am happy to highlight, in the context of this intervention, what we are doing and what we are proposing to do as a government. Let me start with students. I feel that I am not that far removed from my student years, although it has been almost 30 years. I remember those days fondly. What I did not have to deal with then that students have to deal with now is really crippling debt with skyrocketing tuition rates and the debt loads that young people are taking on.

We want people to be considering post-secondary education. We want them to be advancing themselves and their careers through higher education. During COVID we implemented a new relaxation on the interest being charged on federal student loans. With the fall economic statement, we are entrenching permanently the position that we took during COVID on a go-forward basis to eliminate interest on the federal portion of student loans.

The caveat here is that not every province is following suit with their provincial counterparts. As a proud representative from Toronto, I urge the provincial government in Ontario to follow suit as six other provinces have. This would ensure that the provincial portion in my native province also eliminates interest so that we can render more fairness for these young people.

The next subject area I will to turn to is housing. Housing is something we hear about all the time and rightfully so. Housing has become difficult in terms of attaining housing on a purchase model for people who would like to own property. It has become difficult for people who want to rent in this country. It is difficult on a number of fronts.

Colleagues know the actions we have taken as a government, but more needs to be done. The national housing strategy was an important initial step in 2017. We have supplemented that with continuing contributions to the housing portfolio.

What we are doing in this fall economic statement is fourfold. The first thing we are doing is ensuring that a new tax-free first homes savings account is permitted to be opened. This will operate much like a TFSA. This would allow a young person or a young couple to save as much as $40,000 in savings, tax free, to contribute to the purchase of that first home. That is an important step.

A few years ago, we also implemented something called the first-time homebuyers' tax credit. The fall economic statement proposes to double that amount to reflect the fact that housing prices have gone up. We appreciate that people need more of a credit to take that initial step to purchase their first home.

On a third front, what we are doing with respect to house flipping is really critical. We have heard about the commodification of the housing industry. We have heard about people using it as a speculative sort of exercise. The proposal contained in the fall economic statement is to tax the profits as business income for those who would sell a property within 12 months of having purchased it, preventing them from taking the capital gains exemption that is otherwise available to them. That is really critical because we want to ease that speculation in the housing market, not encourage it.

The last piece is also critical for those who want multi-generational housing. This is common in some parts of the country and some parts of the Canadian mosaic. We are trying to facilitate seniors to age at home. For example, for people who might want to have elderly parents live in their homes, possibly having three generations within the same dwelling, the renovation tax credit is being expanded through the multi-generational home renovation tax credit.

It does not stop with those who own homes. What we are doing for renters is very significant. Recently we topped up the Canada housing benefit, which was implemented through a proposal that I believe received royal assent yesterday. That was a $500 top-up. It is unfortunate that not all parties were onside in terms of supporting Bill C-31, which implemented this increase of $500 to the Canada housing benefit. It targets low-income Canadians who are renting in this current financial environment. Approximately 1.8 million people renting in this country will be affected by this one change, which is direct assistance during difficult economic times to help with the cost of housing.

On the broader piece of affordability, I want to highlight two other key facets. The first is the GST rebate, which I believe is in Bill C-30, if memory serves. Thankfully, there was a lot of consent in the chamber for doubling it for the next six months. That affects 11 million Canadians. That is a very significant form of assistance in difficult economic times.

The second is the dental benefit, which will be up to $1,300, in Bill C-31, which I believe received royal assent just yesterday. That will enable children under the age of 12 in low-income families to get much-needed dental care. I will salute the approach that has been mooted in the chamber by various parties about expanding the concept of health care to include dental care. That is a step in the right direction. That is a step we need to take and are taking as a government. This is really critical.

Another point I want to add, if I can open a parenthesis, is that it is critical for people to understand, including Canadians watching right now, in dealing with the rising impacts of inflation, they should note how many government benefits that are currently part of our social safety net are indexed to inflation. They are multiple. The Canada child benefit, the GST credit, CPP benefits, old age security, the guaranteed income supplement and even the federal minimum wage are all tied to and indexed to inflation. We do not want to see inflation rise any further, but if it does, the benefits will also have a concomitant increase. That is very important to give people peace of mind about what their benefits will be assisting them with as we deal with difficult issues about the cost of living.

I want to touch on what we are doing for workers. We are working hard to assist workers directly. The fall economic statement would enhance the Canada workers benefit, which we have implemented. For those who are not familiar with it, there used to be disincentives for people coming off of assistance and taking low-paying work. We did not want to disincentivize people from leaving government assistance and entering the workforce.

The Canada workers benefit creates a top-up for those people who are in that particular situation, so they are encouraged to enter the workforce rather than discouraged. With this change, we are not providing that benefit annually, but on a quarterly basis, so those benefits will be in people's bank accounts more frequently, which helps them deal with the cost of living on a more direct and frequent basis. This one change has the potential to affect as many as 4.2 million workers.

We are also talking about a sustainable jobs training centre. This dovetails exactly with something we have heard a lot about over the past four to five years in the chamber, which is the notion of a just transition. How do we transition good, unionized work from different sectors into good, unionized, high-paying jobs in new, sustainable clean tech sectors? We do that through harnessing the power of unions and also through harnessing the powers of a sustainable economy. The sustainable jobs training centre would do just that. That is part of the fall economic statement.

We are also addressing fairness for workers directly by taxing share buybacks. This is important because, as the Minister of Finance outlined when she announced the fall economic statement, what we want to do is encourage businesses to not hold on to their wealth, to not pay for dividends to shareholders, but rather to reinvest in their businesses, including through R and D, which would empower the workers themselves. That is a critical feature, and that is what we are doing in this fall economic statement.

Another component is addressing fairness for small and medium enterprises. I am proud to serve as the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Small Business. Insofar as we addressed the small businesses stakeholders around the country, we heard repeatedly from entities about the prohibitive costs of credit card transactions, which only escalated during the pandemic as people turned to cashless methods of payment.

The charges that are part of the credit interchange fee structures are proving to be more and more prohibitive on small business owners. What we have committed quite openly in the fall economic statement is that we will doggedly pursue a negotiated agreement with financial institutions to reduce those fees. If those negotiations prove futile or unsuccessful, we have made a public statement in the chamber and through the fall economic statement that we will actually legislate in this area to bring down those fees. That would have a direct impact on small and medium businesses.

On this point, I want to read some of the reaction we have heard. The Convenience Industry Council of Canada has said, “CICC is pleased that the government has responded to our calls for action and has acknowledged the impact that credit card fees are having on convenience stores across the country.” They also said that Canadian convenience stores “have reached a tipping point & we need the feds to act NOW.”

That is exactly what we are doing. We are responding to this. When one responds to the needs of small business owners, one also responds to the people who use small businesses, the consumers who are facing escalating costs because credit card transaction fees are passed on to them.

That is part of what we are doing in the fall economic statement. It is critical to address the cost of living needs of Canadians, my constituents of Parkdale—High Park, the constituents of every member in this chamber. That is why I will be voting in support of the fall economic statement, Bill C-32, and I encourage every member of this chamber to do the same.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague talked about programs to assist university students getting into their careers. University students I speak to in my riding are very concerned about the evaporating dream of home ownership. I know the member will probably mention the first home savings account, which would allow them to save up to $40,000. I will point out that, at the rate of inflation, this is about one year's worth of inflation on housing.

What will the government do to tackle inflation, which is the real problem students are facing?

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate that housing is a critical feature. It is a critical feature in the province of British Columbia, as it is in my province of Ontario. What we are doing, as I mentioned, are things such as the first-time home buyers' tax credit and the tax-free first home savings account. We have already initiated a national housing strategy. We campaigned in the 2020 election on more housing starts, and we are working co-operatively with many provinces, including my own, to build more housing. I also point to the rapid housing initiative, which has been very targeted in building more housing faster.

In terms of inflation, I hope every member of the chamber appreciates the inflationary pressures Canada is facing are not unique to Canada alone. They are being faced by all of our G7 allies, indeed by all of our allies around the planet. In fact, comparatively, Canada's rate of inflation is lower than the United States and all of our G7 allies, which is an important feature for this debate.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his speech. He just went over the whole inflation problem.

The word “inflation” appears in the fall economic update 108 times. We know that in contrast to the previous budget, there are no new measures. It is just a rehash. It uses different rhetoric to justify the same measures.

The government is rightly concerned that a recession could hit this winter. As far as the recession is concerned, the Bloc Québécois is asking for employment insurance to be reformed as soon as possible so it is ready to go. The government was supposed to have it in place for last summer, but the system still has not been reformed. We would not want to have to create a CERB 2.0 to limit the damage and make up for a failing EI system.

Why was this reform not included in Bill C‑32?

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Joliette for his question and his interest in this very important issue.

Regarding inflation, I mentioned in my speech that all the programs, roughly six of them, are indexed to inflation. In other words, if inflation goes up, the government benefits will also go up.

As far as EI is concerned, that is a very specific issue. Members can see from the mandate letter that the Prime Minister wrote to the minister responsible for this file that we are here to resolve the situation in consultation with all the provinces. We will always be there for employers and workers.

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

Madam Speaker, working with Unifor, the Alberta Federation of Labour and IBEW, we have been pushing the government to get some real standards in place to create a clean energy economy. We were pleased to see that we actually have some labour standards now, some labour obligations, for tax credits for new projects. That is significant.

However, we have not yet seen the commitment for an industrial strategy to really drive a clean energy economy. At what point will we see, from the government, the money on the table required to transform us from a fossil fuel economy and make the investments needed to gather up the huge opportunities waiting in the clean energy economy?

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will point the member to a few different things.

One is the approach that we have taken with labour standards vis-à-vis our conclusion of agreements internationally. CUSMA comes to mind as a fair example. Second, it is not solely about investments that the Canadian government provides. It also about the tax credits we provide to spur innovation and investment. The clean tax credit is now available to entities that are pursuing clean tech and sustainable growth industries. That was revealed in the fall economic statement. I will also point him to the fact that our environmental package of the last seven years includes more than $100 billion in investments.

He mentioned the Alberta Federation of Labour. Its response to our share buyback taxation on banks was that it is “Very positive news to hear Finance Minister Freeland confirm earlier reports that Canada will tax stock buybacks”—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

We have to resume debate. I will remind the hon. member that we do not mention the names of current members of the House.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Kenora has the floor.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am honoured by the opportunity to rise again today and speak to a government bill, Bill C-32, in regard to the fall economic statement. The member for Winnipeg North believes it is a good bill. Unfortunately, I cannot really say the same, and I am going to get into that here with my remarks.

Obviously, it is an important discussion we are having today, with the cost of living crisis that is facing Canadians across the country. We are feeling that in the Kenora riding in northern Ontario, and we know we are seeing it across the country, but unfortunately, the government's economic statement is really just more of the same policies we have seen over the last number of years from the government. It is more of the same policies that have driven up inflation in the first place and have really created and exacerbated this cost of living crisis people are facing.

In the lead-up to the economic statement, Conservatives called for the same things we have been calling for for quite some time. It will probably not surprise members to know what we were calling for; we were calling for no new spending and no new taxes. We know the government's spending has driven up inflation. The PBO has told us that and independent economists have told us that, and that is the real cause and the reason we are here today and Canadians are facing the concerns they are.

Conservatives believe that every new dollar of spending should be matched by a dollar of savings. It is a very simple principle, something that most people would use in their own households and with their own pocketbooks, that if we are going to spend more money on one thing, we should find savings elsewhere. Unfortunately, that is not what we saw from the government, and it has brought forward a plan that is really just going to add more fuel to the inflationary fire.

Of course, the second thing we have called for, as I mentioned earlier, is no new taxes, because Canadians are really feeling the squeeze right now. The cost of everything is going up, and the government's additional taxes and the increases in the taxes, including the tripling of the carbon tax, are not going to make that any better. Canadians are looking for relief, and Conservatives are here fighting for that relief and calling on the government to do the same.

We know half of Canadians are $200 away from insolvency right now, and that is a very stark and striking statistic that shows the real issues and challenges people are facing. I want to share some concerns constituents have brought and sent to me. One comes from a constituent of mine in Pickle Lake, which is the northernmost municipality in Ontario and is in my riding. This constituent says, “Costs are rising at an alarming rate, and living in a remote community makes it even more so. With gas prices and the cost of heating fuel continually on the rise, it makes it hard to make ends meet.” That is just one of the many concerns in letters and emails I know I have been getting and I think all of us in the House have been getting from our own respective communities, highlighting how difficulty it is for people to get by.

Inflation is impacting gas, groceries and home heating, perhaps the most. These are three essential things that Canadians need. In fact, when it comes to gas prices, far too often in northwestern Ontario we see some of the highest gas prices in the country. I want to share a quick excerpt from a Kenora Online news article from September of this year. The headline is “Kenora has the most expensive gas in Ontario, again”.

This is something we see over and over again, that the Kenora district has the highest gas prices in the province of Ontario. Of course, being in a remote northern area, the issues of the added cost of the carbon tax hit us so much more than they would in areas like Toronto, Ottawa and across southern Ontario. This specific article notes that Kenora had the “14th most expensive fuel in Canada, behind [only] 13 communities from British Columbia”. I think that highlights, at the time of writing, just how challenging the fuel prices are.

Gas is essential in the Kenora district. People need it, not only to go to work or get groceries, but often to travel multiple hours to medical appointments. It is really something that is perhaps taken for granted for those in southern Ontario and in the larger urban centres, who have public transit and many more options and services close to home. People need to use fuel to travel long distances in the remote north, and that is something that definitely makes everything more complicated for people in the Kenora riding and across northern Ontario.

I also want to share a couple more letters that I received from constituents about that. Wendy from Red Lake reached out to say that the prices of gas, food and electricity are all making it difficult for seniors to remain in our area as well. Tina from Dryden is a single mother of three. She says that she is forced to work two jobs to support her children, and more often than not it has become easier to eat takeout, which of course is super unhealthy, so she is very concerned about that.

This all goes back to the taxes and the inflationary spending policies of the government. It is not just gas. As I mentioned, it is groceries and home heating that are getting hit as well.

When it comes to groceries, we are seeing record food bank usage across the country. It is at an all-time high. There have been 1.5 million visits in one month to food banks in Canada. I have heard a lot about that as well from constituents.

Another individual, from Sioux Lookout, reached out to me saying that the cost of food has become so unaffordable, especially the healthy, nutritious food that is essential for her children. She is very concerned about how that is going to be impacting her. I have had a couple from Minaki reach out, saying they are both pensioners on a fixed income. They are facing a choice between eating properly or being able to stay warm this winter. That is the crisis they are facing in the Kenora riding.

I just want to share one more, from a constituent who wrote in saying that if we look at the prices in Ear Falls, a carton of milk right now costs $8.39, and a single head of lettuce is $7.99. It has become almost impossible for people to afford to put food on the table, specifically healthy food.

With the coming winter months, with the colder weather, we know home heating is something a lot of people are very concerned about. It is not a luxury in northern Ontario. It is essential. Richard from Kenora has written to me to share that his natural gas has jumped from 11¢ a cubic metre to 30¢ a cubic metre, nearly tripling in price as a result of the government's policies. He is very concerned about how he is going to be able to afford to heat his home.

What is the answer? Luckily, a constituent wrote to me to tell me what the answer is. Faith from Kenora simply says, “Eric, the carbon tax needs to go.” I could not agree more. She is obviously feeling the squeeze as well.

The concern I have, and I know all of us on this side of the House have this concern, is that when the government is faced with this crisis, its only answer is to spend more money and continue with the same inflationary policies that have really gotten us into this mess in the first place. There is no question that the Liberals like to judge their results based on how much money they can spend. If we ask a question about anything in the House, they say they have spent all this money and they are doing a great job.

On this side of the House, we are looking at the results. When we have record food bank usage across the country, when people are struggling to put food on the table and when those in remote northern communities are struggling to get by, it is clear that these policies are not working.

We are simply asking the government to rethink its approach, to stop its inflationary spending and to look at cutting taxes on struggling Canadians who are looking only for relief. That is why, as I mentioned earlier, I will not be supporting the fall economic statement. That is why I am concerned with the economic direction of the government. I look forward to any questions and comments from my colleagues on that.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Conservatives tend to focus on correlation rather than causation, so they will say there is a Liberal government in Ottawa and there is global inflation, including bad inflation in England, and therefore it is the Liberal government's fault. However, that is not how economics works. We have to look at causation.

I would like to understand a bit more the member's logic about food inflation. Is it demand-caused inflation? People can only consume so much food, and food demand goes up with population growth. It is not a function of how much the government spent on infrastructure last month. Therefore, is it demand driven or is it supply-cost driven? The price on carbon did not triple; it went up by 2.2¢ per litre last April. I am just wondering how that 2.2¢ per-litre increase can be contributing to so much food inflation, which is running above 10%.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Madam Speaker, that is another out-of-touch comment from the Liberal government. The Liberals simply seem to believe that prices are skyrocketing and they are just victims of it and have absolutely no responsibility here. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has indicated that it is the government's inflationary spending that is the cause of inflation. Future Liberal leader Mark Carney has said so, as have other leading economists across the country. There are certainly other challenges that we are facing, but there is no denying that when the government spends more, it adds to inflation, and when it taxes more, it makes things more expensive for Canadians. Why will the Liberals not understand that?

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, we have listened to our Conservative friends talk about inflation and January's tax increase, but we cannot take their “triple, triple, triple” chant any more. We would like them to find something new to say. However, they are right that costs will triple and that that will have consequences for people. That much is true.

Let us talk about climate change. The current carbon tax rate is pretty much ineffective. We are the laughingstock of COP27. Canada is ranked 58th out of 60 countries. It is the only G7 country where emissions have increased since 2015, the year the Liberals came to power. We have to take action on climate change.

At COP27, we heard that if we do nothing, the cost to African nations in particular will be atrocious. If we do not pay now, we will pay even more later.

What is the solution, according to my Conservative friends?

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would agree in many respects with my colleague from the Bloc, that the Liberal government has missed every single environmental target it has set. Canada is now at the bottom of the pack when it comes to climate change. The government has brought forward all these taxation policies that cause economic pain for Canadians, but we are not seeing any environmental gain as a result. Therefore, it is clear that the Liberal plan is not working and it is time for a new government that is going to work to make life more affordable for Canadians and bring forward a real plan to protect the environment. That is what we are going to do on this side of the House.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to follow up on the question from the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis to the member for Kenora, because a really critical point is understanding that what we are experiencing now is not typical inflation. Real costs have really gone up.

I was recently talking to a farmer in Alberta who had real drought that meant that he could get a yield of only about half the barley he would normally get, but on balance the year was good because the war in Ukraine is so caught up in the cost of barley that the prices have soared, so half as much barley yielded more profit.

This is complicated stuff, and it is not about one thing only. It is a bit about demand-driven inflation, but it is a lot about supply-driven inflation, which means that the tools are not as easily described as government spending too much money. I wonder if the member has any thoughts on that.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Madam Speaker, as I said in an earlier response to a Liberal member's question, there are many aspects that are impacting a lot of the challenges we are seeing here in the country, but there is no denying the fact that, as the PBO pointed out, as Mark Carney has pointed out and as many economists across the country have pointed out, when the government spends more it makes life more unaffordable for Canadians; it drives up inflation.

The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands says that this is very complicated, but it is not complicated for people in northern Ontario who are just struggling to put food on the table and to fill their gas tanks, and who are worried about heating their homes. They know the government's spending is driving it. They know they cannot afford any more tax hikes, and that is why they are looking for relief from the Liberals.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C‑32, An Act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 3, 2022 and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to speak today and I would like to point out that I am on indigenous lands.

It is Algonquin and Anishinabe land, and I am honoured to be here on behalf of my constituents from Saanich—Gulf Islands.

Today we are taking up Bill C-32, the legislative interpretation of the Minister of Finance's fall economic statement, as tabled on November 4. I will start with the things I like about the bill. I want to be clear that I will be voting in favour of it, but I will be bringing forward amendments, assuming the bill gets through second reading and we see it at committee, which I think is a foregone conclusion.

In any case, the bill is primarily focused, in its substance, on a number of promises that have to do with making housing more affordable, such as reducing speculation in the residential housing market with really substantial measures, which I am pleased to see, to discourage the flipping of real estate properties. As to first-time homebuyer opportunities, the first-time homebuyers' tax credit is being substantially increased. We are also seeing cuts on interest rates on student loans.

We are seeing a number of measures that one could generally categorize as making life more affordable, and I am pleased to see those measures. Clearly, there are things in the bill that are long overdue. I am also pleased that on facing the climate crisis, although there is very little, we have one good measure: phasing out the flow-through shares for oil, gas and coal activities. In other words, we are stopping one of the many tax advantages offered to fossil fuels.

However, there is a lot to discuss that flows from the fall economic statement that is not in the legislation. With the Speaker's indulgence, I will concentrate more on what is missing than on what is here.

I would like to read from the fall economic statement. The hon. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, in the introduction before we get into the substantial part of the statement, calls for a green transition and then says this requires “an industrial transformation comparable in scale only to the Industrial Revolution itself”. I completely agree with that. I would say that perhaps it is an industrial transformation that is quite comparable to what Canada's economy went through in the Second World War. These are not incremental steps. This is fundamental and transformational, and that is what is required.

The hon. minister put this forward in connection with a 1903 quote from Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, who said in this place when it was in Centre Block that we cannot wait for transformation. He was referring to building a transcontinental railway and said that this transformation would change “the conditions of our national life which it would be folly to ignore and a crime to overlook.”

I agree with all of those words, but the ambition embedded in those words is completely lacking in Bill C-32. Looking ahead to the spring budget and identifying what is missing, I want to reflect a bit on the timing, the urgency, what I hope to see and what all Canadians should put pressure on the government to deliver by spring.

In contrast, looking south of the border, it is very interesting to me that President Joe Biden managed to get through a very ambitious climate plan, but the name of his bill is the Inflation Reduction Act. The target is inflation, and it will in fact reduce inflation, but the measures are ambitious climate-related measures that Canada has not yet undertaken. The U.S., of course, must do more as well.

As we stand here today, our delegates and friends from this chamber, such as my friend from Kitchener Centre and the Minister of Environment, are at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where they just decided to extend the meeting that was slated to adjourn today. It is extended until midnight tomorrow as progress has not been made.

We are running out of time, quite literally. The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, opened COP27 by saying that the world was on “a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.” We have an obligation not to allow our children and grandchildren to live in a climate hell, yet everything we have done so far as a nation has fallen dramatically short of what is required to meet our obligations under the science and meet our international obligations to attempt to hold to less than 1.5°C global warming and stay as far below 2°C as possible.

It is getting impossible, even for an optimist like me, to imagine that we can hold to 1.5°C. We are on track to nearly double that. However, let us look at what we would do if we were serious. I will start by looking at what should be in the next budget and what the government should do, because it is not too late. It is desperately close to too late, but it is not too late.

We need to stop increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Obviously, it is impossible to reach the targets set by the Paris Agreement with increasing levels of greenhouse gas emissions. We must act quickly and also accept the idea that the era of fossil fuels is almost over.

It will not be tomorrow, but we have to accept that our dependency on fossil fuels must end, and soon. It was very disappointing to read that at COP27, within the last 24 hours, Canada rejected the language that we had accepted in Glasgow last year, that we are working towards the phase-out of coal. Most countries, many of our allies, were prepared to say, let us say “coal and oil and gas”. Canada said we could not say we were going to phase out oil and gas, on any timeline. Of course we cannot do that in two weeks. Can we do it in ten years? Probably not. However, the goal must be to phase out all fossil fuels, or we are indeed headed on the highway to climate hell.

When Sir Wilfrid Laurier talked about linking the country, east to west, with a railway, what is the modern climate equivalent of that? It is an east-west electricity grid: 100% renewably sourced electricity must be able to flow from one province to the other and north to the territories. Right now, our provincial monopolistic utilities want to sell only one way: south. They sell south for their profits, and that is fine and good, but the grid could operate like the giant battery we really need.

Let us look at where we would be if we considered the links between inflation and climate action. That is an important place to start. We need to stop thinking in silos, in other words, and start thinking holistically.

A lightbulb went off for me recently. I was talking to a friend who is an Alberta grain farmer. I asked how they had survived the very brutal drought. His answer was that it would have been really bad because they had planted barley and only got in about half the crop they would have gotten in a normal year without the extreme drought, but because of the war in Ukraine, the price of grain was so high that in the end they kind of had a good year.

What does that say? It says that when Canadian consumers are looking at increased prices for pasta and increased prices for bread products, it is a combination of things that have nothing to do with the type of demand-driven inflation that we had in the early 1970s.

Food costs are going to keep going up, because the climate crisis will continue to interrupt the growing seasons and will continue to deliver what we had for a lot of farmers and livestock producers in southern British Columbia, when atmospheric rivers killed tens of thousands of animals, mostly chickens. We have droughts that mean farmers cannot plant crops and have a good return.

That is a real cost increase. It is not about spending by the government that drives up inflation because it is demand-driven by people needing more wages. These are real cost increases.

That means we also have to be prepared for extreme weather events, and we are not. The government has postponed the delivery of the adaptation strategy until next year. Yesterday the Auditor General told us that in the case of first nations communities, 112 approved infrastructure grants that would help first nations and other indigenous communities prepare for extreme weather events were not funded by the department, just through pure delays.

There is much to be done in this country to take us from laggard, and as many people know, this week we were rated among the worst-performing industrialized countries on climate. We could still propel ourselves to leader. We could take care of our farmers, our agriculture and our economic future, at the same time as ensuring that our kids live in a livable, hospitable world. We have an obligation to do so.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, there are many things I could make reference to in regard to the fall economic statement.

However, I am very curious about what the Green Party's position is, and more specifically what the member's position is in regard to nuclear power. Does she feel there is a role for nuclear power in Canada?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to parse the hon. parliamentary secretary's question a bit more by saying that there is no case for new nuclear installations in order to avoid climate hell. There is a case for maintaining existing operating reactors and phasing them out when they come to the end of their natural lifespan.

I encourage everyone in this place to examine energy alternatives by a couple of a firm criteria, such as the tons of carbon eliminated per dollar invested; the jobs created per dollar invested; and how long it is, from the moment it is given approval, before energy flows from that development.

Even excluding the unsolved problem of nuclear waste, the link to nuclear proliferation in the military and the risk of accidents, and even if we put that all to the side and say we are prepared to believe we will escape all those problems, it does not make economic sense to go nuclear.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I know that my colleague is very much focused on demonizing the oil and gas industry. She focused her initial comments on the reversal of flow-through funds, so-called Canadian development expenses and Canadian exploration expenses, which I think she should acknowledge in her response here were disposed of by the government several years ago. All it is doing is fast-tracking the un-deployment of those funds, so it is really a very small amount.

I wonder if my colleague can tell the House how small a portion of this fall economic statement that is? It has already been baked in by every industry across Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague nailed it. The reality is that this fall economic statement has virtually nothing new on climate at all.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

I know that she is very concerned about climate change. I would like to know whether she shares my frustration about the battle that is not being waged and the results that are not being achieved in the House.

We know that the Conservatives to our right are not interested in the fight against climate changes. They do not have a plan. On the other side of the House, the Liberals are not interested in it either, but they pretend that they are. As members can see, they are not getting results. The government continues to invest $8.5 billion U.S. per year in fossil fuels. Greenhouse gas emissions have risen since the Liberals took office, but they give grand speeches about the fight against climate change and the importance of the green transition. We are caught between a majority of members here who are not interested in climate change.

What are the solutions? I would like to know whether my colleague has any ideas.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my respected colleague from the Bloc Québécois for his question.

He is absolutely right. However, I believe that many members here think, as individuals and human beings, that we are in an urgent situation and it is unacceptable to continue with the Liberals' fraudulent policies or the Conservatives' policies of denial.

We have to do more, urgently. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, says that we cannot wait another decade and we must act before 2025 if we want to limit warming to 1.5°C or 2°C. This situation is a threat to human civilization.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's intervention was very interesting. I noticed that she is wearing a sustainable development goals pin. One of the things that I find most frustrating is that we have a government that claims to have a feminist international assistance policy. We have a government that speaks about being a feminist government that will perhaps, one day, provide a feminist foreign policy, yet we know the impacts on women and girls from climate change around the world are deeply disparate.

Can my colleague talk a little about those impacts and ways in which Canada and the Canadian government could do more to protect those who are most vulnerable, women and girls around the world?

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

Mr. Speaker, even though this is not a climate impact, my thoughts are ever with the women in Afghanistan who are at risk from the Taliban, including some prominent feminists we need to help.

I will also say that obviously, in any society, when things are desperate, whether through war such as in Ukraine, or through extreme drought, or through things like hurricane Fiona, it is the women who face the impacts. They are generally less economically empowered than the men in countries around the world, and it is they who take care of their parents and their children. Women are also the majority of farmers around the world.

All those impacts from climate crises particularly affect women.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity I have been given to take part in today's debate on Bill C‑32 on the 2022 fall economic statement.

In short, Bill C‑32 is nothing but minor legislative amendments or a hodgepodge of measures announced in the spring budget that had not been incorporated into the first budget implementation bill adopted in June.

What are the concerns that we hear people talk about daily? It is the cost of living that keeps going up and a possible recession and yet there is no measure to address this new economic reality. It is very disappointing and a missed opportunity.

It is unfortunate to end up with an economic update that mentions inflation 108 times without offering any extra help to people who are vulnerable or alternative solutions when, again, a recession is on the horizon for 2023.

Bill C‑32 is a bill that fails to address the major challenges facing our society. The government identifies the problem of the rising cost of living but does nothing beyond naming it. It talks of tough days ahead this winter without making any plans to get through it.

Families, seniors, pensioners, the unemployed and workers cannot take it anymore. They are at their wits' end. The price of gas, groceries, clothing, rent and everything else is going up. People are having to cut back everywhere, do without and make choices: Do I put food on the table or do I buy winter clothes for my kids? Do I buy medicine or do I put gas in the car? These are the kinds of tough choices that most people face.

Bill C-32 includes measures to help people buy their first home. I recognize that that is a good measure, but not everyone can afford to buy a house or wants to buy a house, and those individuals need housing, especially affordable housing.

As we know, the appalling lack of housing in Nunavik can have serious, and I would even say very grave, consequences. Because of limited space, young children are sleeping in the same beds as adults, which poses a risk of death by accidental asphyxiation. Sometimes children are even crushed and die of asphyxiation in their sleep. That is unacceptable. Overcrowded housing has been identified as a recurrent risk factor.

The coroner's office has recommended that the government inject funds into housing specifically in Nunavik. The construction of social housing in Nunavik would solve the problem of the death of infants and young children, as well as other public health problems. When will the government take action? It is urgent. We are talking about saving lives.

Last week, I was in my riding, Abitibi—Baie‑James—Nunavik—Eeyou. As members know, it is a vast riding and I represent almost half of Quebec. I met with the CAO of the Vallée‑de‑l'Or RCM, who spoke to me about the housing shortage. The wheel keeps turning. Housing problems mean labour shortages and an inability to attract people to the region. We cannot stop the wheel from turning. People are tired and demoralized. They cannot manage.

People come to work in our area to make good money and then they return home. They do not buy locally, and so there is no local economy. It is an ongoing problem in Abitibi—Baie‑James—Nunavik—Eeyou. What can we do to keep our foreign workers? We must also improve the immigration process, which is very slow. It is outrageous. I feel as though the government is abandoning our regions.

The Bloc Québécois asked the government to focus on its fundamental responsibilities toward vulnerable people by increasing health transfers, providing adequate support to those aged 65 and over and urgently reforming employment insurance, which we know is the best stabilizer in times of economic difficulty.

Sadly, the government dismissed all of those good suggestions. We can therefore only denounce this as a missed opportunity to help Quebeckers deal with the tough times that they are already going through or may face in the months to come.

The government itself is making some grim economic predictions without ever considering any of the opposition's proposals as to how to prepare ourselves. Where is the logic in that?

Quebec and the other provinces are unanimously asking the government to immediately, permanently and unconditionally increase health transfers. Emergency rooms everywhere are overflowing. What is the government waiting for to transfer funds?

In addition, people between the ages of 65 and 74 continue to be denied the increase to old age security, which they need more than ever before. This is unthinkable. I have trouble understanding why the government has created two classes of seniors. It is unfair. Seniors live on fixed incomes, so they cannot deal with such a sharp rise in the cost of living in real time. They are the people most likely to have to make tough choices at the grocery store or the pharmacy.

To add to this, the government continues to penalize those who are less well-off and who would like to work more without losing their benefits. Unlike the federal government, inflation does not discriminate against seniors based on their age. Contrary to what the government says, starving seniors aged 65 to 75 will not encourage them to remain employed. That is done by no longer penalizing them when they work.

What about people who lose their jobs and have to rely on EI? For all intents and purposes, the EI system has been dismantled over the years. Currently, six out of 10 workers who lose their jobs do not qualify for EI. This is a serious problem in these tough times. The government promised reform seven years ago, and time is running out. We need EI reform. It is crucially important that we not be forced to cobble together a new CERB to offset the system's shortcomings if recession hits. As we saw during the pandemic, improvised programs are expensive and ineffective. With the looming threat of recession, there is an urgent need to rebuild the system to avoid a repeat of what we went through in 2020.

As the Bloc Québécois critic for families, children and social development, I would be remiss if I did not talk about the plight of some of our children in these tough times given the possibility of a recession. Yesterday morning, I had a chance to meet with people from the Breakfast Club, an organization that was founded in Quebec in 1994. Thanks to them, many children have access to the healthy food that is essential to their success. Thanks to them, children do not start their day on an empty stomach.

Some businesses have shut down because of the pandemic, and this has led to an increase in unemployment and poverty. Food insecurity is affecting a growing number of people. Experts believe that food insecurity could double in Canada by the end of the year. The government is making efforts and investing money, but it is still not enough. In 2020, nearly one in seven people in Canada lived in a household that had experienced food insecurity in the previous 30 days. Nearly 2.1 million households experienced food insecurity. That is a 39% increase from 2017-18 data.

One thing is clear: Things are not getting any better under this government. Our children need to have full bellies in order to reach their full potential. It is also important to note the shortage of children's medicine in our pharmacies. It is impossible to provide adequate care to our young people because the shelves are empty.

It is the same story for all of our constituents. Where will it all end?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, in listening to the member opposite's comments, I would like to encourage her to recognize that yes, inflation is very significant and is having an impact, but when we do a comparison around the world, Canada is doing exceptionally well in the inflation fight.

That does not mean we should not put in efforts, and we have been putting in efforts, focusing on the hardships that Canadians are having to go through on a daily basis. That is why, for example, we have a dental program. We have a rental program. We have a student program. We have the enhanced GST rebates.

All of these are there to put more money in the pockets of Canadians in all regions of the country, yet the member seemed to completely overlook that the government has been there.

Is she aware of how many of the provincial governments are contributing to putting money in the pockets of Canadians? Is there a provincial example she can cite that we can take a look at?

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

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

I must say that Quebec is doing more than Canada. In fact, Canada often follows the example of Quebec when it comes to dental insurance. The problem is that the federal government is not supporting people aged 65 to 74. It has forgotten about them. It has also overlooked the regions when it comes to tax credits. It has overlooked Quebec when it comes to the needs of self-employed workers and immigration.

What can people do? People need government supports. It is time for the government to take concrete action.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member. I did not see any funds for health care in Bill C-32.

Is the member concerned that the government is not doing enough for health care?

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her good question.

The Bloc Québécois has not forgotten about health. It is important for the federal government to deliver health transfers. All the ministers met with the government to discuss this, but no action was taken. This is important because we see what is happening in hospitals everywhere, both in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada. Everyone is exhausted. It is important that the government finally take action on health transfers.

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

Mr. Speaker, in the last election we heard loud and clear from Canadians that they wanted us to go to Parliament and work for them and stop the partisan bickering and fighting. We see the Bloc and Conservatives continuing with that.

New Democrats pushed to get the doubling of the GST tax credit, and that is making a huge difference. We pushed for the investigation into profiteering in the grocery chains. We pushed for the national dental care program, which, despite the Bloc's claims, will cover many people in Quebec who are not covered now, and we pushed to get support for low-income housing renters. The big issue for us right now for this winter is taking the HST off home heating, because people cannot afford to heat their homes due to the high price of fuel.

We know the Bloc has opposed every measure that helps people. Does the Bloc support the New Democratic plan to take HST off home heating to help people get through this winter?

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his multiple questions.

I will begin with dental care. In Quebec, we have a much more comprehensive program than the one Canada wants to establish. We are asking for support even though dental insurance will be offered everywhere in Canada, but it seems that it will not be proportional.

With respect to the credit, we have asked for it twice and nothing is happening with that either. We are asking the government to take action. It is like creating Christmas magic and then Santa Claus disappears. That is what the government is doing.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today and address the fall economic statement, as delivered by Canada's Minister of Finance over a week ago, but I want to go through some things in this speech. I have to limit my comments, because there is a lot to go through here, and I think the House will appreciate that I am going to focus on only a few things.

Number one is that there is some good news here. That good news, of course, is that Canada collected $30 billion in extra tax revenue over the last year. We can call that good news, but there is a dark side to it as well. However, $30 billion more arrived in government coffers than we thought was going to be there last year, and that is really good forecasting, on behalf of the Department of Finance and the minister herself. I give her my congratulations. However, not to be outdone, of course, the minister decided to spend an additional $16 billion of that $30-billion windfall that she put onto the backs of Canadians.

Let us think about how government revenue goes up. Government revenue goes up in an inflationary environment because the price of everything goes up, and therefore its collection of revenue on everything goes up. Do people's paycheques go up? They absolutely do not. The government's revenue has gone up, in GST, in collections on excise tax, and on income tax. All of this has gone up, and corporate taxes have as well, but the one main factor here that contributed $30 billion extra to the government's coffers was an increase in resource revenues.

Revenues from the resource industry, because of a scarcity of resources around the world, went up in Canada, as they did everywhere else around the world, and Canada's resource industry provided more revenue to government, along with Canadians, who were taxed more and gave more to the government.

Inflationary taxes are one thing. Resource sector contributions are quite another, but Canadians need to realize that the government is getting more revenue because they are not doing as well. They do not have as much take-home pay. More of it is going into the government's hands, and still it forecasts a deficit of $39 billion after a resource windfall that landed in the government's pockets.

We can forget about the effect that continued spending will have on inflation, because government spending is the number one cause of inflation. Over the past two and a half years, $500 billion has caused excessive inflation in the Canadian economy. The overspending has been rampant. Our debt is double what it was before the government got into power. It is an anomaly in the world, and we need to address it.

The effect on Canadians in that respect, if we think of an average Canadian in an average house with an average mortgage, and I am speculating that the mortgage is on a variable rate basis, will be an extra $7,000 per year because of the higher interest rates caused by the inflationary environment the government has produced. That is $7,000 a year more on top of more taxes being paid by Canadians and more going to the banks. Who is doing well in this inflationary environment, and who is not doing so well? I can tell members right now that Canadian taxpayers are not doing that well.

However, the minister has to acknowledge as well, as she does in her document, and I need to point it out very clearly to her here, that there will be $24 billion this year in debt service payments and $34 billion next year in debt service payments, and the year after it will be $44 billion going from Canadians' taxes into debt service payments. It will go from $24 billion to $44 billion because of an adjustment in interest rates and continued government overspending. That $44 billion is more than the federal government gives to the provinces for health care, so this has become a major item in the government's balance sheet and income statement.

It is something we are going to have to address. I suggest we address it sooner rather than later. Perhaps that extra $16 billion the minister found under her pillow could have been used for some debt reduction, so we would not have that $44-billion bill, $20 billion higher than this year, two years from now. It is something we need to start focusing on, and she did use some words in her speech. I read those words, and I heard those words as well.

She talked about prudent fiscal management, but this is anything but prudent, and she talked about keeping powder dry. I do not know how running a $39-billion deficit in a supposedly inflationary economy is keeping powder dry. It is burning their powder so they will not have any powder going forward.

Just to say thanks to the main source of the windfall gains, the resource sector, the minister acquiesced to some shrill voices of public opinion from her bench and the benches of some of the other parties in the House. She said she is going to have a 2% tax on the share buybacks that these industries are incurring in Canada. I do not know where she has been for the last seven years, but I can say that the companies that are doing share buybacks now are the companies that issued shares at far lower prices over the last seven years. Therefore, they are reconfiguring their balance sheets back to where they were when they had a normal business environment and they did not have to incur hundreds of billions of dollars in losses, as an industry, over seven years.

At that point in time, of course, there were some on the benches who were saying that this was a sunset industry and of course it was going to lose millions of dollars. All of a sudden, one year it makes some money for its investors, and the government comes back to say it needs to tax that back now because it does not want them buying back their shares from investors. Instead, it wants them to reinvest that money in the Canadian economy.

How do they do both? How do they say that there is an impetus to actually reinvest in the Canadian economy and not buy back shares after they have invested so much and taken so much money into their balance sheet, which they had to do in tough times in order to survive?

Let us think about a 2% tax on share buybacks as far as it affects everything in the world. It is the flavour of the day in so many respects. We think about the 1% share buyback mechanism in the States, and we are not to be outdone here. We doubled it in Canada because the resource industry is much less important in Canada than it is in the United States. I say that sarcastically, and I hope that is reflected.

However, profits increased for a reason. Profits increased because an industry is actually cyclical. All our resource industries in the world are cyclical. These things go up, and these things go down. They cannot take with one hand and not give back with the other if they are going to have a sustained industry here going forward.

Here is the issue on investment in Canadian oil and gas. Oil and gas investment in Canada follows international oil and gas pricing, but not anymore. Oil prices and gas prices are going up, but the investment is not happening in the Canadian economy anymore. That is because there is no longer an environment to invest in and there is no longer transparency for Canadian companies to invest in their own industry, which is an industry that we prosper at and that we perform in a more environmentally friendly manner than any other industry in the world. This is something we should be proud of, and this is something we need to make sure we do more of. The result, of course, is fewer tax-paying jobs for Canadians. The minister could get out of the way and actually get more money into her coffers if she just allowed this to happen.

There are fewer jobs, less investment in Canada, less green technology development in Canada, fewer future taxes to be paid and a lower Canadian dollar because of the government's actions. A lower Canadian dollar affects all Canadians because we get so many of our goods from other markets. That means we are paying more Canadian dollars to get the same goods that cost the same in U.S. dollars, British pounds, euros, yuan, or yen, or whatever the currency of where we are importing from at that point in time. We have devalued ourselves because of that.

There is a lack of transparency in what the government wants to accomplish. Any industry that wants to build something in Canada is now subject to an Impact Assessment Act, which has complete lack of transparency. That means that the stakeholders in the critical minerals industry the government wants are wondering how they can do this, and they cannot do this. Looking at the examples shown in our natural resources industry of the building of a pipeline for liquid natural gas exports, we are slow in Canada.

With respect to who has prospered over the last decade, the U.S. has prospered mightily. Australia and Qatar have prospered, as has Mozambique, that beacon of investment in the world, while Canada has not. They all have opportunities that are inferior to Canada's, except for one thing, which is that Canada has an inferior regulatory regime. These investments are not coming back, and the minister's numbers show that. To do better, we need a better fall economic statement.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment]

Madam Speaker, in Windsor—Tecumseh, we have referred to the fall economic statement as a workers' budget. One of the items in there is the first-ever labour provision in the clean tech tax credit. We would be providing breaks for companies that invest in communities, such as Windsor, if they pay their workers better and if they hire apprentices. I would love to ask the hon. member what he thinks about the workers' fall economic statement and about the labour provisions in the clean tech tax credit.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am glad my colleague asked me that question because one thing I did not get to in my speech is the trillions of dollars the minister speaks about that is available for investment in Canada and these clean jobs that are just going to come because she is designing the Canada growth fund.

Is this on top of the Canada Infrastructure Bank at $31 billion, the strategic investment fund at $7 billion spent so far, the clean fuels fund, and the zero-emission vehicle infrastructure program? These are all billions of dollars going into artificial jobs. None of these jobs, net net, are beneficial to the Canadian taxpayer because we are throwing more money into acquiring them than they are going to pay in taxes at the end of the day.

Great, jobs are coming. Could we get some jobs that are economically sustainable?

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I agree with the member. What we all should be doing is working for jobs for workers, making sure that we have family-sustaining unionized jobs across the country.

I do not think the government has done enough for Alberta. I will say that the Conservative Alberta government has a $13-billion surplus, yet it has not invested in our community. It has not invested in workers. In fact, Alberta is one of only two provinces that has fewer businesses operating today than prepandemic.

Would the member agree that there is an opportunity for the federal government to do more to invest more in Alberta because, when we see governments like our provincial government not investing in Albertans and not investing in Alberta workers, what happens is the jobs leave, and we end up with massive surpluses that do not help Albertans and do not help Canadians?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I would challenge my colleague on that assertion because this year Alberta did have a surplus largely because of excess resource revenue. That one-year budget surplus combats a six-year budget deficit, and those were large budget deficits. The deficits that Alberta incurred over the last number of years significantly eclipsed the surplus.

The wise decision any government should make at this point, when it finds a windfall surplus like that, is to pay down the debt it incurred in those times of challenge. Now we have one year where we have some money, we should not throw it back at programs. My last numbers show the Alberta economy is the best-performing economy in Canada as far as getting jobs back. Spending more money is just government money that would inflate things as opposed to creating any sustainable jobs.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague's speech was well thought out and well researched.

In her speech introducing the fall economic statement a couple of weeks ago, the Liberal Minister of Finance highlighted, once again, the lack of productivity in Canada's economy, something that she called the Achilles' heel, a well-known gap.

Does my colleague see anything in the fall economic statement that is going to have any meaningful impact in narrowing the gap of our productivity numbers as compared to our trading nations?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is a very good question.

The minister presented the case that Canada's investments from private sector investment is still 10% below the amount it was when her government came into power, and it has consistently been there. It went down to 20% below during COVID, of course it fell worldwide. However, we are still 10% below, where every other country in the G7 and the G20 has rebounded significantly.

The government is trying to replace investment money with government money, and it is not working. It needs to take the lesson that no matter how many billions of taxpayer dollars it throws at the wall, it is not going to create an investment opportunity that would bring capital here for anything more than a subsidy. We need to get sustainable jobs back here in Canada that are productive.

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

Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today for the people of Barrie—Innisfil, representing them as their member of Parliament, to talk about the fall economic statement.

Let me begin by saying that those who are residents of Barrie—Innisfil and the businesses within Barrie—Innisfil are really feeling the inflation and the affordability crisis that is happening right now. Despite the rosy picture painted by the government, this lollipops, gumdrops, rainbows and unicorns scenario, people are finding the affordability factor to be real. They are hurting. Businesses are hurting. People are wondering, as we head into the winter heating season, how they are going to heat their house.

I hear from seniors and families all the time about their circumstances and how bad things really are, particularly for seniors on fixed incomes who are making healthy nutrition choices about what they are going to eat. This should never be happening in a G7 country such as Canada, yet it is, and the government sits here with the fall economic statement somehow portraying this rosy picture, when in fact it is not the case.

I am just one of 338 representatives in this place, but I know from talking to my colleagues that they are hearing about it. I am sure those on the Liberal and NDP benches, and others, are hearing about the problem of inflation and affordability, the housing crisis and the issue of rent prices. We are hearing about the affordability and attainability situation with houses and about the many young people who are being priced out of the market. They are losing their hopes, their dignity and their dreams of aspiring to be a homeowner, which is being lost as a result of the self-inflicted wound of inflation and affordability that has been caused by the Liberal government.

I have spoken to many young people, not just within my riding but also across Canada. They feel like they have been lied to and let down by the Prime Minister and the government. I will go so far as to say that they are despondent. They are despondent they are not going to have the same opportunities, hopes and dreams as earlier generations. Something has to change, and this fall economic statement does nothing to change the current situation.

What is required here, and I know Conservatives put this forward in advance of the fall economic statement, is the need to lower taxes. We need to put a halt on the carbon taxes, stop the payroll taxes and the CPP taxes, which are impacting not only the people who are employed but also employers. We did fire a warning shot across the government's bow that we would support the fall economic statement if certain measures were put in, but this one was not. It was that, for every new dollar being spent, the government would find a dollar in savings from government waste. There is nothing in the fall economic statement that actually addresses that.

In fact, I read the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report this week, and interestingly, in it he talks about an additional $14.2 billion in spending with no indication at all of how that money is going to be spent. One would think a government, when proposing $14.2 billion in additional spending in its fall economic statement, would at least have line by line items or details on what it is going to spend that money on. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that there was nothing in the fall economic statement to give that indication.

Here we are, as parliamentarians, looking over a fall economic statement that talks about billions and billions of dollars in additional spending without the ability to hold the government to account or ask those questions on a line-by-line basis. The government and the Prime Minister expect we are just going to willy-nilly pass this thing through.

That is not the function of Parliament. It is not the function of parliamentarians. Our function is to hold the government to account, and the government needs to reciprocate that by being as transparent as it can. The fall economic statement, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, does little of that. Those were the two criteria we set, and we gave the government ample advice and ample warning that we would support the fall economic statement if those two issues were met, and neither one was.

We find ourselves in a situation right now where, yes, we are going to dispute the fall economic statement. No, we are not able to support the measures the government is going to implement, because it did not abide by those simple principles, like every Canadian family does: If we are going to spend something, then we have to find those dollars.

Throughout COVID, we have seen a lot of wasteful spending. In fact, recent reports show that $200 billion of the $500 billion that was purportedly allocated toward COVID measures were actually not put toward COVID measures. Where did the money go? We are starting to find out. There was the multi-million dollar arrive scam app. We found out about $240 million in ventilators that were never used. There was $150 million for SNC-Lavalin to provide field hospitals that were never built.

Parliamentarians on this side of the House have every right to question government spending. They have every right to question what is in budgets and in this fall economic statement. I know the government does not like that, but that is our job.

As I said at the outset, there are many things going on around the country, not just in Barrie—Innisfil, but it is important to highlight some of the challenges this inflationary and affordability crisis is causing for Canadians.

Debt interest payment costs have doubled this year. Next year, interest payments will be nearly as much as the Canada health transfer. We are back in that cycle again, under a Liberal government, where the cost of servicing debt is more than the health transfers that are provided to the provinces. Something has to give. It always does when we increase debt and deficits. One of two things happens, which we are certainly seeing this with the government: Taxes go up or services get cut.

Interest rates, as we all know, are increasing at the fastest rate in decades. Families that bought a typical home five years ago, with a typical mortgage that is now up for renewal, are paying $7,000 more a year. The Bank of Canada has signalled that interest rates will have to continue to rise even higher, and that will continue the pain.

I mentioned the carbon tax earlier, and that is expected to triple. This is despite the promise of the Prime Minister heading into the 2019 election that it was going to be capped at $50 a tonne. A year after that election, the government announced that the carbon tax was going to increase to $170 a tonne. That is a threefold-plus increase in the carbon tax.

Who is paying for that? Homeowners are paying for it with home heating, hydro, groceries and everything else. Wholesalers and producers are paying that on the manufacturing and production side, and they are passing that down to the consumers. It is having a cascading effect across the economy. The government's argument is that this is what it needs to do to fight climate change.

We found out this week from COP27 that Canada ranks 58th out of 64 in the world for a reduction of carbon emissions. Clearly, the plan is not working, but Canadians are suffering as a result of the carbon tax that is being imposed. The government will then again argue that more families in Canada are getting more money back than what they pay in the carbon tax. The Parliamentary Budget Officer again says that is not true. The government picks and chooses what it wants to hear from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who is an independent agent of Parliament, but when he tells the truth, it does not like the truth.

That is part of the problem that exists today. Liberals are not living in reality. They have lost touch. Their ideology will not allow them to solve the problems that they have created with respect to inflation. Until and unless we get to a point where we reduce government spending, or at least if there is new spending then attach it to dollars found and start reducing taxes to make life more affordable and attainable for Canadians, this situation will be prolonged for a long time. Canadians will continue to suffer, and the only way that we can change that is with a change in government.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, the member has an issue in terms of credibility. He talks about the price on pollution, and let me use that as an example. The Conservative Party of Canada, in the last federal election, campaigned on a price on pollution. It supported it. It has taken a complete 180° change on that. In other words, it did a flip-flop. Now the Conservatives call it the carbon tax once again, and they are going to get rid of it.

Then the member says that the residents of Winnipeg North and Canadians are paying more than they are receiving. The Parliamentary Budget Officer also made it very clear that, dollar for dollar, 80% of the constituents of Winnipeg North are receiving more than they are paying into it.

The member is trying to give a false impression. There is an independent budget officer saying that 80% of the residents of Winnipeg North and others are receiving more than they are paying into it.

What would he say to that particular report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer?

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

Madam Speaker, I encourage the member to read what is in the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report and how that impacts Canadians across the country, not just in Winnipeg North.

I can speak to my issue in Barrie—Innisfil. The carbon tax is disproportionately affecting individuals and businesses. People need to drive to go to work, need to heat their homes and need to eat. Businesses that are providing goods and services are being charged a carbon tax and they are not getting any rebate back. It is a tax. It is not a price on carbon. It is disproportionately affecting a majority of people across the country.

Leger did a poll this week, and 71% of Canadians want the carbon tax eliminated, because they know it is having an impact on them.

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

Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech. I would like to talk to him about the rhetoric coming from the party in power.

In the spring budget, the government said that the supply chain issue needed to be addressed, but no measure was proposed. In the fall economic statement, it is the same thing. It talks about supply chains, but no concrete measure is proposed to deal with the issue.

The government is doing the same thing again with the issue of inflation. The word “inflation” comes up 108 times in the economic statement, but there is no new measure other than the ones that we already voted on in the House this fall or that were announced in the spring budget.

Would the hon. member agree that there is a disparity between the rhetoric and the actions that are actually taken?

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

Madam Speaker, it has been that way for seven years: a lot of rhetoric, fine words and plans, but the plans fail.

Look at what is happening in this country. I cited some things earlier. Again, 1.5 million people are going to food banks in a G7 country. What is happening in this country, as a result of these Liberals, is broken policies everywhere.

I can go on. I can talk about passports. The list is as long as the day, of the failures of this government and the broken promises it has made.

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

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague is quite right when he references the fact that Canada raced to the bottom of industrialized countries in terms of our climate performance.

In fact, throughout the previous Conservative government and the current, since 2015, Liberal government, no federal government has gotten the direction right. They set reduction targets for carbon; however, with the exception of the 2008 financial crisis when carbon went down and the 2019-20 difference over COVID, without a pandemic or economic collapse no government has gotten the direction right to start bringing emissions down.

There are ways to reduce emissions that do not involve carbon pricing. I happen to support carbon pricing. It is a necessary but insufficient condition.

What would this member recommend that we do to reduce emissions rapidly?

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

Madam Speaker, maybe there is a reason our emissions are not going down as quickly as we would like. I know that the hon. member, whom I have respect for, is not going to like this.

Canada represents a small portion of emissions around the world. I think the solution for Canada is to reduce emissions around the world by supplying clean Canadian energy, which has the best environmental standards, the best labour standards and the best human rights standards in the world, to those emerging democracies and those emerging countries that are carbon intensive.

If we want to help, let us help the world.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise on behalf of my community in Kelowna—Lake Country.

This fall economic statement leaves people concerned about how out of touch the Liberal government is here in Ottawa. People do not understand how common sense never seems to be able to enter the thinking of the costly Liberal-NDP coalition. It insists on continuing to mismanage Canada’s finances and to make it harder for Canadians and small businesses to manage their own finances.

Less than a month ago, in Windsor, the Liberal finance minister spoke with shocking clarity about the stewardship of the economy she is managing. I will quote her exact words: “Our economy will slow. There will be people whose mortgage rates will rise. Businesses will no longer be booming.”

Where has the Liberal finance minister been? Did she just wake up from a seven-year Liberal fairy-tale slumber? Does she not see how crushed businesses are and how dire people’s finances are? Does she not read any reports on how small businesses have incurred, on average, $150,000 in debt over the last two years, or reports on how restaurants are barely hanging on and food bank usage has seen an all-time high?

It was reported this week that Kelowna has the fifth-highest rent prices in all of Canada, only behind Vancouver, Toronto, Burnaby and Victoria. Four out of the top five are in British Columbia. B.C. also consistently has among the highest gas prices in the country; just look around my community of Kelowna—Lake Country.

During the last constituency week, I met with residents and small businesses all week. People were crying. People are desperate. They are considering medical assistance in dying because they cannot afford to live. People cannot heat their homes and are at the breaking point.

After the dire warning from the Liberal finance minister, Canadians were hoping to see the Liberals reining in their spending and cutting taxes. However, now residents in my community are forced to make tough decisions. I was talking with a senior from my community last week who was devastated. He was forced make the tough decision to sell his home because he could not afford to live in it anymore. He does not know what he is going to do.

People in Kelowna—Lake Country are concerned with the possibility of a recession in 2023, yet the Liberal Party continues to spin fairy tales like this fall economic statement. This statement contains no intention of turning back years of out-of-control Liberal spending that has driven up an inflationary deficit of almost half a trillion dollars. It leaves us with the highest federal debt ever.

The fall economic statement contains no tax relief for young people, families, seniors and persons with disabilities while they struggle to afford painful increases in the price of food, gas and home heating. Instead, the Liberals are squeezing more taxes out of them. So far this year, the Liberals will be taking an extra $40.1 billion out of people’s bank accounts and putting it into the government's bank account. It has no plans to turn off the taps and end the money printing that has driven our generational-high inflation crisis.

The Liberals have a laundry list of benefits they have created that give people a little of their own money back. There are no solutions to help businesses remove the help wanted ads in their windows. There is no plan to refill shelves with essentials like children's fever and pain medication, which is a problem that has been known since July. As usual, the Liberals did nothing on important issues like this for families.

The Liberals are not focusing on what is actually important to families like reducing taxes, getting inflation under control and having basic necessities like medical supplies on store shelves.

Multiple tax increases are still coming in the New Year, such as a drastic rise in excise taxes for Kelowna—Lake Country's local wineries, cideries, breweries and distilleries, along with others across the country. The Liberals call it an escalator tax, which is really a fancy, bureaucratic word for an automatic tax hike. The worst part is that it is tied to inflation, so it will be a bigger increase than ever before, and it will trickle down to retailers, restaurants and consumers.

Conservatives were transparent with our recommendations for this fall economic statement. There is nothing different from what my constituents have been asking for every day. First, cancel all planned tax hikes, including the tripling of the carbon tax. People are already choosing between heating their homes and putting food in fridges. They do not need more tax grabs.

Second is to ensure that there are equivalent savings to match any new spending. Canadians see no benefit from a half-trillion dollar deficit caused by wasteful purchases like the multi-million dollar ArriveCAN app.

Third is to get rid of red tape so our businesses and people can thrive. Red tape is affecting businesses' ability to bring skilled workers in to fill their labour needs. Our natural resources, farmers and manufacturers are all affected. It is like everything is on hold, while the Liberals live in a fairyland.

It is not just the Conservatives that the Liberals are choosing to ignore. The arm's-length, non-partisan Parliamentary Budget Officer's report must disappear like pixie dust as soon as it comes across a Liberal office door. The PBO's latest report proves that there are clear warnings for the country.

First, the PBO estimates that the unemployment rate will increase in 2023, to 5.8%, with a significant factor being people retiring. If the predicted recession hits next year at levels that some economists are projecting, the unemployment rate could undoubtedly increase further, and we will see a move away from “help wanted” signs to companies having to downsize in some sectors, while others will still struggle to get the skilled workers they need.

Food bank usage is already at an all-time high. Food Banks Canada recorded 1.5 million visits to food banks in just one month, which is a 35% increase compared to last year. I fear what increase in usage it will see next year.

Second, the PBO lays out the estimated federal government revenue and debt levels, and states:

Despite the projected decline in the budgetary deficit, public debt charges are projected to more than double from their 2020-21 level (of $20.4 billion), reaching $47.6 billion in 2027-28 due to higher interest rates and the additional accumulation of federal debt.

The finance minister talks about how the federal debt should be lower. However, although it is the highest ever in Canada, the PBO reports that the public debt charges will be more than double. What does that mean? It means we are paying more for that debt. A comparison is like doubling the interest we would be charged on our monthly credit card bill. As we make our payments, our bill total could slowly decrease, but every dollar we put in would be worth less. As it will take much longer to pay the debt off, we will end up paying a lot more.

Third is the record-high inflation. The PBO's estimates show federal government revenues increasing yearly until 2028, and the estimated increase is more than $40 billion from 2022 to 2024. We all know inflation has been as high as 8.1% this year, with food costs being even higher, and the government's revenue increase is primarily due to higher inflation adding tax revenue. In addition, the government's increases in payroll tax, excise tax and carbon tax will all bring in more revenue.

Those increased tax dollars to the government's coffers based on inflation and tax increases do not reflect a robust economy. I spoke with a small business owner from my community last week who said that she is making the tough decision to raise her rates, as she just cannot keep absorbing the higher costs. She feels bad for her clients, but she held off as long as she could.

I spoke with a resident from Joe Rich. I attended a fundraiser last weekend for residents. These are people in our community who cannot afford food, fuel or medicine. She said people do not have money to buy wood pellets to heat their homes; they cannot afford to eat and cannot afford to buy gas to drive the half hour back and forth to buy medicine and food. She has never seen things so bad in her lifetime.

I spoke with a man in his twenties who is now helping his parents with their mortgage payment because, with the high interest rates, his parents cannot afford to pay everything on their own. This young man is now putting his own future on hold.

This is Canada. What is wrong with the Liberals? Why can they not see how serious this is?

Our Conservative team will continue to stand up for real tax relief to help Canadian seniors, families, young adults, small businesses and non-profits. People are looking for hope, and I will stand up for the people and small businesses of Kelowna—Lake Country in voting against the government's continued disregard for our cost of living crisis.

Bill C-32—Notice of Time Allocation Motion

[Bill Blair, Liberal, President of the King’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Emergency Preparedness]

Madam Speaker, I rise to advise that an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the second reading stage of Bill C-32, an act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 3, 2022 and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022.

Therefore, under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting of the House a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-32, An Act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 3, 2022 and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

Second Reading

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, when the member and the Conservatives talk about taxes, one thing that always amazes me is they will refer to the CPP. They look at the CPP as a tax increase. Because there would be more money invested in the CPP, they are calling it a tax on Canadians. However, the money being contributed to the CPP ensures that when it comes time to retire, workers have more money in their pockets. When the Conservatives attack that issue, they are actually attacking the workers and their ability to retire with more funds.

When they talk about the price on pollution, the very thing they supported in the last federal election, they leave out the fact that there are increases in the environment fund, which is putting more money into Canadians' pockets.

Can the member explain why, on those two aspects—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member for Kelowna—Lake Country.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, there are many people who have referred to payroll taxes as taxes, both members in the House on the government side and people from reputable organizations in Canada.

We are referring to this because it is affecting people. We are looking at what is affecting people today. Inflation is at a 40-year high, and people cannot afford to put gas in their cars or buy food. Now is not the time for us to be increasing costs, including any taxes that people would have to bear.

Also on that front, this includes adding costs for small businesses. As I mentioned in my speech, many small businesses took on $150,000 in extra debt during the pandemic, and they have no way to pay it off. Now, by adding these payroll charges, they will have to pay an extra amount. It is taking money out of their bank accounts, and they are unable to pay off debt or spend money on anything else they want.

With respect to the carbon tax—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I have to give time for one last question.

The hon. member for Joliette.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

I am shocked and outraged. As soon as the member finished her speech, the President of the Privy Council and Minister of Emergency Preparedness rose to announce that he was going to limit debate on Bill C-32. That is really shameful and offensive.

Why does the government always want to limit debate in the House, particularly when we know that this bill will be referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, when we are beginning a pre-study on it right now with a sunset clause, and when we are going to do the clause-by-clause study in a few days—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Order.

The hon. member for Kelowna—Lake Country has a few seconds to answer because the time is up.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely right. We see the government continually bringing forth the collapse of debate in the House. There are many times when had speeches prepared to speak up on behalf of my community of Kelowna—Lake Country and my time was cancelled. The government continues to do that.

We are sent here and elected to represent our communities, bring their voices forth and bring their positions forth so that we can potentially bring them to committee.

Bill C-32—Time Allocation Motion

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I move:

That, in relation to Bill C-32, An Act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 3, 2022, and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022, not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the bill; and

That, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the day allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Pursuant to Standing Order 67.1, there will now be a 30-minute question period.

I invite hon. members who wish to ask questions to rise in their places or use the “raise hand” function so the Chair has some idea of the number of members who wish to participate in the question period.

The hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I just cannot believe this is happening again.

The Liberal government ran on promises in elections that it was not going to shut down debate, yet it does it all the time. It is no wonder there are no Canadians who believe them any more. However, I am surprised that the NDP is supporting this unholy marriage, this costly coalition. They used to have principles on time allocation, and used to not allow it. It boggles the mind.

How are the people of Sarnia—Lambton supposed to have their voices heard in this place when I have not even had a chance to speak to Bill C-32?

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Minister of Tourism and Associate Minister of Finance]

Madam Speaker, I think some facts are in order.

Already with this very important piece of legislation, which will get much-needed support to Canadians, we have had 18 hours of debate and 120 interventions, and there will be a lot more opportunity at second reading for members in all parties to debate this really important piece of legislation.

The time has come for us to get to the next stage, because Canadians I have talked to are very much looking forward to having no more interest on their student loans, and they are looking forward to the supports in the fall economic statement, which is why we need to get to second reading.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Madam Speaker, I think it is reasonable for us to get as much time as we need to debate this bill. That is called parliamentary democracy.

The opposition parties, or at least the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois, noticed a few things missing from the economic update, such as support for seniors 65 and up and support for seasonal workers. Those workers contributed to EI, but now the number of qualifying hours they have to work to be eligible for EI benefits has changed.

It is important to get the space we need to debate all that, share proposals with the government and potentially improve the bill. I could hardly believe my ears when I heard the Minister of National Revenue express astonishment that the opposition parties do not want to rush this bill through and are not supportive of the time allocation motion. She accused them of being mentally unstable.

That is pretty serious. The minister said that last spring in response to an opposition colleague, and she did it again on a local radio station in Gaspé.

I wonder if my colleague supports those statements and agrees with her.

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have a great deal of respect for my Bloc Québécois colleague when it come to this issue.

I think that it is worth noting that we really need to do our homework as parliamentarians when it comes to House procedure and the important Bill C-32 in order to provide Quebeckers and Canadians with the support they so desperately need.

With regard to the duration of the debate, I want to mention that we have had 18 hours of debate and 120 speeches so far. As members are well aware, the issue can be examined more closely during the in-depth discussions held in committee and members will have more opportunities to speak there. Members will also be able to debate the bill at third reading.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I listened to my Conservative and Bloc colleagues, and they do not seem to understand our parliamentary system and the importance of sending bills to committee.

We have had a week of debate. The bill contains important measures, such as waiving the interest on student loans. In the past, we have seen the Conservatives try to block economic updates for months on end. These measures must be put in place. The NDP put pressure on the government to waive interest on student loans because we want students to be able to benefit from that. It is also important to send the bill to committee so that it can be improved.

Why do the other parties not seem to want to send the bill to committee, where they could propose amendments?

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague asked a very good question.

We are grateful for the NDP's support in the House to move this bill forward to the committee stage.

This is a serious situation. The supports in this bill will help Canadians at a time when they need it most. As my colleague said, we need to eliminate interest on student loans, cut taxes for small but growing businesses and make it more affordable to buy a first home.

My constituents have asked me to take action here in Parliament to provide that help, and that is what we are doing today.

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

Madam Speaker, rising yet again on a time allocation debate, I am reminded of when, in previous Parliaments, the Conservatives under Stephen Harper used time allocation again and again and again. I sat in that corner with the Liberals when they were the third party. Consistently, every time, they said that if we allow this to happen, eventually Parliament and democracy will be diminished and time allocations will become so routine that they are used over and over again in future Parliaments. I think I am the last standing member of the opposition to Stephen Harper's use of time allocations for almost every bill. It has, as we worried, become routine. I will never vote for a time allocation on a bill. Even when, as is the case here, I support Bill C-32, I object to the truncation of time. It diminishes Parliament's work.

I do, though, sympathise with the governing party in that because we have ignored our rules for so long, nobody remembers that it is against Westminister parliamentary rules to give a written speech. I maintain that House leaders, when meeting together, should give an honest assessment to each other of how many members they really have who can speak to a bill without a written speech, without notes, and contribute to a thoughtful debate. I lament where we are right now, and this can be regarded as more a comment than a question, because the Liberals have completely forgotten all the reasons they used to warn that the use of time allocation for almost every bill was anti-democratic.

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. colleague for her support of Bill C-32. I was not on the opposition benches at time to which she is referring. As a member and as a minister, I can say that I talked to Brad in my riding this week, who thanked us for making sure we got Bill C-30 and Bill C-31 done so quickly, because he wanted and needs the $500 housing support in that legislation. On the weekend, I talked to Mike and Laurie, who thanked us for our child care supports. They said to me at the All is Bright festival, “It's making a real difference, and we're able to make it through this inflationary cycle.”

There are millions of other Canadians waiting for us to get to work, to get to committee and to get Bill C-32 passed so that the people who need the help the most can get those supports when they need them the most.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, the very fact that we are having this debate is disappointing enough, but it is even more disappointing to hear once again how the New Democrats have completely surrendered to the Liberal Party and become literally the lapdogs of the Liberal government. I was on the finance committee—

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

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I know the member is a little cranky and a little upset because nobody is paying attention, but the word “lapdog” is unparliamentary. I would ask him to withdraw that.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I do not know if it is unparliamentary, but it is not very nice. I will take note of the comment and verify.

The hon. member for Calgary Rocky Ridge.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

I will spare you the research and I will withdraw the term if that would please you, Madam Speaker.

I was on the finance committee with the House leader of the New Democratic Party and I remember a time when he took seriously his obligation as a member of the opposition to oppose legislation where necessary and actually to take seriously parliamentary norms and the parliamentary duties and responsibilities of a member elected in opposition to the government. It is very disappointing—

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, the member knows that the NDP takes things seriously. That is why we have dental care now in this country, rental supplements and a doubling—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

That is debate. I will let the hon. member for Calgary Rocky Ridge finish his comment.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will let that part of it speak for itself. That is the extent to which this costly coalition is imposing itself on Canadians.

With respect to getting back to the bill itself, we heard an absurd speech from the government House leader last week on Motion No. 22, where he completely dismissed the idea that members should speak to legislation and justification of the draconian actions they take to limit debate in this House. We have a bill that would give Canadians more debt, more spending, more taxes, more inflation and higher interest rates, yet the minister would have us shut down debate before members have been able to weigh in and let their own constituents know, by using their voices in the House of Commons, to put their opinion on record on this bill. He should be ashamed of himself. I will let him weigh in on that and comment if he may.

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, the only dog that we have in this fight is getting supports to Canadians. I am never going to apologize for or run away from lowering taxes on growing small businesses. Maybe the Conservatives have difficulty reading that, because every time we have lowered taxes on Canadians, the Conservatives have voted against it.

We are talking about taking interest off federal loans for apprentices and students. We are talking about reducing taxes for small businesses. We are talking about making housing more affordable. With 18 hours of debate, 120 interventions and more time for clause-by-clause when it gets to committee, it is time the Conservatives stopped obstructing and let us get it past second reading and get these supports into the hands of Canadians.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I would like members to flash back to last year, 2021, when the fall economic statement was brought forward. We saw the Conservative Party filibuster that legislation. In fact, that legislation passed earlier this year. The Conservatives held back the 2021 fall economic statement, saying they wanted to speak and they wanted to speak, and it was well into 2022 before it ultimately passed.

There are substantial aspects of this fall economic statement that would help Canadians through a difficult time of inflation, and it is imperative that this legislation passes. If we leave it up to the Conservatives, they will never stop talking on the bill.

Can the member speak to why it is so important that we pass this legislation?

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, the point of the matter is that the fall economic statement would do three things: It would provide supports to Canadians who need it the most at a time when they need it the most; it would give us extra fiscal firepower so we can manage whatever the world throws at us in the coming months; and it would also put generational investments in the competitiveness of our economy and the ability of our economy to grow, so we can grow and see inflation reduced over time.

We are talking about families that want the ability to save for their first home. That is embedded in this legislation. Students and apprentices have already asked us to please get rid of the interest on their student loans. Apprentices and students want the interest gone. We would also make it easier for companies to grow and scale in this country, paying lower taxes.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Madam Speaker, the House adopted a motion last week to allow sitting hours to be extended until midnight. To justify this abuse of process, the government said that it was to limit the use of time allocation motions. We can see today that it was all a sham.

Can the minister confirm that the Liberal Party was once again taking us for a ride?

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, the government has multiple projects on the go at the same time. That is why, as a country and a government, we need more hours of debate in the House to explore all the issues before us. Extending sitting hours in the House of Commons has nothing to do with today's situation. The fact is that Canadians need support. We have had 18 hours of debate and 120 interventions, and the clause-by-clause study will be carried out in committee. Canadians need these support measures. That is why we are here today.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, the member opposite is all too happy to drive the number one driver of the economy in his home province into the ground. The fall economic statement talks about how our closest partners are shifting their strategic reliance from dictatorships to democracies. However, it does not give a plan about how the government itself is going to shift its support from dictatorships to democracies.

The member is systematically driving our industry into the ground, so that the dollars go to dictatorships and not to democracies and the oil and gas sector. When the government limits debate on this, it limits Conservatives' ability to go through this statement, this plan, take it apart and show how we can better support Canadians and help make sure we are supporting democracies and not dictatorships.

What does the member have to say to that?

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member is about to vote against tax credits that, quite frankly, are essential to Alberta, tax credits for green investments and for hydrogen. I am not sure if the member heard, but my hon. colleague, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, was very clear in this House on Friday when he told the House and Canadians about the fact that we had a $300-million investment in Air Products in Alberta, and that we will build a $1.6-billion net-zero hydrogen complex, the largest in the world, right in Alberta.

I am never going to stand here and say that we are somehow restraining or constraining the oil and gas sector in Alberta. In fact, we are doing the opposite with pathways and with our shared contribution to making sure we get to net zero. We are going to make sure we get to net zero with the oil and gas industry, making sure Alberta and Canada continue to be the fourth-largest producer of oil and gas.

The Conservatives can vote against tax incentives for Alberta petroleum. I will not.

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

Madam Speaker, let us talk about kicking the dead dog here. I have never met a Conservative who supports any investment into green energy or green tech in western Canada.

However, what I also find fascinating is that my Liberal colleague has said the government is going to ensure that Canada remains the fourth-largest oil and gas producer. We went to COP27 with more oil and gas executives than anything else. Canada is seen as a country that is ignoring its obligations internationally. The Canada Energy Regulator predicts that Canada's oil and gas production in 2050 will be the same as it is today.

I would ask my hon. colleague this. How can the government claim it is going to meet the International Energy Agency's obligations to rapidly reduce and transition, and work with Alberta energy workers who are pushing a green economy, when what we see from the Liberals is that they continue to pump money into big oil time and again?

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I respect the hon. colleague and his views on this very serious matter of the existential threat of climate change. On Friday, in my riding of Edmonton Centre, I met with the president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, Gil McGowan. We had a long and detailed conversation about greening the economy and making sure we are working with workers who are going to be responsible for greening the sector.

Who is going to green the sector? It is not government, but the workers and companies walking down the path of making sure we focus on emissions, which is why we put billions of dollars in budget 2022 for carbon capture, use and storage.

My friend from Calgary can be upset about the fact that we are supporting Alberta industry, which is more than he did when he was a provincial minister, but I can tell the House that we are here, focused on oil and gas, focused on the future and focused on reducing our emissions. Today is about getting to vote, so Canadians can have what they need in their pockets, which is more money.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Madam Speaker, the government's key piece it likes to talk about in the economic statement is the interest relief for students going to school. The question is fairly simple. How many more students will get to access post-secondary education from this government change than otherwise would be the case?

The government does not have an answer. It is giving a windfall to the students who are already there and spending $500 million a year of money we do not have. Instead of making sure that more students can access post-secondary, the Liberals are spending $500 million and giving it to students who are already there.

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I heard my hon. colleague's remarks on this and I agree that the value of a post-secondary education accrues to the student and that, on average, they are able to have a good life. Whether they are an apprentice or a student in the arts, philosophy, science, engineering or STEM, the point is that this is a mechanism we can use to make life more affordable for the students, young professionals and young workers we need right now, to make sure they are able to make it through this inflationary cycle.

The hon. colleague knows very well that admissions numbers are part of the post-secondary system at the provincial level. That is why we made sure that indigenous and non-indigenous students could have access to more grants and loans so they could continue to study.

It is this government, not the former Harper government, that has invested billions of dollars into research to make sure our universities can compete on the global stage, so if the Conservatives want to talk about who boosted the post-secondary system, let us have a coffee and I will give them the answer.

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

Madam Speaker, I know that the topic now is time allocation, but perhaps it is important to note what happens when we let the Liberals talk more in this place. Rather than hearing that they are climate leaders, the hon. Minister of Tourism has confirmed that we are focused on oil and gas. He said that we are putting more investment into oil and gas. I hate to have to remind the government that a statement like that flies in the face of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warnings. It causes more hurricane Fionas. It brings on more heat domes and wildfires.

We must be focused on a very rapid move to net zero by 2050. As the former minister of environment in this place, Catherine McKenna, recently pointed out at COP27, it is greenwashing to talk about net zero by 2050 without a pathway that starts with immediate drops in production that are substantial and that cut global oil and gas production at least in half by 2030.

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is not what I said. I guess my hon. colleague is really good at clipping subsets of comments.

I said that we are focused on emissions. We have invested $100 billion into greening this country. If we go back to the last campaign, who had the plan that was rated the best to actually deal with the climate change crisis? It was not the Greens, the NDP or the Conservatives. It was the Liberal Party.

We are focused on emissions. We are focused on making sure that we have hydrogen as part of our energy mix. We have phased out coal. We are making sure that we have industry partners that are part of this reduction of emissions, so we can heat our homes and power the world, and do so in an environmentally friendly way.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Madam Speaker, I detest the way the Liberals keep invoking closure. They did it for the official languages bill and they are doing it today for Bill C‑32. The shocking thing is what is missing from Bill C‑32. All provinces are asking for an increase in health transfers. Health care systems across the country are vulnerable. There is nothing in the bill to help with that, nor is there anything about increasing old age benefits for seniors between the ages of 65 and 74.

What does my colleague have to say about that? Why not increase the health transfer?

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, as members know very well, we have indicated very clearly in the fall economic statement that we want to continue to double the GST credit. Millions of seniors across the country could benefit from that. We have also made it very clear that conversations are taking place with the provincial health ministers.

The thing that matters today is that we lower the interest on federal loans for apprentices and students, reduce taxes for small and medium-sized businesses that want to grow here in Canada, and make it more affordable for people to buy a home.

These are very important measures for Canadians. That is why we want this bill to move on to third reading stage.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, once again we are seeing the Liberals stifling debate. When they realize that they do not have a solid platform to stand on, what do they do? They remove the platform and shut things down.

If they really understood what this economic statement and budget would do, they would see that giving away more free money to people is going to further exacerbate inflation. Increasing taxes, especially payroll taxes and the carbon tax, is going to increase inflation, which is actually harming the very people they are claiming to help.

What is it about economics that the Liberals not understand?

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I understand the economics of making sure that supports are in place, such as CPP and EI, for people who need it the most when they want it the most. It is a particular Conservative trope to try to raid these important supports that Canadians build up over a lifetime.

Let us just be really clear that, when it comes to the supports in the fall economic statement, they have been very carefully calibrated not only to provide supports to Canadians who need it the most at a time when they need it the most, but also to not increase inflation and to put billions of dollars against the deficit.

Canada has the lowest deficit in the G7, the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7 and a AAA credit rating based on Moody's and the other agencies. The economic fundamentals of this country are strong and we need to get this bill to committee and to third reading so Canadians can get the supports.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, by my count, I think that the vast majority of last week was spent debating Bill C-32. Unfortunately, the House cannot debate two bills at any one time. As a consequence of last week, Bill C-20, the important oversight legislation for both the CBSA and the RCMP, has been bumped to tomorrow.

People have been waiting for years for an effective oversight mechanism for both of these agencies. The CBSA has never had this kind of oversight. There are other interests in play. I know that the Conservatives would like to keep on debating Bill C-32, but indigenous people in Canada, racialized people and so many people who have been at the wrong receiving end of both the RCMP and the CBSA have been waiting years for this important accountability and oversight legislation.

I hope that, after we get through Bill C-32 and it is sent to committee, I have a commitment from the government that Bill C-20 will get the priority it deserves.

We waited in the 42nd Parliament for Bill C-98 when that member was here. We waited in the last Parliament for Bill C-3 and we now, finally, have Bill C-20. I want to see a commitment that this bill will get the time it deserves.

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I respect my hon. colleague and his comments on making sure we use time efficiently in the House. I will take his comment under advisement and discuss it with the government House leader.

Today is about making sure we can get Bill C-32 to committee so we can get back here for third reading, and then we would be able to get housing supports to people, get student loan interest removed for apprentices and students, reduce taxes on small businesses and do all the other good things for growing the economy that are included in the fall economic statement.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, the fall economic statement would have been a perfect time for the government to take its commitment to just transition communities seriously. There are many communities not only in my riding and other ridings in Saskatchewan, but also in his home province, that are on the path to being completely left behind in the government's reckless plan to eliminate the workforce from a lot of these communities as they go through this coal transition, which is being forced upon them by the government.

I want a straight answer from the member. Why has he turned his back on these communities and not allowing for the certainty these communities need and deserve by making sure there was proper wording and allocations in this economic statement for these communities, which is something the government promised to do and has failed to do?

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will point the hon. colleague to my mandate letter, which talks about working with a number of colleagues in cabinet on the futures fund. Quite frankly, we are moving past this conversation of just transition to really talking about the evolution of energy, and more importantly, sustainable jobs.

We are working at the community level to make sure people have the training and supports they need to have the jobs they want and need in a whole range of industries. We are going to continue to do what we need to do to heat our homes, power our communities, power the world, reduce emissions and make sure good-paying jobs are in rural Saskatchewan, rural Alberta and across rural Canada.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith the question necessary to dispose of the motion now before the House.

The question is on the motion.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, I request a recorded division.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #218

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2022

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I declare the motion carried.

I wish to inform the House that because of the proceedings on the time allocation motion, Government Orders will be extended by 30 minutes.

The House resumed from November 18 consideration of the motion that Bill C-32, An Act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 3, 2022 and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

Second Reading

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to speak in the House on behalf of the people of Calgary Midnapore.

It has been a month now that I have been in the role of shadow minister for the Treasury Board. I would like to once again thank the leader of the official opposition, the member for Carleton, for this role. It gives me an opportunity to work very closely with two of my favourite members of Parliament, the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, the shadow minister for ethics, which we have been doing continuous work on ArriveCAN, and the member for Calgary Forest Lawn, who serves as our shadow minister for finance. It really is a pleasure to have this role.

I am sure members are aware of the crippling inflationary numbers in Canada, 6.9% in the most recent reports, down a slight bit from the 8.1% high we saw in June. Food, of course, is at a 40-year high.

I just came from the government operations committee, and the President of the Treasury Board was there on the supplementary estimates. I am sorry to report that the government has asked for another $21 billion, and I am not making that number up. We have a $36.4 billion deficit this year. That is because of $6.1 billion in new spending even though we are supposed to be moving past the pandemic now. One thing is clear about the Liberal government, and that is that it just does not get it.

As I said, inflation is at a 40-year high, and 1.5 million Canadians are using the food bank in a single month. In the GTA, pre-pandemic food bank usage was at 60,000 people per month. During the pandemic, it was at 120,000 people. Now, under the Liberal government, it is at 182,000 people per month.

Grocery prices are up 11%, the highest rate in 40 years. One in five Canadians are skipping meals and more than half of Canadians are living paycheque to paycheque. What is the Liberals' solution? It is to give up one's subscription to the Disney channel. As I have said, the Liberal government just does not get it.

Consumer insolvencies rose 22.5% compared with a year earlier. This is the largest percentage in 13 years. Small business insolvencies are on the rise. One in six businesses are considering closing their doors. This is very dear to me, since I come from a small business family.

The average credit card balance held by Canadians was at a record high of $2,121 at the end of September. The Royal Bank of Canada estimates that households will soon have to allocate 15% of their income to debt servicing alone. Nine in 10 Canadians are now tightening their household budgets, yet the Deputy Prime Minister is telling us not to worry, that Moody's gave us a AAA credit rating. Quite frankly, that will not put food on the table. The government just does not get it.

Mortgage interest rate costs rose by 11.4% on a year-over-year basis, the largest increase since February 1991. For those whose mortgages are up for renewal this year, they will pay $7,000 more compared to five years ago. Also, the average rent is now $2,000 a month. The average rent for a one bedroom in Toronto was $2,474 in September. In 2015, seven years ago, it was $1,100. In Vancouver, it is $2,300. In 2015, it was $1,079. Toronto has the worst housing bubble in the world and Vancouver is the sixth worst, according to UBS. However, the government is telling us not to worry, here is $500, when people need $2,474 for one month rent alone in Toronto. It just does not get it.

There has been a 32% increase in violent crime since 2015, which is 124,000 more violent crimes last year than in 2015. There were 778 homicides in Canada last year and 611 in 2015, a 29% increase. There has been a 92% increase in gang-related homicides since 2015 and a 61% increase in reported sexual assaults since 2015. Police-reported hate crimes have increased 72% over the last two years, yet the government pushes through Bill C-5, making it easier for offenders to stay home and play video games. The government just does not get it.

About 31,000 Canadians lost their lives to overdose between 2016 and 2022. There were 7,169 deaths from opioid overdose in Canada in 2021. Twenty-one people a day are dying from overdose, and before the pandemic it was 11. More than six million Canadians do not have access to a family doctor and, as brought to light by the member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, there has been a shortage of children's Tylenol and Advil. No other country anywhere in the globe is experiencing such shortages. However, people should not to worry, because if their child is sick, there is day care for $10 a day. The government just does not get it.

When it comes to immigration, there is a backlog of 2.6 million people. It has grown by 800,000 people under the current government. Fifty-seven per cent of the files in the system are beyond the processing timelines set by the government, and what is it doing? It is putting up incredible new targets that we know it will never achieve, which is not fair to the people who are applying or for the people who are backlogged in the system already. The government just does not get it.

Toronto's Pearson airport is ranked the most delayed airport in the world, with Montréal-Trudeau International Airport right behind it. We have seen how horrible it is to get a passport in recent days and how difficult it is for families who just want to get away on vacation after the difficult two years they have had. It has been impossible to get a passport. We know this, but what does the Minister of Transport say? He says it is Canadians' fault; they do not know how to travel anymore. The Liberal government just does not get it.

We have the second-slowest time for building permits of any country in the OECD. The average permit time is 250 days. In South Korea, it is 28 days, yet the government continues to shove money into the Canada Infrastructure Bank. It is millions of dollars after millions of dollars. The government just does not get it.

In 2015, there were 50 major LNG infrastructure projects under proposal, yet not a single one has been finished. It is the government that gave us Bill C-68, Bill C-49 and the carbon tax, bringing energy production to a halt in this nation at a time when we need it the most. The government just does not get it.

I will tell members what the Liberals do get. They know how to spend and they know how to tax. Under a Conservative government, there would be no new taxes. For every dollar of spending, we would find a dollar of savings. However, until that day, we are unfortunately stuck with the current government and the government just does not get it.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I genuinely believe that the member and the opposition really and truly just do not get it. At the end of the day, this is about inflation. Canadians are hurting, and the Conservatives consistently vote against policies that are there to help Canadians.

That goes to my question for the member. There is the doubling of the goods and services tax credit for six months. We can talk about eliminating the interest on student loans. We can talk about dental services for children under the age of 12. We can talk about the rental subsidy of some $500. There are many measures there to help Canadians deal with inflation. That, in good part, is what the fall economic statement is about.

Can the member tell us specifically why the Conservative Party today is not supporting Canadians by allowing measures of this nature to pass quickly?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, we are supporting Canadians and want to support Canadians. We want to support them with measures that actually help them. If what the member was proposing was actually helpful to Canadians, why would we have a 40-year high in food inflation? Why would we have 6.9% inflation in this country? Why would we have 1.5 million Canadians using a food bank in a single month?

It is very clear why these things are happening: The proposals the government is bringing forward are not working. A Conservative government would change that.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague did an astute job of outlining the problems affecting the people in her riding.

In addition to all the problems she referred to, there is the fact that some of my constituents are sick and in hospital. We know that Quebec and the provinces are unanimous in calling for health transfers to be increased immediately and unconditionally to cover 35% of system costs. Since the arrival of the new Conservative leader and the bump their party has gotten in the polls, it seems like the Conservatives' support for boosting health transfers to 35% has eroded.

Can my colleague confirm today that the Conservatives support the call of Quebec and the provinces to increase health transfers immediately?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is a tough question because it depends on the two parties.

The first party is the provinces and the other, unfortunately, is the federal government. We have seen the failures when it comes to Canadians finding doctors, and we have seen the failures of the federal government when it comes to medication for children.

Unfortunately, I would say to my hon. colleague that I do not have a lot of faith that this government will find ways to work with the provinces. However, like my colleague, I still have hope.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, I am wondering if my colleague can break down a bit more some of the regional issues she is facing in her community that are not being addressed or are being failed by this fall economic statement.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have so much respect for the member of Parliament for Cypress Hills—Grasslands. In fact, I was just talking him up about canola growers the other day, as they face additional failures and frustrations with the government. However, I did not have a chance to address access to fertilizer at a time when not only we as Canadians but the world is facing significant food shortages as a result of the situation in Ukraine.

I know that my colleague, the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands, is no stranger to the frustration we both feel as members of Parliament from the Prairies given, frankly, the slogging that our region has taken on a continuous basis from the government. This is not only to the detriment of our own regions, but to the detriment of Canadians as well. For him, as I mentioned, it is agriculture. For me, which I touched upon in my speech, it is the problem of energy and our inability to create and share it with the rest of the world. I believe it is truly a gift from Canada to the rest of the world.

I really appreciate the opportunity to highlight just a couple of the small challenges we face as prairie—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Battlefords—Lloydminster.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, the overall quality of life in Canada is in significant decline under the NDP-Liberal government, and we have the evidence all around us. Government is costing Canadians more while achieving less. Violent crime rates are increasing under the Prime Minister. Food inflation, as has already been said in the House today, is at a 40-year high. The cost of living crisis is ballooning, and basic necessities are becoming more and more out of reach for far too many Canadians. In fact, a record number of Canadians used food banks this past year alone, and reports are telling us that one in five Canadians are skipping meals. Those records are truly shameful.

The fall economic statement was yet another opportunity for the NDP-Liberal government to take meaningful action to tackle inflation. It was an opportunity to course correct and help the growing number of Canadians who are struggling to make ends meet. Instead, this costly coalition is continuing with its out-of-control inflationary spending and activist-driven policies that are hurting Canadians.

At the most, the NDP-Liberal government doled out more platitudes and offered remarkably out-of-touch budgeting tips to Canadians. Unlike this costly coalition that thinks it can keep spending and spending and that the budget will balance itself, Canadians already understand that they have to have a budget. The one in five Canadians skipping meals to help make ends meet certainly do not need advice about cancelling a Disney+ subscription from the out-of-touch finance minister and her government. They need a government that is going to stop pouring fuel on the inflationary fire with endless deficit spending and stop hiking taxes. Canadians need a government that is not going to keep making it harder and harder for them to pay their bills, heat their homes or put food on the table.

The reality is that Canadians are getting hit on all sides. A paycheque is not going nearly as far as it once did. Not only is the value of the dollar in their pockets decreasing as costs of basic necessities soar, but taxes are also going up. In fact, Canadians have never paid more in taxes. Quite frankly, Canadians are out of money.

That is why the Conservatives put forward two clear demands ahead of this fall economic statement: stop the taxes and stop the spending. There should be no new taxes on Canadians. This costly coalition should not be profiting off the empty stomachs of Canadians just so it can spend those dollars on its activist-driven agenda. It needs to keep those dollars in the pockets of Canadians so they can spend it on their own families' priorities.

This costly coalition’s plan to triple the carbon tax is cruel. The cost of home heating is expected to be double this winter, and they want to triple the carbon tax on that bill as well. It is a carbon tax, I might add, that has no meaningful impact on the environment, has failed to help the NDP-Liberal government meet a single one of its climate targets and has only succeeded in hurting Canadians, especially those living in rural and remote areas.

This costly coalition wants to triple the hurt. Cold winter weather has already arrived, and those higher home heating bills are already a reality. Basic necessities like home heating should not be out of reach for Canadians. In a country with an abundance of natural resources, affordable energy should be a reality for all Canadians, but it is far from a reality when we have an NDP-Liberal government that is so dead set on keeping our energy in the ground.

This is the same NDP-Liberal government that seems to have no problem at all importing energy from foreign countries with lower environmental and human rights standards. Only a Conservative government will remove the obstacles that it has put in place to strangle our resource sector. Not only Canada but the world needs more Canadian energy. Never has that been more obvious than in this last year as Putin wages war in Ukraine. Canada's failure to meet its energy potential is actually failing our allies.

Just the same, food insecurity is a growing concern globally. Adding insult to injury, the finance minister had the audacity to stand up in front of Canadians and proudly say that we grow food to feed the world while she knows full well that the government is destroying the viability of our agricultural sector.

Their fertilizer reduction plan not only threatens global food security but also food security here at home in Canada, not to mention its impact on food production and the cost of groceries.

When it comes to their failed carbon tax, our farmers and our producers are some of the hardest hit. Their excessive tax bills are in no way offset by the government’s measly tax credit. It is truly a slap in the face to our farmers, who are not only producing high-quality and nutritious food but are also doing far more to help the environment than the failed NDP-Liberal carbon tax.

There are obvious solutions to reversing the decline in the quality of life in our country, but the NDP-Liberal government cannot keep doing more of the same. To tackle the cost of living crisis that we find ourselves in because of the Prime Minister’s out-of-control spending, we have to bring government spending under control. It is one of the reasons Conservatives called on the government to cap government spending.

We asked the government to commit to matching any new spending with equivalent savings, just as, I am sure, many Canadians have to balance their own household budget. This fall economic statement continues down the path of spending beyond their means, at the expense of Canadian taxpayers and future Canadian taxpayers.

The members on that side of the House will be very quick to stand up in this place and try to tell Canadians that all of their deficit spending was and is necessary, and that they did it to support Canadians. The non-partisan PBO has already said that more than a third of the government’s spending had nothing to do with the pandemic.

The long list of wasteful spending continues to grow. Whether it is the overpriced arrive scam app, luxurious hotel stays exceeding $6,000 a night, CERB cheques that were issued to prisoners or wage subsidies given to corporations paying out dividends, there is obvious wasteful spending under the government’s watch.

The reality is that the NDP-Liberal government’s wasteful spending does nothing to support Canadians, but it does make more Canadians vulnerable and in need of support.

Only Conservatives are committed to stopping the inflationary deficit spending and to stopping the funding of government programs with printed cash. The potential for growth is immense, but we need to cut red tape and remove the gatekeepers that are standing in the way of our economic drivers. Instead of more cash chasing fewer goods, we need more goods.

The Prime Minister will find every and any excuse to lay blame elsewhere for the current cost of living crisis, but his failed and costly policies have directly contributed to the challenges that Canadians are facing today. The bills for his activist-driven policies are due and, unfortunately, it is Canadians who are left to pay for it.

The fall economic statement is inflationary, and it fails to address the challenges that Canadians are facing because of the NDP-Liberal government.

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

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague certainly talked about her concerns around the price on pollution, but what I have asked members of His Majesty's loyal opposition is why they ran on a platform to price carbon.

Just over a year ago, the member ran on a Conservative platform that would have established a price on pollution for a plan that would have rewarded those who were emitting more. She did run on it. I find it a little facetious for her, a year later, to stand in the House and say what a terrible idea it is.

Can the member explain to her constituents, and indeed to all Canadians, why there has been such a change over the last year in her position?

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, if we look in Hansard, I have always been against a carbon tax. This carbon tax has done nothing for the environment. The Liberals and the NDP have not met the targets they have set over and over. I have seen bills from my farmers of $10,000 and $20,000 to dry their grain. I have seen the GST being collected on the carbon tax.

A great question for the government is this. Why is it collecting GST on the carbon tax? This tax on a tax is hurting Canadians.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I was listening to my colleague's speech, and throughout it she talked about inflation. There was no mention of the fact that corporations in Canada avoided paying $31 billion in tax last year. There was no mention of the obscene profits that the oil and gas companies, Loblaws or the big grocers are making. When it comes to talking about inflation, the Conservatives will never, ever, with all their might, talk about obscene corporate profits. It is like their kryptonite.

In the United Kingdom the Conservative government not only has a windfall profit tax on oil and gas companies but also raised it to 35%. It realized those companies were making too much money and it was time to level the playing field for the British people. Through you, Madam Speaker, why is it that the United Kingdom Conservatives have the courage that Canada's Conservatives are so obviously lacking?

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, I am very disappointed in the member for that question. I am here because the people of Battlefords—Lloydminster sent me here, and these damaging NDP-Liberal policies are destroying their lives. I spoke with constituents who cannot get their kids to the hospital because it is two and a half hours away. I spoke with seniors who cannot afford their medication because they have to pay obscene tax to get—

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

You voted against pharmacare.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Can we allow the hon. member to answer the question that was asked?

The hon. member for Battlefords—Lloydminster.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, I am talking about the ability of my constituents, who live in small, remote, rural communities, to get to a bigger centre to get their prescriptions, to get their kids in sports, to get groceries or to even get the mail. The carbon tax is hurting the people I represent. I would prefer that the government take its hands out of the pockets of these families, let them spend the money they need to on their families and not have the middleman tell them where it goes.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to hear from my colleague.

Bill C-32 is notable for what it does not contain. Old age security was increased for people 75 years and older. This created a two-tiered system for old age security, because those between 65 and 75 got nothing.

In my colleague's opinion, should there be just one benefit? Should the benefit not be increased for all seniors, not just those 75 and over?

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, one thing I noticed is that the current Prime Minister is great at turning people against one another. He found a way to have two tiers of seniors, just as with child care. There are a lot of people in my constituency who cannot access this $10-a-day child care because they do not qualify. They do not work nine to five. They work shift work. Some of them work all the time and they cannot access it.

The current government is very good at railroading the provinces, not having discussions with them, doing whatever it wants and pitting Canadians against one another.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased today to take part in the debate on the Government of Canada’s fall economic statement. We live in very uncertain times. Canadians and all the citizens of the world are struggling not just with one crisis but with multiple crises. Our world is struggling with an inflationary crisis and with an increasingly devastating and costly climate crisis. Canada and its allies are trying to combat the rise of extremism, of isolationism and of the aggression in authoritarian countries like Russia, China and Iran.

Members of the opposition may wish to minimize the climate crisis or misrepresent the inflationary crisis as being caused by Canada's leader, by Canada’s efforts to combat climate change or by our government’s efforts to support Canadians through the COVID–19 pandemic. However, Canadians, including those of my constituency in the Yukon, know that these issues have a much further reach and a more complex origin than any message bottled into a TikTok video.

Canadians of all ages are dealing with a host of crises simultaneously that have not been seen before, and stress, in particular, our children and our grandchildren. They are the younger generations whose very futures are at stake. They face a radically changing planet, because older generations have waited too long to listen to our scientists and elders who pleaded that our climate was changing. They face unsustainably high costs of living. They face a growing tidal wave of right-wing populism channelled out of frustration with the status quo and directed against the very measures that would help alleviate that discontent.

Lester B. Pearson once said, “The choice...is as clear now for nations as it was once for the individual: peace or extinction.” Although his words are somewhat chilling when we reflect on Russia's current illegal war in the Ukraine, I would also add today that the choice now includes addressing this climate crisis or facing extinction.

Baby boomers and generation Xers, like me and many of my colleagues, have been particularly blessed in generations of global stability, high standards of living and mostly peace and prosperity. However, despite all we have been given, the future is increasingly uncertain. Our children, grandchildren, younger parliamentary colleagues, candidates, staff, activists and constituents are the ones who have to face that incertitude, that uncertain future, a future fraught with the destiny of our planet.

The fall economic statement that we are now debating is well positioned to address the times and the challenges, as well as the opportunities that we are presently living. One of the key components of the economic update is to give younger Canadians a helping hand by making Canada student loans and Canada apprenticeship loans interest free. Thirty per cent or more of what a government student or apprenticeship loan borrower in Canada repays to the government is interest. More than half of Canadian students utilize Canadian student loans.

Someone from Dawson City who travels to Victoria, Edmonton or Ottawa for an undergraduate degree and takes out a $40,000 loan for that degree will currently pay an additional $13,000 in interest alone. This says nothing of the cost of pursuing a graduate degree or professional degree like engineering or medicine. With the passage of this bill, that is money they can reinvest in the economy now, or save for a down payment on a home. This is a big step forward for Canada and for our younger Canadians.

I returned from my riding after a long day of travel yesterday. Many people spoke to me to tell me how much they welcomed this support. Young people are not alone in feeling the brunt of rising costs and an uncertain future, which is why our affordability plan is already in place. That includes increasing the Canada workers benefit, cutting average child care fees by 50% and increasing old age security pensions by 10% for those over age 75, and more.

Rising costs of living are felt particularly in northern and remote communities like those in the Yukon. This has hit families across the Yukon hard. Now, while our government is working hard to help those at the lowest income levels, our middle class is also struggling. The government is building an economy that works for all Canadians. Contrary to what we sometimes hear from across the aisle, there is no magical solution to the pinch of inflation, including removing the price on pollution, which would literally be robbing Peter now to pay much more to Paul later.

Times are indeed tough. According to Statistics Canada, in the past year alone the cost of heating oil in Whitehorse has increased as much as 80¢ a litre, and it currently sits at almost 60¢ a litre more than it did last fall with a similar increase in the price of diesel and regular gasoline.

Since 2019, the price on pollution has increased about 13¢ a litre. Though, due to the fluctuations in oil and gas prices in September 2021, Yukoners were actually paying less per litre than they were in January 2019, the year the price on pollution was introduced. The increase in the price on pollution earlier this year was about three to four cents, while the price per litre overall has increased 60¢ to 80¢. Our price on pollution, which some refer to as the carbon tax, represents less than 5% of that overall increase.

The Yukon government offers its own climate action rebate program. Much of the increase in fuel prices and the cost of living is tied to inflation, higher oil prices and global pricing decisions made by OPEC, along with the global economic impact of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and the lingering supply chain impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pricing pollution is the most responsible and economical way to reduce emissions in the long run, and while it has increased, it is not having the dramatic impact on inflation and rising prices that the opposition accuses it of. They are more focused on suggesting that devastating forest fires, melting permafrost and more severe storms are not happening because of anthropogenic global warming, and on suggesting that climate change is not wreaking havoc on our infrastructure, people and economy, rather than either coming up with alternatives to combat climate change or proposing concrete measures to support Canadians with these rising costs.

Not only does Canada and Yukon offer rebates on the price on pollution, putting more money in the pockets of the average citizen than the price on pollution costs, but we are working to implement measures that would support Canadians through these difficult times. Our government has not only introduced measures such as the doubling of the GST tax credit for six months to help Yukoners struggling the most with higher prices, but also invested in a net-zero emission that runs on clean energy so we would not beholden to the decisions of OPEC.

For Yukoners who rely on home heating fuel and are looking for an alternative, I hope they will explore the Canada greener homes initiative, which offers grants of up to $5,000 and low-interest loans of up to $40,000 to help transition homes and lower their emissions.

Our government is investing in the jobs of tomorrow, as demonstrated by our fall economic statement, and is working to build the economy of tomorrow with investments in the sustainable jobs training centre and launching the Canada growth fund. The CGF is Canada’s low-carbon financing initiative, which would attract private sector investment in Canadian businesses and projects to help reduce emissions and deploy clean technologies that drive growth, achieve climate targets and capitalize on Canada’s natural resources and critical supply chains.

Our fall economic statement also introduces a competitive clean technology tax credit of 30% of the capital cost of investments to ensure that Canada can compete with the United States in attracting clean technology developments. This credit would be critical for business, communities and individuals in the Yukon, as we look to green our economy and our energy grid, which is heavily reliant on fossil fuels.

I just came from Yukon Geoscience Forum, where our government's critical ministerial strategy and our investments in moving to clean energy were welcomed enthusiastically. Clean energy needs mines, and mines need clean energy sources. The Yukon has a great future in both.

The clean tech tax credit would be available for investments in electricity generation and storage systems, including run-of-the-river, tidal, and small modular nuclear reactors, all of which are potential components of long-term efforts to green the Yukon’s energy grid.

It would also be accessible for low-carbon heat equipment and zero-emission industrial vehicles, such as those used in mining and construction. As one of the strongest economies in the G7, with an excellent international credit rating, and a debt-to-GDP ratio that continues to decline, we are facing headwinds in a strong economic position.

Our communities in Yukon deal with long winter nights every year, but we know that spring, summer and the sun await us all, as they await all Canadians. Our government will be there to continue to help Canadians through what could be a dark winter.

We will continue to base our decisions on data and facts. We will continue to build an economy that works for all Canadians.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-32, An Act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 3, 2022 and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2022

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, in the fall economic statement, there are a lot of supports to assist Canadians at a time when we recognize inflation is having a profound impact, even though Canada, relatively speaking in comparison to other countries, whether it is the U.S. or the many countries in Europe, is doing quite well, as our inflation rate is lower than the rates in those countries. Still, we need to understand and appreciate the difficult time that many Canadians are having with inflation.

Would my colleague not agree that the quicker we pass this legislation, the better it will be, as it will provide the supports Canadians need at this time?

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for bringing up the question of timing and the importance of coming to a vote and an agreement on moving forward with this fall economic statement and the implementation thereof.

We know that people need help right now. We know that we are in an affordability crisis as we move toward a new economy. Therefore, time is definitely of the essence.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, my question has to do with increasing the old age security pension for people 65 to 74. I want to know whether my colleague is aware that the people the most affected by the two classes of pensioners, are women, those who earn lower incomes their entire life to be able to feed or support their family. It is mainly women 65 to 74 who are suffering the adverse consequences of the government's refusal to increase their pension.

Does my colleague realize that? Will he commit to pressuring his colleagues to ensure that people 65 to 74 are finally included in the pension increases?

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question, and I thank her for standing up for seniors.

As I explained in my speech, our government is focused on helping Canadians who need it most right now. This includes one-time initiatives such as increasing GST credits, support for renters and larger programs such as child care and dental care. All of this is designed to make life more affordable during this difficult time.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have a direct question about the opportunity the fall economic statement could have provided Canadians in relation to the drug poisoning crisis. The member knows very well the need to address the drug poisoning crisis across Canada. Families across the country, from coast to coast to coast, are being affected by this. It was absent in the fall economic statement.

What measures will the government take to ensure we have a plan to help save lives?

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague across the floor for his advocacy on an issue very important to my heart and that we need to move forward on in continuing to address the mental health crisis and the opioid crisis. A critical part of that is continuing with the discussions with the provinces and territories on the $4.5-billion mental health transfer, which continues to be committed to by the government. Those discussions, in addition to the health care discussions, will be continuing.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today as we debate the—what is it now?—18th or 19th time allocation motion so far.

It is hard to keep track because this habit has become so ingrained in how we operate. It is time allocation after time allocation. Maybe people will start using that expression. Time allocation used to be the exception, but now, since the pandemic, since the advent of the hybrid Parliament, it seems to have become common practice, and I think that is a shame. I think it is a shame to shut down democratic debate and take away what really matters in a Parliament: time and space to debate and air contrasting views.

That is why I am pleased to share some of my thoughts on Bill C‑32.

Before the economic statement, the Bloc Québécois had great expectations. We really wanted a conversation about health transfers. We were hoping for a sign that the government wanted to give Quebec and the provinces the health transfers they have been asking for so they can fulfill their responsibilities.

In Quebec, that means addressing the aging population and the significant issues with mental health services, which are lacking in number and scope to meet the demand. Unfortunately, there is nothing in the economic update about that.

My colleague from Shefford has said this, and the Bloc Québécois has said it, and it is one of our priorities. We do not understand how the government does not consider those between the ages of 65 and 74 to be people who need to regain a certain amount of purchasing power, especially with the inflation crisis. If there was ever a segment of the population that needed a helping hand, it is them. Increasing old age security would have really been good news, a sign that the government is listening to seniors, those who built the Quebec of today.

In the economic update, we really wanted to see the government's desire and firm resolve to overhaul employment insurance. Today, I will use the minutes at my disposal to speak in greater detail about the EI program and the need to reform it.

Today, as we speak, barely 40% of workers have access to EI.

That is sad because, as we know, the EI fund is an insurance program. That means that workers pay premiums on their paycheque and employers pay premiums, and the money goes to build the EI fund, an important reservoir for workers who need it. Unfortunately, although the fund is quite healthy at the moment, it does not actually serve the people who really need it. Access is restricted.

I am very committed to this cause. The Bloc Québécois has been asking for EI reform for years, and we do not understand the government's resistance.

As I like to remind everyone, I decided to run again in 2015, the year the Liberals campaigned on a promise of comprehensive EI reform. In 2019, they promised it again, and then again in 2021. It is promise after promise, but nothing ever happens. The government had included $5 million in its budget to conduct extensive consultations across the provinces and Canada to understand and gauge the needs of workers, employers and civil society, and yet, 18 months later, we still have nothing. There has been no proposal and no plan to reform EI, even though my colleague from Thérèse‑De Blainville made it a subject to be studied by her committee. The committee heard from many witnesses who expressed the needs and shortcomings of the current system, which, as we all know, really needs to be modernized and updated to be tailored to today's labour market.

Of course, we have a number of demands. Workers who have paid premiums all their lives but find themselves in a difficult situation, like if their business is forced to shut down and they have to rely on EI, receive benefits equivalent to 55% of their income. The Bloc Québécois believes that, in the overall reform, that percentage really needs to increase to 60%. I think this is reasonable, and the rate was 60% prior to 1993. I remember very clearly when it was reduced to 55% of income. This demand remains permanent and is also being made by all the stakeholders who support the unemployed and others.

In its overhaul of EI, we would also like the government to eliminate the one-week waiting period. I do not know the reason behind the one-week period, but it is in addition to the system's bureaucratic delays for those who lose their jobs. People do not choose to go on EI. They do so because they lose their jobs as a result of the closure of a business, layoffs or any number of other reasons. Because of this long waiting period, which really should not happen, claimants only receive their first payment after six weeks. At least, that was the waiting period before the government system was paralyzed, back when it was working well and the performance and service standards were met. That was in the old days. Now, someone who loses their job in early or mid-June will not receive a cheque until late September or early October, because the system is completely paralyzed.

Our demands for the reform are important, and we were hoping to see them reflected in the economic update. We wanted people with a serious illness to be able to get 50 to 52 weeks of special EI sickness benefits in the event they are unable to return to work.

As members know, in the last Parliament, I introduced a bill that proposed that. What is more, as we speak, Bill C‑215 has been studied in committee, and the majority of the members who sit on that committee voted in favour of ensuring that people who have a serious illness can take the time they need to fight the illness and recover their health without having to worry about their financial circumstances.

As things stand now, it pains me to see people get to the end of their 15th week of special benefits when they have not finished their cancer treatments, their chemotherapy or their radiation. By the next week, they will have nothing left to pay their bills.

The minister seems to be sympathetic to the situation, but I think it is unacceptable when she promises this will arrive in the summer, then in fall, then at Christmas. She keeps pushing the date back further and further. Although she has the budget to do this, she refuses to give a specific date that would give hope to those who are starting chemotherapy or radiation today or who are taking long-term sick leave to take care of themselves, so they can regain their strength and go back to work.

We have talked a lot about Marie-Hélène Dubé, a woman who had cancer a few years ago and who decided to fight to have EI sickness benefits increased to 52 weeks, because she had to re-mortgage her house to meet her responsibilities and take care of herself.

Unfortunately, in committee two weeks ago, she said that her cancer is back and she will not have time to heal before the end of her 15 weeks. She is reliving the nightmare she went through a few years ago. To my mind, that is unacceptable.

The Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of Bill C‑32, because it does contain some good measures, but I implore the government to take a step in the right direction by quickly agreeing to reform EI and to implement the special benefits program for sick workers as soon as possible.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I am glad the Bloc has decided to support the fall economic statement. It is really encouraging to see that.

In regard to the gist of the member's comments today on employment insurance and benefits, the minister has been very clear in talking about the importance of reforming and making changes to the EI system. We often overlook the fact that during the pandemic, EI and programs such as CERB were brought to the table to ensure that supports would be there for Canadians going through the pandemic, and there have been modifications to the EI system over the last number of years. I am wondering if the member could provide her comments.

I can appreciate that the member wants to see an overall reform, but that is going to take some time as we continue to move forward. However, at the very least could she acknowledge that there have been significant modifications and changes over the last number of years?

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

During the pandemic, the government reacted quickly and implemented special benefits through EI. These benefits ended recently, leaving a lot of workers and people in need in a tight spot. The EI program already needed to be changed and reformed before the pandemic. People have been calling for that for many years because it is an old program that needs to be modernized.

I know that the Minister of Employment has shown a real interest in this and that she is running up against an outdated computer system, which is preventing her from being able to listen to workers and employers and come up with a modern EI program that is better at meeting people's needs. She also said that she is really limited by the people she works with in her department, because they need training and supervision.

Quite honestly, I do not think those are good reasons for delaying or not—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but I need to leave time for other questions.

The hon. member for Bay of Quinte.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member spoke about health care and the lack of investment in health care as one of the primary concerns of the Bloc, so I am fascinated as to why the member is supporting the bill. There is really nothing to address further health care, specifically in terms of people. We are missing, in Canada, 60,000 nurses and 14,000 doctors, midwives and professionals, everything from cardiologists to dermatologists. We have a big problem with people. What are the member's solutions to fixing the people side, and how should we be driving the government, as our side believes we should, on fixing our health care system?

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Madam Speaker, I think we all know the solution. It is what the premiers of every province and territory have been asking for.

The solution is enough money in health transfers so that each province can make appropriate, high-quality services available to its citizens based on their priorities, their circumstances and their needs. The solution is health transfers with no strings attached because every province is different and has different social issues to deal with.

I agree with my colleague that the solution is health transfers, and I hope the government will listen to Quebec and the provinces.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for sharing her thoughts.

I would like to know if she thinks the government should do a lot more to make sure that rich Canadians pay their taxes. We know there is a measure in this bill, but I think much more should be done to tackle inequality in our country.

What are my colleague's thoughts on that?

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Madam Speaker, I share my colleague's concerns. The measures announced in this economic statement are thin, flimsy and unambitious when it comes to preventing so much money from going to tax havens.

We urge the government to be a true world leader and do everything it can to prevent tax avoidance.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Madam Speaker, Liberals are driving the government like a rental. They do not drive it as if it is Canadians' money or savings. They drive it like they stole it, buying the flashiest items without taking care of the tires, the engine or the oil. Today, with the government moving closure on debate, it is just returning the rental car with smoke pouring from the hood and the tank empty.

The Conservative plan for Canadians and the skyrocketing inflation is quite simple: Invest in Canadians by fixing the basic problems; stop spending an excessive amount of money, and stop the tax increases to Canadians. For every item of spending, we propose that the government must find an item to save. It must stop the triple increases on gas, home heating and groceries and ensure that we give Canadians back control of their lives once again.

The car is broken. Inflation is at a 40-year high. We have immigration problems, a big, broken system that is resulting in a lack of workers. There is a lack of 1.03 million workers in this country, costing this economy upward of $30 billion. We have a housing crisis. We are over 1.65 million homes short in this country, and from that we have a homelessness problem. In my region there are over 500 homeless at this point, and there are homeless in every single area of this country. We have a health care problem: Canadians cannot find a doctor, nurse practitioner or midwife. Canadians are guaranteed universal health care under our system, but they cannot get the health care they need.

We have massive problems right now with the cost of everything. Canadians pay the highest cellphone bills in the whole world. No one else pays higher cellphone bills per month, and we have a problem even getting passports in Canada.

Canadians are hurting. Twenty per cent of Canadians right now are using food banks. Some Canadians are using food banks while they work 40 hours a week. We have problems with just getting basic services in Canada. When we talk about the economic update, we are really looking for solutions that are going to help Canadians, the most basic of solutions that can give Canadians the most basic needs they should have in this G7 nation.

We are looking, first of all, at what is driving this budget. This budget has $20 billion more in new spending than was in the budget that was passed in March. Why? It is because the price of oil has gone up, because oil itself is driving our country's economy. The 585,000 workers who work in that field, the fact that we have inflation and because of the war in Ukraine, we have had a $20-billion windfall, and that $20 billion has gone in this economic statement. However, nowhere in this statement are we fixing the basic problems: the housing problem, health care, immigration and Canadians' bills, which are the highest in the world.

Looking at the immigration system and where the biggest flaws are, I am going to focus specifically on housing. When we talk to the Canadian Construction Association and builders in my riding, skilled labour is the biggest gap that we find when it comes to housing. Yes, we have problems with regulations from the provinces and with municipalities getting homes up, but it always comes down to the most basic of needs, which are skilled builders and workers. When it comes to the immigration system, we are short at least 1.2 million, but right now we have a backlog of close to two million workers. We have 2.4 million workers in a backlog in our immigration system, and one million of those applicants are waiting longer than the IRCC service standard.

There is nothing more important than housing in Canada. More Canadians are homeless than at any time in the history of this country. More Canadians are on precarious footing with their rent and mortgage payments as interest rates rise, and every month we see more people fall through the cracks and end up homeless. The Auditor General this week released a report on homelessness, stating that the accomplishments of the government have been grossly exaggerated. The federal agencies leading the government's efforts to reduce homelessness by 50% by 2027-28 do not know if their efforts have even reduced homelessness. The CMHC has spent $4.5 billion and committed another $9 billion, but cannot tell Canadians who benefited from that money.

Infrastructure Canada spent $1.4 billion between 2019 and 2021, yet it cannot say whether homelessness increased or decreased as a result. The CMHC, which is overseeing the majority of the $78.5 billion of the national housing strategy, takes the position, as the Auditor General stated, that it is not directly accountable for the targeted 50% reduction in homelessness. If it is not, the question is, who is? Here we thought the government was good at convening. Spending money and thinking that alone gets results is ludicrous. Canadian taxpayer dollars are a means, not an end.

The labour shortage is, without any doubt, one of the biggest barriers to housing. It is also one of the biggest barriers to our health care system and is contributing to inflation. The Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, stated as much last week, when he said that labour shortages are contributing to inflation. However, in this economic update we are not dealing with the problems in immigration, meaning the backlogs and the fact that we are not getting enough workers, health care workers, or anyone we need to help lift this country out of this inflationary problem.

We talk about health care and the shortage of 60,000 nurses and 15,000 doctors. Another of the biggest problems we have is that we are not allowing trades, nurses or doctors to move from province to province. We have a military family resource centre at CFB Trenton in my riding, and a lot of our military personnel move around to postings from base to base. For their spouses, who normally are trained as nurses, paramedics or doctors, it can sometimes take from six to eight months for their qualifications to be transferred from, say, Nova Scotia to Ontario. We are not addressing those biggest targets when we need paramedics, nurses and professionals in our health care system.

When we look at the legislation we need when we are talking about the budget, that should be something that is included in what we are looking at.

With respect to the costs Canadians are paying right now, in Canada we have the highest cellphone bills on the whole planet. When we look at carriers across the world, of the 121 telecommunications carriers, Rogers, TELUS and Bell are the first, second and third priciest in the world. The results are quite something. Canadians are paying triple what Australians are paying for cellphones, for 25 gigabytes of data and unlimited text and talk, and almost double what Americans pay.

The reason for that is a lack of competition. We allow the big three to dominate the market, which is what we are seeing play out at the Competition Tribunal right now, and Canadians simply do not have a choice. The government has had six years, and it made a promise. This year, the Prime Minister stated in April that the government had reduced Canadian cellphone costs by 25%. What actually happened was this. If people had two gigabytes of data, that went down 25%, yet no one uses two gigabytes anymore. It is like having a VCR or a Blackberry Pearl. Technology evolves and when it comes to the data that Canadians use and we see that evolution, they are certainly not seeing that savings.

The Liberal government is forcing Canadians to live in a haze, to stay in the shade. Canadians are forced to sit around and wait for better days. They could use a break; they could use an “amen”, but all they can do is sit around and wait for better days.

There is nothing wrong with this country that cannot be fixed. We might have a party that has driven government like a rental, like it stole it, but we can right those wrongs with a government that knows it is not a rental, that looks at it like it is the Canadian family's minivan that needs investments into its tires, its engine and its oil to ensure that Canadians can get from point A to point B, can heat their homes, can take care of their families and can make sure they get back to doing what they do best, which is living in the best country in the world.

We can do a lot of great things for Canadians. We can invest in them. We can make sure we get the labour, the nurses and the doctors. We can make sure we build homes. When it comes to homelessness, we need to make sure we invest in putting roofs over Canadians' heads to ensure they have shelter. We can make sure we take care of Canadians, but it starts with spending money correctly and making sure we take care of their lives, their savings, their pocketbooks and their paycheques.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence]

Madam Speaker, my colleague underlined a few very crucial areas that Canadians are concerned about and that our government has moved forward with in the fall economic statement. Various decisions have been taken lately. One is with respect to housing. We brought forward the first national housing strategy, and we are seeing the rapid housing initiative move forward very quickly as well.

He talked about immigration, so I would like him to talk a bit about the opening up of the express entry, which will help identify the needs of Canadians to be able to fill the gap. Of the people coming in through immigration, 60% are already based on the needs of Canadians. There are some good measures in the fall economic statement. One that I would like the member to talk about is immigration.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Madam Speaker, talking is one thing, but action is another. The economic statement states we need this, but we have a million immigrants backlogged right now. When we talk about bringing in 500,000, let us be clear about that number. Two hundred thousand of those are skilled. We have about 75,000 for refugees, and we have about 75,000 for family reunification, but we are backlogged a million.

We need these workers today, and although the budget has had a 30% increase of money in the last three years and an extra 2,500 employees for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC, we are not seeing immigrants coming into this country. Employers right now are screaming, and the cost of that is about $30 billion.

It is nice to have it in the budget, but what we need is action. We need to make sure we think a little differently, get workers here and get them working.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I agree with him that this bill has no colour, no taste and no vision.

I would like his opinion. The bill includes roughly 108 references to the problem of inflation, without ever offering solutions for vulnerable people, especially while we are heading into a recession.

Does my colleague agree with the Bloc Québécois on this?

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Madam Speaker, I do believe I agree with the Bloc.

We have major problems coming here. To my point about the government needing to have a bit more action and look at the basics, we do have an inflationary problem, and our solution is very simply to create more of the stuff money buys. We create more of the stuff money buys by having workers who can work in businesses.

A report that came out last week said the lack of workers in Quebec is costing the Quebec economy $9 billion, and this was just last year. The reason was that manufacturers, and they are short about 16,000 manufacturers in Quebec, could not fulfill contracts or sign new contracts, and those contracts were worth $5 billion and $2 billion. Obviously, and the Governor of the Bank of Canada is mentioning this, the lack of workers is contributing greatly and mostly to inflation. We need to fix immigration, train more people and get more workers.

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

Madam Speaker, winter is coming, and many Canadians are worried they will not be able to afford to heat their homes.

Conservatives suggest removing the carbon tax from home heating as a way to make life more affordable for Canadians. The New Democrats know that in provinces and territories that have their own carbon pricing, like in British Columbia, and the carbon tax in B.C. was brought in by the right-wing B.C. Liberals, the carbon tax does actually apply to home heating. Removing the GST on home heating would be a better way to offer Canadians financial relief from coast to coast to coast. We have suggested amendments to Conservative motions to this effect, and they have rejected those amendments.

Why are the Conservative gatekeeping mechanisms that would help Canadians heat their homes this winter with their own litmus test on climate policy?

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Madam Speaker, it sounds like he agrees with us that removing unneeded tax on home heating is one way to alleviate Canadians' struggles, and we certainly have always stated that. We believe that we need to eliminate taxes, which is a great way to help Canadians, and to ensure we stop excessive spending.

At the end of the day, Canadians need to heat their homes. Someone in my riding I talked to on the weekend went from paying $2,500 a month in home heating to $5,000. The triple increase of the carbon tax is going to hurt them, so we are certainly pushing to eliminate that. We will make things more affordable, and then we will fix the other problems when we get to them.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and take part in this conversation. I had the opportunity last week to engage in some of the questions and answers. It was interesting to see emotions rise a little on the Liberal side when I talked about the Trudeau legacy.

In our part of the world, when we talk about the Trudeau legacy, emotions rise as well. Of course I was talking about the Pierre Trudeau legacy, but confusion arose because, when we are talking about incompetent Liberal governments, it is hard to distinguish one from the other. I think that was the difficulty on the Liberal side.

When I made those comments, it was interesting because the Liberal MP to whom I was asking a question actually answered or responded. There are not a lot of answers coming from over there these days. The member responded, clearly reading from the Prime Minister's Office talking points.

I will read a couple of quotes from her answer. She said that Canada is the third-largest triple economy in the world. I am not sure exactly what that means. She referred to the Moody; she said that the Moody has reaffirmed, just after the statement, the AAA rating deficit.

Certainly the government's recent deficits deserve a AAA rating. I think she might have been misreading the PMO talking points she had. However, it is an important point.

Credit ratings are AAA until the time that they are not, and when they are not, governments and countries get in trouble. We saw that with the Trudeau legacy. It is important to talk a little about that legacy, as it seems that many members of the Liberal Party today have virtually no understanding, no recollection, of what happened during those years.

During the 15 years that Pierre Trudeau was the prime minister of this country, Canada ran deficits in 14 of those 15 years. Coming into that time frame, there was almost no debt in Canada, very low debt. The Trudeau government ran deficits in 14 out of 15 years.

Then we came to 1984 and a Conservative government. The Liberals like to point out that the Mulroney deficits were, at the time, the highest in Canadian history, but what they do not point out is that because of rising interest rates, because of inflation similar to what we are seeing right now, the deficits the Mulroney government ran were basically interest on the Trudeau government debt, the debt that Trudeau ran up in 14 of the 15 years he was here.

If we fast-forward about 15 years, we get to another Liberal government, and that is where the lesson on credit ratings comes in. We get to the Chrétien-Martin government in the mid to late 1990s, and suddenly Canada's credit rating was lowered. The government was faced with a really difficult decision. Of course at the time, it had to slash $35 billion from transfers to the provinces for things like health care, social services and education, $35 billion slashed because the Trudeau government had run up deficits or debt in 14 out of its 15 years over time.

This is exactly the situation we are facing right now. If I were to talk about the Trudeau legacy of an inflation crisis, a housing crisis, an energy crisis, there would be lots of confusion. Lots of members on the other side would stand up and say, “Quit talking about us.” I would be talking about the Pierre Trudeau government when I am talking about the Trudeau legacy; however, it is almost indistinguishable from the Liberal government we have right now.

Let us take a look at the interest right now on our debt. We are going to spend almost $20 billion more in interest alone in 2023-24 than we were spending in 2021-22, just two years earlier. It is almost $20 billion more. We are going to be spending almost as much on interest as we spend on the Canada health transfer, and we all know the challenges the health system is having in Canada. We cannot afford to be spending that much on interest, but we are going to be because of decisions the government has taken over the past few years.

We stand up in question period day after day and talk about the fiscal crisis facing the country. What we get in terms of responses is absolutely meaningless language, mind-numbing references to having Canadians' backs as Liberals talk about spending money as though the current Prime Minister is writing cheques from his own personal bank account. However, that is not the case. That money all comes from Canadians. It does not just come from Canadians now; it is actually coming from Canadians in the future. There is a mind-numbing reference to that.

There is a reference to tax refunds and tax rebates, which is basically that the government is collecting tax and then it is blessing Canadians by giving back to them their own tax dollars that the Liberals have spent.

There are references and a lot of criticism from the other side. When we talk about the amount of spending the government is doing and the lack of fiscal responsibility, there is a lot of criticism from the other side. The Liberals will list off yet another new spend the government is doing and then demand why Conservatives cannot support it.

I will tell them why Conservatives cannot support that. It is because, right now, in 2022, if we look back seven years and talk to our constituents, and I am sure those on the other side who were here in 2015 talk to their constituents as well, it is very rare, almost non-existent, to have a conversation with a constituent who says, “My life is better off today than it was in 2015 from a financial standpoint.”

We are facing crisis after crisis, and when we take a look at program expenditures from the government, in 2022-23, post-COVID, which is our hope, at least post-COVID massive spending, we are going to be looking at 72% more in program expenditures than the 2014-15 budget put forward by our Conservative government, a budget in which we balanced the finances of the country. Now we are spending 70% more and we are obtaining fewer results. Conservatives are just not going to give a blank cheque to this government to spend even more with the results it has gotten over time.

I am really looking forward to hearing questions from the other side. It is questions and comments, so maybe folks might decide to comment on how they have come to a realization. Maybe they will make a commitment to go back and take a look at the record of the Pierre Trudeau government of the 1970s and 1980s. Maybe they will go back and ask their government, with all of the spending they are doing and the fiscal situation we are in right now, how they cannot even find the $4.5 billion the Liberals promised in their election campaign for a Canada mental health transfer. Where is that $4.5 billion? With all of this spending, the Liberals cannot even find the money to pay for things they promised in their election platform a year ago.

I will conclude with that. I really look forward to hearing some thoughtful questions from the government side, hopefully.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Madam Speaker, I listened closely to the hon. member's remarks, and he talked about history.

The Harper government began with a surplus. The previous Liberal government left, I think, $13 billion at the time. Therefore, it started off really well with a surplus to manage. Also, I checked the record. Under Harper, for the nine years that the Conservatives were in government, not a single year's unemployment rate went below 6%. However, we saw the constant dropping of the unemployment rate under the Trudeau government prior to the pandemic, and now we are seeing five point something per cent as a new norm for Canada. I think we have done quite well.

By the way, the real debt-to-GDP ratio for the federal government is 31%, which was just released in the public accounts.

Which program is the hon. member proposing to cut, perhaps in an amendment, that he thinks is a waste of money—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I will let the member answer because I have to put more questions through.

The hon. member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, I love the opportunity to stand up and talk about the Harper legacy, if we want to talk about that.

First of all, we cut virtually every tax Canadians could pay. I think over 60 different taxes were cut under our government. We dealt with a global economic meltdown in a world-leading way—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member had an opportunity to ask a question, and I do not think he needs to try to answer it. I would also remind the hon. parliamentary secretary as well that I did not recognize him, so at this point he should wait if he has questions and comments.

The hon. member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, I get as equally excited as they do talking about the Harper record.

When the world dealt with the global economic meltdown, we laid out a seven-year plan, we followed that plan to a tee, and by 2015, we balanced the budget. In contrast, as this government faced a significant global challenge, what it did was bring out the chequebook and responded by just cutting cheques with no eye toward and no signal in any way that we would ever talk about getting back to balance. In fact, the Prime Minister talked about it being an opportunity, and the Liberals have experimented with all sorts of new things that they never ran on as we went through that.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

It is interesting to talk about the economy, and we can see that next year will be full of uncertainty. The Bloc Québécois is concerned that this is being used as an excuse to bring in austerity measures in essential sectors. I am talking here about the Bloc Québécois' three priorities.

First there are the health transfers, which are not negotiable. Budget cuts by the Liberals and the Conservatives are what got us into this situation in the first place. More than ever, the government needs to reinvest in our health care system, despite the year of uncertainty that lies ahead.

Then, we are calling for a major reform of employment insurance. During times of crisis, that is how we protect people who lose their jobs. This reform is important, because far too few people are eligible for EI. In fact, most people cannot access the program.

I will end with help for seniors. They are directly affected by inflation, because they are on a fixed income. They are deeply concerned about next year.

What does my colleague think of these three priorities and—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have a couple of comments. First of all, during the Harper era, we increased health transfers by about 6% per year for almost every year that we were in government.

In the plan that our leader has laid out, he has simply said that, after a 70% increase in program spending over the last eight years, and an endless succession of spending plans and massive deficits, we would have a sensible plan that, for every dollar spent, we would find a dollar of savings.

We did that when we were in government. I sat on a cabinet committee charged with looking at ways we could find efficiencies so we could get back to balance in 2015, and that is a sensible way for a government to approach fiscal planning.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, with regard to the Harper era, I had an independent study done by the Library of Parliament on the bringing in of the HST. It was $6 billion in expenditures. That was required for a couple of provinces. If it were to be paid over 10 years, it would actually cost $10 billion.

I would like the member's thoughts about that. Was that a good idea, in the sense that we are still paying debt on bringing in the HST?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am not familiar with the specific study the member is talking about. I would be glad to talk to him afterward.

I would reiterate that, during our time in government, we cut virtually every tax that Canadians pay, and I think that is a plan that is prudent for this country, as we take a look at responsible spending moving forward.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand today, as we get to the dying minutes of debate on the bill, to critique the fall economic statement. We have a lot of concerns about the fall economic statement because the Liberal-NDP coalition government failed to address the concerns of Canadians, who are asking how we are going to control the cost of living, how we are going to get inflation under control and how we are going to get government spending under control. We did not see any of that in the fall economic update, and that is why we will not be supporting this bill.

We know that the government, under the Prime Minister, has run up more deficits than every prime minister before him. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, as finance minister, have increased our national debt by over half a trillion dollars. Today's national debt sits at over $1.1 trillion. In my opinion, that is child abuse of the next generation. Our kids and grandkids and our great-grandkids are going to be saddled with a debt because of the orgy of spending we have witnessed from the government.

We know that, whenever we run high deficits, inflation gets out of control because there is too much money in circulation. The Bank of Canada then has to intercede. Of course, what does it do? It jacks up interest rates. We are seeing interest rates from the Bank of Canada go up, which is impacting mortgage rates and lending rates, so it is impacting every Canadian, whether they own a business, own a home or are trying to get a job, because the cost of government continues to accelerate the cost of living crisis right across the country. We have not seen this type of inflation since the government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. I have always wondered why Liberal times are tough times for Canadians, but I think, like father, like son.

We have the tripling of the carbon tax, which will impact every Canadian's life in a negative way because everyone has to eat. We continue to witness the cost of food escalating out of control. With respect to the net cost of the carbon tax, in my riding in Manitoba, they are going to be paying $1,145 per year per Manitoban more than what they get back in rebate cheques from the government.

Not everyone has the opportunity to take a train or jump on a bus, and this is because they live in rural parts of the country. They have to drive to get to work. Maybe they are retired, living on a fixed income, and need to drive to see their doctor in the city. Maybe they want to retire out at the lake. I have in my riding the beautiful shores of Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba. Canadians, and especially people in Winnipeg, want to move out there and enjoy their retirement time.

It is going to cost them more just to commute back and forth to the city, to visit their doctors and do their shopping, and the government seems to callously not care. This is hurting those seniors. It is hurting rural Canadians who are driving around to get their kids to hockey, soccer or other sporting events. Sometimes they want a drive to school. It is not like they can just jump on a bus to get there. They have to drive since there is no other option.

There is also the idea that everybody is going to be able to switch to electric vehicles, which still have not been tested in the severe climate we have during the winter months in Canada. They have not actually taken a hard look at how we would go long distances, especially in rural areas where they do not have rapid charge stations, or how the electricity to charge these vehicles would be generated. Would it be clean hydro, like we have in Manitoba, or would it come from thermal-fired generation plants, using either natural gas or, even worse, coal? We have to look at the overall carbon footprint that it would be creating.

No one is getting hurt more by this, though, than farmers producing food, and the cost is impacting food inflation. I have to remind Liberals of this all the time, but they put a carbon tax on the price of growing that food. Thankfully, we just recently passed a bill from the Conservatives that would reduce the carbon tax being paid by farmers, especially on heating their buildings and drying their grain, but still, after that food is grown on the farm, it has to go on a truck and hauled to a processing facility. Often it gets put on a train after that, and every time they haul it, there is carbon tax.

That will continue to increase the cost of production. It will increase the price of that food stock. Whether it is bread, beer or vegetables, every time it goes through an energy system of transportation or processing, the cost of food will increase disproportionately.

I want to talk a little about national defence. As the shadow minister of national defence, I am concerned that some of the spending in the fall economic statement does not recognize the threat environment we are currently in, not just because of the war of Ukraine, with Russian's aggression and its genocidal war atrocities being committed by Putin's war machine in Ukraine, but also because we are seeing a lot of sabre-rattling coming out of China these days, out of Beijing, with President Xi talking about Taiwan and trying to take Taiwan into that system by force. We need to make sure that Canada, through our Canadian Armed Forces, is prepared to protect Canada, in our Arctic, on the Pacific and on the Atlantic.

We are seeing, again, this year, that the Liberals are allowing defence spending to lapse. At over $2.5 billion, this is the biggest lapse of spending we have seen since they took office. Last year, it was $1.24 billion. Since they introduced their defence policy, SSE, they have allowed over $6.8 billion to lapse.

They said that they would never allow a cent to lapse, but here is money that should be invested, in an expedient manner, in our Canadian Armed Forces to buy equipment and deal with the recruitment crisis, yet we are not seeing that turn into assets for our forces to use to defend Canada and protect our interests around the world while we fight beside our allies against adversaries, as we are witnessing happening in Ukraine today. Because of their slow investment and inability to invest in the proper procurement, we do not have our surface combatants yet, or even the design finalized.

We are not seeing NORAD modernization done in an expedient manner. We know that NORAD is critical to continental security. It is critical to our relationship with the United States and we still have not seen how we are going to update our North Warning System. We are not seeing how we are going to make sure that we have submarines that can go under the ice and other monitoring systems, whether they are unmanned vehicles or not, to monitor what is happening in our Arctic sea.

We are not seeing the investment in that continental security, no only in the Arctic but also in making sure that we are getting more of our assets to our borders to help with our continental security.

The case in point is that, in this economic statement, they announced they are going to extend the lease on the auxiliary offshore replenishment ship we have, the Asterix, which is privately owned with federal leasing, but it ends in 2025. We still do not have our first joint supply ship in the water. Why would we only want to have one vessel when we are trying to project our abilities beyond our shores?

If we want to have a blue water fleet, then we better have offshore oil replenishment capabilities in the Atlantic and in the Pacific. We need to make sure that we have the ability to also deal with things like maintenance on those vessels once they are out to sea. Having one on each coast is not enough. We need to have at least one more ship to deal with the need to provide that scheduled maintenance, which happens throughout their life cycle. We need to have that extra ship to sail, and we have to think long term on why we need another AOR.

We still have not signed the lease on our F-35s. The government has been sitting on its hands instead of signing the contract to make sure that we buy the F-35s. The surface combatants need to get in the water to get built.

There is no money in here to deal with the real crisis happening today in the Canadian Armed Forces, which is recruitment. Chief of the Defence Staff General Wayne Eyre has said that this is a crisis. I say that it is a catastrophe, and we need to deal with that very quickly.

We have a lot of needs, but we are getting no vision. It seems like everything these Liberals touch, they break.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence]

Madam Speaker, I tried to follow my hon. colleague but, at times, I got caught between spending and investing. He is saying we are spending too much. We are investing in our country. That, by itself, is definitely a different approach between our government and the opposition, because we are investing in Canadians. We invested in improving our CPP, for example.

Let us look at the economic situation today. We have the lowest unemployment in 40 years. We have over 400,000 new jobs since the pandemic, which was a major increase. We have the AAA rating, so we have a strong economy. We have been there through the pandemic. We are there now with affordability.

I am having trouble because he is saying that we are spending too much, and then he is saying to cut. Which one is it? Which areas are the Conservatives going to cut as we move forward?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, if we look at things the Liberals touched and broke, one of the things they broke is Veterans Affairs. We already have a bunch of our veterans who are waiting not weeks, not months, but years before they get any pensions. One RCMP veteran contacted me. He has been waiting for over two years to get his pension from Veterans Affairs.

How is that compassionate? How is that management that people can rely upon? It comes down to these Liberals, despite throwing money right, left and centre, never having been able to provide the services Canadians expect under their leadership. During their time in government, things have gotten worse not better.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I hear what my colleague is saying about the national shipbuilding strategy, or NSS.

Since 2015, Davie has made extraordinary improvements to its workforce, so much so that it won the North American Shipyard of the Year that year.

Despite all of the promises made in 2019 and all of the announcements regarding the umbrella agreement, things keep getting delayed.

Does the member agree with my colleague that, if Davie had been included in the NSS without delay, then the costs of the strategy would be much lower than they are now?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am a big fan of the Davie shipyard. I believe it proved itself as being able to deliver on time and on budget when it delivered the Asterix. We campaigned in the last election on having that shipyard also deliver the Obelix so that we could have two offshore auxiliary replenishment ships, one on each coast, plus have the joint supply ships that are being built at Seaspan in Vancouver.

We think that is the right mix of ships we need to maintain our navy in both the Atlantic and the Pacific, and to have the ability to deploy all of the assets we have within the navy. I do believe that Davie has a role to play, and it is one we need to investigate even further. There is no plan in this economic update for where we are going with our surface combatants or where we are going to get submarines. We need to deal with the proliferation of submarines by our adversaries, and the best way to fight a submarine is with a submarine. We need to get some new submarines.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

We have time for a brief question.

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

Madam Speaker, I do appreciate my colleague talking about lapsed spending and ensuring the men and women who serve in Canada's military get the right equipment. When he talks about lapsed spending, I remind my colleague that the Conservatives left $1.2 billion unspent that was dedicated to veterans. He just scolded the Liberal government when it was the Harper government that cut a third of Veterans Affairs, which led to the backlog today. The Liberals are just as guilty for not fixing the mess the Conservatives created.

My question is about young people and students. This legislation includes a framework for removing the interest on the federal portion of student loans, which is something New Democrats have been fighting for. Can the member explain to—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am sorry to interrupt, but I did ask for a brief question.

The hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman has the floor.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, I will give a very brief answer. When it comes down to veterans, that was seven years ago. The backlog we are dealing with now, which has grown so much, is all on the shoulders of the Liberal government. When I talk about RCMP officers waiting for their pensions for 24 months, that all happened under the Liberal leadership. It has failed, in every way, our veterans in the armed forces and our veterans in the RCMP, and it is failing our current serving members in the Canadian Armed Forces.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank all of my colleagues who are present today for what is a very important topic: the fall economic statement.

It is important for me to preface how important this tool is for Canadians, and how important the value of respect is not just in this place but across the country. The last year was, in many ways, horrific for many Canadians. We saw some Canadians go to the food bank for the very first time. We saw some students who were unable to begin their next year of studies, because the cost of tuition was too high. We also saw workers rightfully demand increases to their wages as the cost of living crisis continued to clamp down on them. They asked for the basic respect they deserved. New Democrats stand with them, and I hope members of the House will also stand with them.

In order to do that in a way that is responsible and balanced, and to provide Canadians with a wholesome opinion on the fall economic statement, I will talk about that principle of respect throughout my speech. I will talk about some things New Democrats fought for, some things workers fought for and some things students fought for. I will talk about some great things New Democrats were able to achieve in the fall economic statement, but they were simply not enough.

I will speak to ways we can improve programs so that they help Canadians. I will talk about the big wins with which Canadians can hope to see relief. To the students, in particular, the removal of interest on student loans is a massive victory. I thank all the students from coast to coast to coast who made this possible. Their advocacy and their work to ensure that students are not left behind has been heard, and we will ensure this remains.

However, we have to also look at some areas in relation to student debt that were lacking in the fall economic statement. We know that just south of us students in the United States have a forgiveness of $20,000. This is something that, for a long time, New Democrats have fought for, but it was not mentioned in the fall economic statement. I will return to that subject soon.

I will also highlight the fact that we are seeing signals, which may not be the golden goose we all hoped for in many ways, in relation to clean tech and clean hydrogen. This is important for my province of Alberta. Regular workers do not often check into the proceedings of the House of Commons, but they will see the investments that are happening at their workplace and the investments clean hydrogen will make for them and their families. This is important for communities in Alberta. It is important for communities in places like Saskatchewan.

We also saw the doubling of the first-time homebuyers' tax credit, which is a good incentive for young people. This is a good first step, but the question for New Democrats is whether it is enough. I will speak to that in a second, as well as to ways we can hopefully find better outcomes.

We have also seen that financial institutions will be made to pay a bit more. The Canada recovery dividend is an important tool to ensure that those companies that make profits of over $1 billion pay their fair share. However, it is interim and it is not far-reaching enough. We know from the Parliamentary Budget Officer that if we were to expand this important windfall tax to other highly profitable industries here in Canada, we would see an income of over $4 billion in revenue to help Canadians who need it most.

We also see an important tax on those who are flipping houses. It is critical in a housing crisis like we are in right now to tackle those who are driving the cost of housing up. It is important that we take a real financial approach to ensure the market cannot continue to gouge Canadians. That falls to the very premise of what New Democrats have been fighting for in this place for a long time. I encourage all parliamentarians to engage in a respectful and healthy dialogue on this really important topic of differentiating between the needs of Canadians, like food and housing, and the wants.

New Democrats believe that the free market has a role in Canada, but it should not be used for goods that Canadians rely on. An example of that is something we do not have to look very far back in our history to realize. The price of bread was fixed in Canada. Imagine that. When families were struggling to pay their bills and to put food on the table so that they could have a dignified life in this country, companies were abusing the trust of Canadians and fixed the price of bread.

My friends, it is important that we talk about these issues. It is important that we talk about the difference between what Canadians actually need, which is food and housing, and what they want. We need to find a way to ensure that the government continues to play a role in ensuring that those needs are regulated in a way that all Canadians can have access to them. The compact that we make as Canadians to one another is that we will be there for each other when we need it the most on those things that matter the most. That is the calling we have today.

It is important that we tackle the issues that are present to Canadians, from the cost of living to the existing problems we are facing in our social safety net. Our cherished public health care system is crumbling right now. I remind Canadians how important our health care system is in Canada. It has not always been this way.

Our health care system in Canada was not always freely accessible and publicly administered. It was something Canadians, people from the Prairies in particular, in my home province of Alberta and our relative provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, were able to fight for and they never gave up. It is something that we must continue to defend.

I am disheartened and sad about what is happening in my home province of Alberta and what could be happening in provinces across this country. The chronic underfunding of our public health care system is leading to it breaking so that it can be replaced. This is not fair to the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who rely on our public health care system to get the results they need to ensure they continue to survive. It is a matter of life and death for Canadians.

We need to ensure we have a robust public health care system in Canada that is publicly funded and publicly administered. That means the federal government needs to come back to the table, invest in the solutions we need and partner with the provinces. It is something I hope we see and continue to fight for as New Democrats in the future, but it is sorely lacking here.

We know that, in just this year alone, what we are going to see beyond the cost of living crisis is Canadians needing more support. We do not have to look any further than the food banks. The reliance on food banks in Alberta has increased 73%. That is an outrageous number and something we must truly have compassion for.

Simultaneous to this unfortunate squeeze that so many Canadians are enduring right now, we do not see the same for Canada's richest CEOs. CEOs are laughing and popping bottles in their offices right now, because they are raking in some of the largest profits on things the public needs the most in Canada. Let me mention a few.

I mentioned groceries earlier. Loblaws increased its profits by 17.2% this year. We also saw the CEO of Loblaws rake in $5.4 million in compensation. It is outrageous that Canadians can barely squeeze by while CEOs are continuing to rake in millions with no compassion for Canadians. As Canadians continue to see the cost of goods increase, they also know it is partly because these same companies are using inflation as a cover to increase prices by almost 25%, as a matter of fact.

I will conclude by mentioning the importance of workers. Workers from coast to coast to coast are battling to ensure that their collective agreements can actually withstand terrible Conservative governments, like what we have seen in Ontario with the use of the notwithstanding clause pre-emptively against workers. It is unjust, and we are here to defend workers and all Canadians.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I take umbrage at the comments about the Conservatives, but let us talk about something we can agree on.

The member talked about the price of bread. He said it is unthinkable that people fix the price of bread and it is important to Canadians. I think that is true. However, why does the member support the government putting a tax in place that increases the cost of growing wheat, milling wheat, cooking wheat into bread and shipping bread to the grocery store? Why is he supporting the government in raising the cost of bread in Canada?

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is important to understand that we can, in fact, disagree while not being disagreeable. I understand that the member has often contributed greatly to the dialogue in this place, and I respect that.

In relation to the cost of bread and the issues we are seeing, my support for this fall economic statement falls on the fact that Canadians are hurting desperately. As a member of Parliament, I know that Canadians do not want to continue to suffer, and these benefits are critical to their support. Removing student loan interest, for instance, is something many students would benefit from.

It is unfortunate that the Conservatives continue to block important services and programs that every Canadian deserves right now.

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the member's comments and really appreciated the range of topics he was able to cover. I hear him on the fact that we have a lot more work to do, and I am committed to doing that work.

We have heard from the Conservatives time and time again today about Canada student loans and interest, and that students should be paying their fair share and paying interest on student loans. They would be paying back the principal, and this is a policy that many students in the riding of Waterloo and I have been fighting for.

I would like to hear the member's comments on the affordability crisis and removing interest from the federal portion of Canada student loans. What kind of benefits and impacts would this have on students? I am sure he can relate to some within his riding.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is important to remind members of the House that students have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. Paying tuition is another double whammy on their lives and is simultaneous to the issues of inflation. The least we can do is ensure they are not paying interest on those loans.

I would go further, though, to add that it is important to begin the process of ensuring that the government looks at the principal of those debts so we can find ways to actually reduce the debt load that many Canadians are suffering with right now by forgiving $20,000.

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

Madam Speaker, does my colleague agree with me on the following?

Bill C-32 sets out 25 tax measures, but they are basically nothing but minor legislative amendments. Some measures that were announced were already in budget 2020. There is nothing new in Bill C-32 to help combat inflation.

Does he agree with me?

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, one particular tax that I think is important to realize, which the Bloc is supporting, is the Canada recovery dividend. It is an important measure to address the insurers and banks that are profiting over $1 billion, which is the kind of revenue the government needs. This is an important tax measure that would continue to fund programs so that regular Canadians do not have to.

In addition to this, we think some Canadians should benefit despite the crisis we are facing. For home heating costs, we want to ensure there is a removal of the GST. We actually proposed an amendment to the Conservative's opposition day motion that would see that happen and they defeated it.

We want to ensure the tax system works for Canadians, and these are measures that would do that.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order.

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Kitchener Centre, Oil and Gas Industry; the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, The Environment.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bécancour—Nicolet—Saurel, QC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-32 has more bulk than substance. My colleagues were right in saying so earlier.

Bill C-32 contains 25 different tax measures and a dozen or so non-tax measures. That may seem like a lot, but there are in fact two kinds of measures. Some are minor amendments, like the ones this Parliament adopts on a regular basis to comply with court rulings, treaties and new accounting policies or to correct an unintended effect of an act, while others were already announced in the spring 2022 budget but had not been incorporated into the first budget implementation bill in June.

Simply put, like the economic statement of November 3, 2022, Bill C-32 does not include any measures to address the new economic reality brought on by the high cost of living and a possible recession. It is a bill that does not do any harm but does not deserve much praise either. At the same time, it is not a total disappointment, because it does contain a few positive measures.

The Bloc Québécois takes issue with an economic update that mentions the inflation problem 108 times but offers no additional support to vulnerable people, such as the elderly or those who have lost their jobs. It offers no solutions, despite the fact that a recession is expected to hit in 2023. Quebeckers concerned about the high cost of living will find little comfort in this economic update. They will have to make do with what is basically the next step in the implementation of last spring's budget.

The Bloc Québécois asked the government to focus on its fundamental responsibilities toward vulnerable people, such as increasing health transfers, which I will come back to, adequately supporting people aged 65 and over, and immediately reforming the EI program, which is the best stabilizer in times of economic difficulty. The government dismissed our proposals. We can only denounce this as a missed opportunity to help Quebeckers deal with the tough times that they are already going through or may face in the months to come.

With respect to health care, there is an ongoing standoff between the federal government on one side and Quebec and the provinces on the other. The Bloc Québécois asked the federal government to agree to the unanimous request of Quebec and the provinces to increase health transfers immediately, permanently and unconditionally. Let us not forget that, in 1993, former minister Paul Martin decided to erase the federal deficit by cutting health transfers from 50% to 25%. The provinces were in crisis. Since then, no government has been interested in getting funding back up to that 50% over time. We would be happy with a boost to 35%, but the government has not only failed to restore funding to where it was, it has reduced it to 22%.

That is unacceptable. This injustice must be corrected. Sick people and health care workers are the ones suffering. ER doctors are warning that our hospitals have reached the breaking point, but the federal government is not taking action. Obviously, it would much rather prolong the health care funding crisis in the hope of breaking the provinces' united front so it can convince them to accept less than they are asking for.

I would remind the House that sections 92 and 93 of the Canadian Constitution state very clearly that the only role of the federal Parliament is to transfer money to the provinces without any conditions. When I look at the various political parties here in Ottawa, I often wonder if they are proud to be Canadian. I am very proud to be a Quebecker, and if there were a Quebec constitution, the first thing I would do to express my pride would be to respect it. At the federal level, the Constitution is abundantly clear about health transfers. Why, then, does Ottawa choose not to respect the Constitution? Are those members proud to be Canadian, yes or no? Anyone who is proud to be Canadian would respect the country's Constitution.

Let us now talk about the two classes of seniors. This is the first time we see an attack on the universality of health programs. People between the ages of 65 and 74 continue to be denied the increase in old age security, which they need more than ever before. Seniors live on fixed incomes, so they cannot deal with such a sharp rise in the cost of living. Seniors are the most likely to have to make tough choices at the grocery store, the pharmacy or the gas pump. The government continues to penalize those who are less well-off and who would like to work more without losing their benefits. Unlike the government, inflation does not discriminate against seniors based on their age. Currently, Canada's income replacement rate, meaning the percentage of income that a senior retains at retirement, is one of the lowest in the OECD.

The increase in old age security should prevent demographic changes from significantly slowing economic activity. Contrary to what the government says, starving seniors aged 65 to 75 will not encourage them to remain employed. That is done by no longer penalizing them when they work.

There are several solutions that could help seniors. I would like to quote from a letter I received from Robert Bernatchez, who lives in my riding. His proposal is very acceptable, very simple to understand and very simple to implement, but for the time being the government is turning a deaf ear.

His letter reads as follows:

Dear Mr. [MP], allow me to share with you an initiative that may help seniors 65 to 74. They do not benefit from the increase to old age security, since the federal government increased the age of eligibility to 75.

Whereas the 10% increase to old age security is reserved for individuals 75 and older and this is unfair to individuals who have not reached that age. It should be noted that we had a universal plan starting at 65 for the old age security pension.

Whereas there is currently no permanent government measure that allows retirees 65 to 74 to increase their income to cope with growing inflation.

Whereas the message sent by the federal and provincial governments to retirees 65 to 74 is that “if you want more money then get a job to help address the pressing labour shortage and/or to increase your income”.

Whereas many retirees 65 to 74 do not want to return to work or they would have already done so.

Whereas these are the same people who helped build the Quebec and Canada of today. They have made invaluable contributions and now want to receive some help.

We, retirees aged 65 to 75, are calling on the federal government to change the eligibility criteria for the guaranteed income supplement to include the following.

When inflation exceeds 3%, the following measures will apply:

Retirees aged 65 to 75 who earn less than $50,000 in income, as entered on line 199 of their income tax return, can withdraw up to a maximum of $2,500 from their RRIFs without any reduction to their guaranteed income supplement. This measure will apply for the 2022 tax year. An adjustment will consequently be made to non-refundable federal tax credits to increase the amount of deductible pension income to $2,500.

Sir, I hope you will defend this new measure like you defended the earnings exemption for self-employed workers in 2019....

I hope the government will get the message.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence]

Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on a very well delivered speech. I would expect nothing less from a man of wisdom, one with so many years of experience.

He delivered a speech that showed a great deal of concern for Canadians, and I thank him very much for that, as well as for his work and his words.

I would like to address a few points in his speech. I would like my colleague to respond to them with his own comments.

In terms of our investments in health care, we spent an additional $2 billion not too long ago to try and catch up on surgeries that were delayed because of the pandemic. That was on top of the $4.5 billion that was added during the pandemic, also to help Canadians.

With respect to Bill C‑32, I would like to remind my colleague that the Canada workers benefit will also help those in need.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bécancour—Nicolet—Saurel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for raising those points.

You mentioned $2 billion, but when the government slashed transfers in half from 50% to 25%, that represented a lot more than the $2 billion you say you provided.

Let me remind you that the federal government's role is to transfer the money to the provinces, not to give that money directly or to opine that one type of care is better than another or that one type of collaboration is better than another. All the federal government is supposed to do is give the money unconditionally.

You say that the government has intervened in times of crisis, but the Constitution also says that, in times of crisis, the federal government has an obligation to step up and transfer funds for health care.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind the member that he must address the Chair, not the parliamentary secretary.

The hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his speech.

There is no mention of new health care funding, even though all Canadians are concerned about the current state of our health care system.

What does my colleague think of the situation?

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bécancour—Nicolet—Saurel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I talked about the health transfers that all the provinces have requested. Quebec and all the provinces are calling for a new cost-sharing arrangement with an additional $28 billion going to the provinces.

The federal government may say that this is not immediately feasible, but it could at least promise to do it in increments. It could make a two-, three- or four-year agreement to reach that 35% target. I would remind the House that health transfers to the provinces were 50% in 1993.

This is critically important. It is what the provinces are calling for, and it is becoming increasingly pressing right now. I read a document about Ontario, where the situation is critical. In Quebec, the situation is critical in all hospitals. We need the money that is owed to us.

The Constitution very clearly states that the transfers must be unconditional.

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

Madam Speaker, in relation to diseases caused by mental illness, compared to G7 and OECD peers, Canada is underspending on mental health. France spends 15% of its health care budget on mental health and the U.K. spends 13%. My colleague, whom I respect a lot, talked about having no strings attached on mental health transfers, but currently, mental health spending makes up between 5% and 7% of health care spending depending on the province or territory. Mental health care stakeholders are saying we need a target of at least 12%.

Last week, the Bloc voted against a unanimous consent motion I put forward for universal mental health care. Does my colleague recognize the economic and social costs of underinvesting in mental health?

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bécancour—Nicolet—Saurel, QC]

Madam Speaker, when it comes to mental health, what is happening is terrible. Mental health problems have increased dramatically, so the amount of money that needs to be invested also needs to increase considerably.

Once again, this is a health-related issue, and health is a provincial responsibility. That is very clearly stated in the Constitution, in section 92. If the government wants to be generous, understanding and responsive to the provinces, it should simply transfer the money. Quebec has the knowledge to help people suffering from mental health problems.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, I rise to join the debate today on Bill C-32 as the government tries to push through some of its fall economic update. Not only are we talking about yet another bad bill, but again, it is trying to rush through the process of us reviewing it.

We saw this morning the government wants to cut short our debate by limiting it until the end of the day. To be clear, when I say “government” in this case, it applies to something more than what the Minister of Finance and the government House leader, as cabinet members, are supposed to represent when they introduce their bills or motions. It is something more than the wider Liberal caucus in this place that has stood by and supported the government's decision no matter the cost it brings to Canadians.

What is happening right now actually goes back to the agreement made earlier this year with the NDP. Yes, we are starting to see the NDP-Liberal coalition back in action.

It reminds me of when, not too long ago, Canadians first learned about a deal between the Liberals and the NDP. Everybody knew it was a convenient arrangement for these two parties to help each other stay in business, but they have been downplaying it from the time they announced it. They tried to pass it off as a working agreement on a small number of points where they had some mutual understanding. However, over here in the opposition, we have already seen what is going on, and Canadians outside this place can see it too.

The NDP and the Liberals will not dare to call themselves a coalition, but the whole time they have behaved like they are a majority government in Parliament. Back in the spring, it did not take long for them to bring forward a motion to push through government bills. The most shocking part of it might have been that it allowed a minister to move, without notice, a motion to adjourn the House until we would resume months later in September. Such a motion would be decided immediately without debate or amendment.

From early in May, the opposition was left waiting to see if the government would suddenly shut down Parliament for months. It was a strange thing to give the government such power if there was never actually a chance or need for it to be used.

At the same time, the motion also allowed the government to change the parliamentary schedule and give next to no notice. A minister could rise a minute before adjournment and declare we are sitting until midnight on a government bill. This introduced a lot of uncertainty into the whole process, not just for members but for parliamentary staff like our interpreters, who have had to work throughout these proceedings.

The Liberals and the NDP would have to explain to me the practicality of a lot of this happening without them working so closely together to coordinate the agenda and prepare for any last-minute changes. It would be exactly like if they were all part of a government trying to keep the opposition on its toes and undermine our important work. As we have heard from the government so often, it made it seem like this was only temporary and that it expired before the summer break. Then we all came back and it seems to be happening all over again.

First, the Liberals and the NDP used a special motion to rush Bill C-31 through the House with late-night debates and committee meetings. The result is more inflationary spending, which might fulfill part of their political agreement but is not the right solution for what Canadians are going through and asking for at this moment in time. However, that was not enough for the coalition. Last week, it passed another motion similar to the one it used before the summer, so now it can play games with the opposition again until the end of June.

It is a clear pattern. It is even more troubling to see it come from a party that is supposed to be in opposition and still officially pretends it is. Instead, it is enabling the Liberals to avoid accountability as a minority Parliament. That is what they are doing again with Bill C-32 today. However, none of this will stop us Conservatives from doing our jobs and doing our best to stand up against the desperate decisions of a government in decline.

Right now there is a cost of living crisis caused by inflation and interest rates, and they are failing to address it. The cost of groceries went up at the fastest pace in 40 years, and people have had to pay the highest gas prices ever. While Canadians are forced to cut back on spending, we are not seeing the government show fiscal restraint or provide tax relief. Instead, it continues to waste taxpayer dollars and weaken the foundation of our economy, especially by attacking our energy sector.

With that in mind, it is ironic to read this part of the economic update:

There is no country better placed than Canada to weather the coming global economic slowdown and thrive in the years ahead. We have the most talented and resilient workforce in the world, and we are a country that skilled workers want to move to. We have the key resources the global economy needs, and as we enter an era of friendshoring and our closest partners shift their strategic reliance from dictatorships to democracies, they are looking to Canada to provide them with those resources.

It is the last part of that statement that I find the most interesting. The government, from day one, has spent the last seven years attacking the development and growth of our natural resources sector here in Canada. During that entire time, the Conservatives have defended Canada's great potential to supply the world's needs, while our industry follows higher standards for respecting human rights and the environment. We keep saying it and the government ignores it time and time again. Even now, I doubt it really even cares to get it.

The sad reality is that the government is hurting the same sector that would strengthen our economy and support our allies all over the world. We have already seen that the federal government's past decisions have limited Canada's ability to help Europe as much as we otherwise could have during an energy crisis, but what is worse is that the government still does not have the willingness to rise to the occasion with Canadian energy. We saw that when the German Chancellor personally came here on a special trip and the Prime Minister gave him a disappointing response. The Chancellor came here looking for Canadian LNG to help wean Germany off its dependency on Russia, and he was told “no”.

The Liberals are not going to reverse their anti-energy policies, which they will continue to expand. One of the new and subtle ways they are doing this is through a shares tax. They are not saying it openly, of course, but the industry has raised it as a concern. What is even more telling, though, is that opponents of the energy sector have also pointed to this tax as something that specifically targets Canadian oil and gas.

The likely result is that there will be damage done to Canadian jobs and industry more than anything else. It is also going to help drive carbon leakage into other areas run by dictators, like some of these overseas places we are importing oil from and other countries are dependent on when they should instead be focused on Canadian oil and gas. As usual, the Liberals pretend to go after big business, while their policies make life more expensive for all Canadians, including the most vulnerable. It is exactly the opposite of what is needed while facing economic hardship.

This is the same government that weakened our economy before it had to go through stressful events, and then decided to make it worse with wasteful spending. The Liberals' economic update proves that they have not learned much from their mistakes. As a case in point, the Liberals are going to raise the carbon tax, even though it has been a big part of the problem in terms of the cost of food and fuel. They say it is an environmental plan, but it is really nothing but a tax plan.

Along with that, the Liberals are failing to support workers and communities affected by their mandated coal transition. I represent some of these communities, alongside the member for Souris—Moose Mountain. Rockglen and Willow Bunch are such communities that are in my riding, and this year the environment commissioner's audit has shown that so far, the transition program is shaping up to leave these communities and their workforce behind. In fact, it goes so far as to say there is a complete lack of a plan, and that over the pandemic the Liberals have taken the last two years completely off, while not even allowing an extra two years in lieu for these communities to get their orders in line to be able to meet this transition from the government, but without the government's help.

There are a lot of talented people who are doing the best they can to prepare for this coming change, but again, as I just alluded to, there is still no planning and no attention from the government. These places still are not getting the answers they need for the future. When I look at the economic update, it still seems like this not a real priority for the Liberals, and that they will continue to break their promise to these coal communities.

These are the things we need to talk about while the government tries to shut down debate. These are things that should have been brought up in the fall economic update and have not been brought up, which is why we need this time to be debating this here today.

The Liberals are once again missing an opportunity, and they will continue to use the same kinds of decisions that brought us here, to where we are, where they limit debate along with the help of the NDP, and Canadians cannot afford it anymore.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, the Conservatives have made it very clear that if it was up to them there would never be a vote on this particular piece of legislation, much like with the fall interim budget back in 2021. With that fall budget, the Conservatives continued to debate it well into 2022. There are measures within this legislation that are there to help Canadians during a time of inflation. That is what is in this fall economic update.

Will the member not recognize that, at some point in time, even opposition members need to recognize that it is time to let legislation go through? If there is any justification whatsoever for the time allocation, all one needs to do is take a look at the Conservative Party's behaviour from last year. Its members have no intention of passing it. It has nothing to do with debate time. It has everything to do with filibuster.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, that right there indicates everything that is wrong with these time allocation issues, and particularly with these bills the Liberals are ramming through. With this one in particular, the cost of living elements they are talking about are going to cost the taxpayer over $11 billion. Many of the measures are one-time or maybe two-time handouts. These are things that are going to further drive up inflation, because we have to borrow this money in order to be able to hand it out to Canadians. The Liberals continue to run these deficit budgets, and these plans are driving it up.

That is why we want to debate these bills for an adequate amount of time. It is because there are many great ideas we have on this side, and I am sure the other opposition parties have many great ideas they want to get communicated across, but when the government limits debate, that cannot happen.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, while we are on this topic, I would like to ask my colleague a somewhat speculative question.

Recently, last week in fact, a motion giving the government the power to unilaterally decide to make us sit until midnight every night, not just until December but until June, was rammed down our throats. These types of motions that give all the power to the government are obviously supported by the NDP. I have a hard time understanding how an opposition party could support such a motion.

What does my colleague believe that the NDP got in return?

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is a very interesting tactic by the NDP to continue to enable the government to push through bad decisions like this. It really eliminates debate and allows it to force through any agenda it wants. We are seeing more often that the government is wading into areas of provincial jurisdiction, which I know is of particular concern to the Bloc, as it is to me and to my constituents back home. They want to see the federal government remain focused on federal issues, allow the provinces to work on provincial issues and offer the support back and forth as the support is needed, which is what the Constitution says they are supposed to do.

Yes, I am very concerned about it as well.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed working with my colleague on the right to repair legislation.

I will take issue with the Harper administration, which, propped up by the then Liberal Party minority, used closure on debate numerous times. The Harper government used it over 100 times when it had a majority.

My question is quite simple. Is it the Conservative Party's position to end this practice forever in the House of Commons? Is it the position of the Conservative Party not to have closure of any debates, and why did the member participate in the votes at the time when the Conservatives were propped up by the Liberal minority, with a Conservative majority?

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, my time in this House began only in 2019. I definitely do not enjoy having to debate closure motions. It is my hope that the government and the NDP will put an end to this practice in this Parliament, so we can move forward on adequately using the time that we have to debate important pieces of legislation, like the one the member mentioned on the right to repair issue.

We are here today on the government's economic update. There are so many gaps in it that we could drive a truck through them, leaving a lot of people behind. There is a lot of virtue signalling from the government, and we are not able to get the results for Canadians because it is ramming through this piece of legislation, like it has other ones in the past.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-32, the fall economic statement implementation act, with a particular focus on how the NDP-Liberal government claims to put Canadians' interests first, yet continues to push forward with its uncontrolled, insatiable inflationary spending.

We have two simple demands of the NDP-Liberal government to address the affordability crisis: Stop the taxes and stop the spending.

The cost of living crisis did not come without fair warning. We Conservatives have a long record of warning the NDP-Liberal government of the consequences of its actions. Needless to say, the direction it has demonstrated has been one of irresponsibility, mismanagement and carelessness. Skyrocketing inflation and the affordability crisis are likely to be mishandled yet again unless the NDP-Liberal government continues to listen to common-sense, realistic Conservative solutions to truly support Canadians across the country, so this is what we have to say.

The economic update does nothing to remedy the homegrown affordability crisis, and there is a running theme of deflecting the blame altogether. Whether it be the war in Ukraine, the pandemic or inflation being a problem around the world, the Liberal government chooses to blame everything else but its inflationary spending.

The inflationary deficits, totalling about half a trillion dollars, have sent more money chasing fewer goods. These inflationary practices are hiking the cost of everything while leaving Canadians with band-aid solutions that provide them with no long-term support. The Liberals' tax-and-spend agenda is completely unsustainable, and Canadians deserve better than choosing between eating or heating this winter. Seniors deserve better than barely scraping by with the cost of groceries. Families deserve better than paying the ever-climbing carbon tax. Students deserve better than facing a bleak housing market post graduation.

Canadians have never paid so much into taxes as they are because of this government. With record-breaking price hikes for gas, groceries and home heating, it is no wonder that more Canadians are turning to food banks for extra support once they have exhausted everything else they could possibly have saved money on.

The Prime Minister has managed to pack on more debt for Canadians than all the past prime ministers combined. That is why we Conservatives are championing the interests of hard-working Canadians by advancing two demands of the government: Stop the tax hikes and stop the inflationary spending.

The government loves to masquerade its inflationary spending as “helping Canadians” but tends to neglect saying that it is adding more debt and hiking inflation with its so-called affordability measures. If the NDP-Liberals were sincere about supporting Canadians through the cost of living crisis, then they would cancel all planned tax hikes, including the tripling of the carbon tax. Canadians are already struggling with inflation. My constituents have been talking about how much it costs to heat their homes nowadays. Since when has heating during the winter become a luxury?

Canadians work hard. They have demonstrated resilience and hard work to support their families and help their neighbours throughout the pandemic, even now, when the price of everything drifts further out of reach. Ironically, this coincides directly with the NDP-Liberal government's drifting further out of touch with how much it costs to live under its inflationary nonsense. Canadians deserve better than choosing between heating their homes for the winter or putting food on the table for themselves and their families.

Furthermore, we Conservatives are calling on the NDP-Liberal government to stop the inflationary spending and strongly consider reinvesting that back into the Canadian economy by creating more things that money can buy: more Canadian energy, more Canadian products and more Canadian jobs.

We are also calling on the government to manage its inflationary spending for once, by matching new spending with equivalent savings elsewhere to rein in inflation as well as to stop the inflationary deficits that drive the costs of everything up. It is no lie that Canadians' paycheques are no longer going as far as they used to and their dreams of a brighter future are fading.

None of our practical solutions to curb inflation were reflected in the fall economic statement, and for that reason, we Conservatives cannot stand by the inflationary updates outlined in Bill C-32. The NDP-Liberal government had every opportunity to understand that its approach does nothing to serve Canadians, yet it moved forward with its problematic plan anyway.

From the lengthy lineups at airports, to the painfully slow passport processing, the wasteful ArriveCAN app and, even now, Bill C-32, the NDP-Liberal government has proven that it is incapable of addressing inflation and meeting the basic needs of Canadians. The cost of government is driving up the cost of living for Canadians. The Liberals are out of touch and Canadians are out of time. Winter is here and the government should do everything better to prevent Canadians from choosing between eating or heating this winter.

This government likes to pretend that there was no other choice than to double the debt. While the Prime Minister spends $6,000 a night on the most expensive hotel room in London, Canadians are barely able to afford home heating or a roof over their heads. When Canadians are struggling to pay for groceries, this government tells them to tighten their belts and, further, to cancel their Disney+ subscriptions. The Liberal government likes to call the carbon tax a price on pollution while its members are chauffeured everywhere they go. Canadians on the other hand have to pinch pennies at the pumps.

This government once stated that the country's debt would not exceed $10 billion. It lied. In fact, over 40% of new spending was not related to the pandemic at all. That is $205 billion of inflationary spending. On top of that, interest rates are skyrocketing at an unprecedented pace. Mortgage payments are becoming unaffordable and most young people do not even think about buying a home at all any more. Canada is one of the largest, richest, most proudly diverse countries in the world, yet Canada has had the second most inflated housing bubble.

Canadians deserve better than just being able to afford to get by. They deserve security, opportunity and a fiscally responsible government. Instead of printing more and more cash to throw around, we Conservatives believe in creating more of what cash buys, bolstering our economy and making more quality jobs and opportunities for Canadians.

We are lucky enough to be in a country so full of resources, so why are we not investing more proudly in Canadian products, such as food and energy, instead of importing oil from other countries? The NDP-Liberal government loves to claim environmental protection for the tripling carbon tax, but it chooses to import oil from other countries, which costs more in funds and emissions to ship, trains and trucks into Canadian households.

Instead of providing people with one-time rent support cheques, which only helps a fraction of Canadians, we Conservatives urge this government to cut the red tape, quit the gatekeeping and get shovels into the ground to build more affordable housing for Canadians. It is time that the Liberals understand the real consequences of their wasteful spending and listen to Conservative solutions. It is time for the government to show more compassion and stop the inflationary recklessness. It is time for the government to stop spending and stop the tax hikes.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Madam Speaker, considering Canadian inflation is lower than that of our neighbours to the south, the U.K., Italy and Germany, and that our inflation rate went unchanged last month from the month previous, yet the work of government continues, would the member finally admit to Canadians that inflation is, in fact, a global crisis fuelled by pandemic shutdowns, disrupted supply chains, Russia's invasion of Ukraine? Will they finally get on board in a collaborative, honest approach to help Canadians weather this storm?

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, well, that is a very nice response to a question.

I have to admit that the Liberals talk about how it is a global phenomenon as though they had nothing to do with it. It is no wonder those members talk about removing the Disney+ channel because I think they live in a fantasy world where they say they have no control over the finances or the inflation of the country.

It is shameful that the Liberals stand here and compare us to other countries. It is not about other countries. It is about Canadians and how they are suffering with the high inflationary rate. They are saying, “Well, we have done nothing, but you say that it is our fault.” It is funny how they always talk about the inflationary crisis not being their fault, but when there is a positive, they always say, “Well, that's because of our programs.”

Once again, I am sorry, but that is a bad statement and a bad question.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate my Conservative colleague for his comments and his speech.

The Bloc Québécois expected three things from this economic statement. First, we wanted health transfers with no strings attached, as Quebec and the provinces have been unanimously calling for for quite some time. There is still a consensus on that.

Second, we asked for an increase in seniors' pensions that is not based on age, because the increase is presently only for those 75 years of age and older. Those aged 65 to 74 are wondering why they are being left behind. The third item is the much-anticipated reform of employment insurance.

These are the Bloc Québécois's very simple demands. However, there is nothing in the Liberal Party's proposal on that.

If my Conservative colleague would like to share his thoughts on that, I would be very pleased to listen.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is very true that there are many things in the House that the Liberals have brought forward that are not helping Canadians. The member brought up a prime example of the three points the Bloc had wanted. It is a very good point.

The Liberals talk about how much money they keep spending and how much they are helping Canadians. If that were the case, why are seniors under age 75 in my riding asking why they did not get an increase. They are asking why they are suffering and how it is their fault, and they are saying that their costs have gone up just as much as those of the people who are 75 and older. It is quite surprising that once again the Liberals have failed to help our seniors or help health care.

There are many problems in health care right now. Alberta is going through that now provincially, trying to find out how they can make improvements. Is the federal government going to be there to help Alberta? It probably would not because it is not in the fall economic update either.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, this afternoon the Conservative speeches made me nostalgic for a time when Conservatives were as interested in solutions as they were in slogans. Does the member for Yellowhead realize that taking the carbon tax off home heating fuel would do nothing for people in my province of British Columbia, the province of Quebec or the Atlantic provinces? Why have the Conservatives rejected our idea to take the GST off home heating fuels of all kinds during this winter, for those who heat with electricity as well as with fossil fuels? Are the Conservatives really interested in solutions? Would they drop the rhetoric on the carbon tax and support the NDP plan to take the GST off home heating?

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Speaker, I do not think that we were against taking off the GST. The problem was that it is such a small part of the carbon tax. Most people are telling me that the carbon tax on their utility bills is almost the same amount as they are paying in fuel. Therefore, the GST is not going to amount to as much as the New Democrats had hoped.

That is why we are asking for the carbon tax to be off home heating. That would have a direct impact on many Canadians right across this country. The member is right that certain provinces do have their own climate crisis or their carbon pricing in effect, but the point is that they could look at that as well in those provinces. To have a better solution—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Resuming debate, the member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner has the floor.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is always a privilege to rise in the House to represent the incredible people of Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner.

Today, as we debate the fall economic statement, Bill C-32, I find it challenging to speak to the government's financial priorities. The priorities of the Liberal government differ dramatically from the priorities of Canadians and the official opposition. We have fundamentally different beliefs, and we generally disagree on the role government should play in the lives of Canadians.

This is a politically charged financial statement with two objectives: first, for the Liberals to spend enough money to buy the support of the NDP so their Liberal-NDP political love story can continue; and, second, to divide Canadians based on an ideological framework regardless of the financial or political consequences.

Canadians are tired. We have been stretched emotionally and spiritually, and now we have been physically pushed beyond our limits, especially over the last two and a half years. Like an overworked body, we need time to rest and recover. We need a sense of normality and hope, but that is not what is happening here. Canada is facing a cost of living crisis brought on by years of overspending, excessive borrowing and money printing, though the government will say it is quantitative easing, which has created the highest rates of inflation in decades.

Of late, the Bank of Canada has been raising interest rates at an unprecedented pace, and it is not done yet, all in an effort to curb the inflationary trend. The government has doubled Canada's debt in the last seven years, and the Prime Minister, as has been said many times before, has added more debt than all prime ministers in the history of Canada combined. For those trying to keep track of that at home, that is over half a trillion dollars.

The Liberals would have us believe that they had no choice, given the pandemic. However, 40% of all new spending and measures has nothing to do with COVID. That is over $200 billion. The resulting national debt interest payment costs have doubled, and next year those interest payments will be nearly as much as the Canada health transfers to the provinces. Let us just think of the impact of that.

I am sure that members of the House recall the Prime Minister, the current finance minister and the previous finance minister touting how inexpensive it was for the government to borrow money. This is no longer the case. Now Canadians are stuck repaying their bills at these new and much higher interest rates.

The only person with any fundamental financial understanding back then and now is the Conservative leader. He warned the finance minister back in December of last year. She was asked what impact a 1% average increase on interest rates would have on Canada's national debt. She was unable to provide any number. The crushing part is that rates did not go up 1%. They are up 3.5%. A finance minister who could not fathom a 1% increase when questioned was clearly unprepared for that eventuality.

Now we are in a situation where the reality is substantially worse than that, yet the finance minister remains equally as oblivious to the situation and as arrogant to her colleagues as she was a year ago. In her fall update, she should have been singing the praises of the Leader of the Opposition. After all, he was clearly the only one with both the foresight and understanding that interest rates would not remain at historic lows forever and the conviction to ensure that the government had a plan.

During this time of self-induced financial uncertainty, the government needs to partner with Canadians and not continue to punish them. Let us take small business owners, for example. They are the unsung heroes of Canada's economy. They employ nearly two-thirds of workers across the country and take on incredible risk to provide the necessary goods and services to our communities, yet under the Liberal government, small businesses are being punished with rising payroll taxes, an increasing carbon tax, labour shortages and staggering inflation, which is driving up the cost of everything.

This fall economic statement was the Liberals' chance to let Canadians know that the Government of Canada is a strong and stable partner, and they failed. It was the Liberals' chance to rein in spending and focus on getting the country's financial house in order, but they failed there, too. It was their chance to acknowledge that a carbon tax only hurts Canadians who are struggling to make ends meet, but Liberals let Canadians down there, too.

Sadly, the Liberal plan does nothing to address the cost of living crisis and government overspending. Rather, it shows that government revenues have increased by $40 billion this year alone. This not only means that inflation is increasing the cost of everyday essentials, but it also means there is an increase in taxes while the Liberal government is profiting from increased inflation on the backs of already struggling Canadians.

Canada's Conservatives had two clear expectations and demands of the government, as did Canadians: stop the taxes and stop the spending. Stopping the taxes means no new taxes and includes cancelling all planned tax hikes and the increasing of the carbon tax. Stopping the spending means no new spending and that any new spending by ministers must be matched by an equivalent saving. None of those demands were met in the fall economic inflationary update.

As I stated recently in the House, all that Canadians really need to thrive and survive is individual freedom and good government. I believe a good government is for the people, not of the people, and is transparent. It acknowledges that every time a dollar is given away, it must first be taken from a Canadian who went to work to earn it. It is a government that makes life more affordable for Canadian, not by creating more cash but by creating more of what cash can buy, and understands that ethically produced and environmentally responsible Canadian energy helps fuel our economy and should fuel the world. It is a government that knows carbon taxes will not tackle climate change and that focuses on promoting Canadian technology to the world, making alternative energy cheaper, not making Canadian energy more expensive. It is a government committed to reforming the tax and benefit system so that those who work can keep more of what they earn, and one that offers Canadians hope and creates an environment to succeed and prosper.

Freedom and good government are exactly what the Conservative leader, my Conservative colleagues and I are intent on providing Canadians. Buckle up folks. The fight to get Canada back on track has started.

It starts with removing the carbon tax, which is further burdening already struggling Canadians. It starts by helping the finance minister understand that her plan to print, borrow and spend on political pet projects needs to end. It starts by voting down this misguided and hyperpartisan fall economic statement. I ask my colleagues to please join me in ensuring that this bill does not pass.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, many aspects of the Conservative Party's positioning on this fall economic statement are quite upsetting, and I am sure a vast majority of Canadians would concur with that if they only knew what the Conservatives were proposing.

When the Conservatives talk about wasteful spending, what they are really talking about are the record-high transfers to health care, the establishment of a national child care program, investing in dental care for children under the age of 12, providing rental support and providing a GST credit rebate for the next six months. Many measures are permanent and others are temporary, but all are for helping Canadians deal with the inflation we are experiencing today.

Why does the Conservative Party not want to support Canadians on health care and through this inflationary situation?

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member fell on his head one too many times. He is missing the point. What is happening here is we have a government that thinks if it does not spend and spend recklessly, it is not helping Canadians.

Canadians do not need more taxes. They do not need more inflation. What—

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I have been listening to the debate and the comments made on both sides. Most of them have been pretty constructive, but the member used language that I do not think is respectful or suitable for the House.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I did hear what the member had to say. When we are talking about other members of the House, we have to be respectful.

The hon. member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Speaker, yes, you are right. I could have used other language to explain that my hon. colleague is completely out of touch. He certainly is.

He suggested that the Conservatives intend to cut health transfers. What rock did he climb out of? Nothing has ever been said about that. In fact, the Conservatives have been pushing for greater health transfers and for increased health care funding, including for mental health and addictions. On all of these things, the government seems to be lost.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

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

It is fascinating to hear the Conservatives say that for every new dollar spent, we have to find another dollar somewhere else. We agree with them. In fact, we could certainly find new revenue by fighting more effectively against tax evasion and tax avoidance. We could also collect revenue from GAFAM and other large corporations that do not pay taxes. We agree there are revenue streams to look into.

However, for the Bloc Québécois, there are also certain expenses that are essential. There are areas that we should not even think of cutting right now, such as health care, in light of the health crisis we just went through, which exposed the holes in our system. The government needs to transfer money to Quebec and the provinces. Then there is help for seniors and EI reform.

To put it plainly, if finding money and spending it on something else were already standard practice, then we would already have the money.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my Bloc colleague. I think it would not take long to look at the wastefulness of the government and find not millions or hundreds of millions, but billions of dollars in absolute waste that has gone on. This is waste that could be going to health transfers and waste that could be going to dealing with the opioid crisis we have in this country and to addictions, poverty and homelessness. These are all the things we talk about. We have an Infrastructure Bank that got some $30 billion, and we do not know what projects are being done.

Plenty of dollars would be available from the government if it would rein in its wasteful spending.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Mr. Speaker, by demonstrating and trying to model respectful behaviour in this place, my hon. colleague, in his intervention, did add value to the discussion on the fall economic statement.

One area in particular that I would like to hear the member's comments on is the carbon tax. It is something we often hear slogans for, such as the “triple, triple, triple tax”.

I know how important it is to see a cost on pollution in Canada and across the world. We are facing truly catastrophic weather events across the world, and we know they are driven by climate change. We know they are driven by pollution.

The Conservative Party in the last election ran on a cost for carbon, and now we are seeing a flip-flop on that. As a matter of respect, the New Democrats, knowing this consideration and knowing that we wanted to make life more affordable for Canadians, attempted to offer an olive branch to the Conservatives. We attempted to work with the Conservatives to get GST off home heating. That is 5% off home heating, which the New Democrats have fought for for a long time.

I know the Conservatives, deep down, want to ensure there is affordability for Canadians, but why do they continue to vote against measures that are so important to getting Canadians results, such as getting the GST off home heating?

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to recognize that the Conservatives want the carbon tax to be cut, obviously, and giving GST rebates is a great gesture. However, it does not go far enough. There are a lot of things the government can do to cut costs that will make a huge difference. One of them is to get rid of the carbon tax, period. It is important to recognize that we need to be pushing for technologies that are built in Canada, making a difference on climate change initiatives across the world and gaining respect across the globe for our technologies to ensure environmental friendliness in industry. That will have a huge impact globally. That is where I think we should be pushing some of our—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to speak to the fall economic statement, and I am lucky I got the chance before the government shut down debate, which it is doing today. In my usual format, I will look at the different sections of the fall economic update and tell members what I think about them.

To start off, the first section is called “Sound Economic Stewardship in Uncertain Times”. That sounds like something everybody would want. These certainly are uncertain times, so sound economic stewardship sounds like just what we need. The problem is the document has nothing to do with sound economic stewardship.

We have more inflationary spending, after economists and experts have said that more inflationary spending is just going to cause more inflation. We have the highest levels of inflation we have had in 40 years. I am not sure why, but I expected more from a Prime Minister who has spent more money in his term in office than all other prime ministers have spent put together. The earning power of Canadians is at the lowest point it has been in decades, and I am very concerned that we have not taken the appropriate actions in the fall economic statement to address sound economic stewardship.

Our debt is so large that we will pay $22 billion of interest on the debt next year. In two years, we will be paying $44 billion for interest on the debt. That is not the debt itself; we are not paying the debt down. Just the interest on the debt will be $44 billion. That is more than all of the health transfers to all of the provinces. I really think that was a missed opportunity.

Let us move on to the second part: “Making Life More Affordable”. Again, it sounds like a really good idea. I think Canadians would say they need life to be more affordable. However, this is what the Liberals always do: What they say sounds good, but what they actually do is not that good.

Fifty per cent of Canadians cannot pay their bills. Personal debt is at an all-time high. What do the Liberals do? They increase the tax that is going to drive up the price of groceries, gas and home heating. Is that going to make life more affordable for Canadians? No, it is not; it is just going to make it worse. I really think the government needs to listen to what Canadians are saying and understand the dire straits that many Canadians are facing in losing their houses and having to choose between heating and eating. Something needs to be done and the “something” is not what was in the fall economic statement.

There is a lot of wasteful spending going on, and I was shocked to find out about the $450 billion we pumped out the door during COVID. Some supports were definitely needed during the pandemic, but I heard the Parliamentary Budget Officer say that 40% of them had nothing to do with COVID. That is an incredible amount of money. We have to stop wasting it.

I agree that climate change needs to be addressed and I agree we need to reduce emissions, but we have spent $100 billion and the Liberal government has failed to meet any of its emissions targets. We are number 58 out of 60 on the list of countries that went to COP27 with Paris accord targets. We spent $100 billion, but what do we get for it? We get absolutely nothing.

We have to do better about spending taxpayer money to get results. Members today were saying that it is a real emergency; we have flooding and wildfires. They can ask themselves how high the carbon tax in Canada has to be to stop us from having floods or stop us from having wildfires here.

As a chemical engineer, I will say that Canada is less than 2% of the footprint. We could eliminate the whole thing and we are still going to have the impacts of floods and wildfires until the other more substantive contributors in the world, such as China, which has 34% of the footprint, get their act together. We can help them get their act together. If we replace with LNG all the coal that China is using and the coal plants they are building, it would mean jobs for Canadians and would cut the carbon footprint of the whole world by 10% or 15%. That would be worth doing, but it was not in the fall economic update.

I do not know if there are problems with math on the opposite side, but the Prime Minister ordered 10 vaccines for every Canadian. I do not know if he knew that two or three vaccines, or four or five maximum, were all we were going to take. Now all the rest of the vaccines have expired and have all been thrown away. What a huge waste that is. They could have gone to countries that do not have vaccines or that cannot afford to buy them. That is just one example of the wasteful spending.

The next section was called “Jobs, Growth, and an Economy That Works for Everyone”, and I think that sounds like something everybody would like. Every Canadian wants jobs, growth and an economy that works for everyone. However, in the fall economic statement we saw that we have only half the GDP growth we expected and predicted earlier this year, so we did not get the growth, and we have lost a lot of jobs and gotten a few jobs back, but it did not work for everyone.

If someone was unable to take a vaccine due to a medical issue or because they made a personal choice, they got fired, lost their job. Just to make the pain double, even though they had paid into an employment insurance program, paid the premium and should get the benefit, the government made sure that nobody who refused a vaccine could get that, so it does not work for everyone.

The last section is called “Fair and Effective Government”. Again, who could disagree with fair and effective government? I want the government to be fair. I want to live in a fair democracy, and I want the government to be effective. That would be wonderful, but today we have passports taking seven months to process, and there are 2.5 million immigrants caught in the backlog at IRCC. The average wait time for some of those types of permits is 82 months. We have the Phoenix pay system and the ArriveCAN app. Everything is broken all over the government. There is not any effective government happening. Yes, I think we should have it, but it is not in there.

With respect to a fair government, this is the Liberal government that brought in the Emergencies Act. We are waiting for the final word on it, but a lot of people have said there was no threat to national security and there was no emergency. The law enforcement people did not ask for it and the provinces did not ask for it, yet the government froze the bank accounts of Canadians without any warrants. That is not a fair democracy.

There is a freedom of speech war going on in our country. Bill C-11, Bill C-18 and all the bills the government brings forward whereby the government is going to get to control the speech of Canadians and the media, are not fair. We have evidence that CSIS talked to the Prime Minister and said Chinese money from Beijing was funnelled to 11 election candidates, with no transparency on who they were, and that there was interference in the 2021 election, again with no transparency. That is not a fair, democratic government.

I could go on about rental and dental, where the government has driven up the cost of housing. The average cost of housing rental was $1,000 in Canada, and now it is $2,000. With one hand the government is going to give a cheque for $500, but with the other hand its policies cost an increase of thousands of dollars, $12,000 a month on average in Canada. That is the way the government is working. It gives a little but takes a lot back, and that is not what we want to see, so I cannot support the bill that goes with the fall economic statement. I think we have to do better.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is an engineer, and engineers think in a very rigorous fashion, so I was a bit surprised at her comment to the effect that Canada is responsible for only 2% of global greenhouse gases, and that it is not going to make a difference what we do because it is peanuts compared to what the big emitters like China are producing.

My question to her is very simple. Is she suggesting that Canada can take its foot off the gas and not do anything, because we are really peanuts compared to the big emitters?

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague opposite is a very intelligent man, having been an astronaut. I would say that Canada has green technology. I support that. We have nuclear technology. I support that. We have LNG and resources that we could be shipping around the world, and we would be helping those people who are the substantive portion of emitters reduce their footprint. If we do not do that, we certainly will feel the impacts of climate change, like flooding events and wildfires, but we can do nothing about them. Those impacts will come to us. The thing we can do is help reduce the overall footprint, because, as I said, and anyone can Wikipedia it, we are 1.6% of the total footprint.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

In passing, I would like to point out that we have had the pleasure of serving together on the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage since the beginning of this Parliament. I heard her talk about coal, oil and those types of resources, but I would like her to talk about another issue in connection with what my colleague from Shefford said about how we need to look for money where it can be found.

Apparently, the digital giants are not paying their fair share of Canadian taxes and are taking advantage of the public largesse. As my colleague is well aware, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage is examining various bills. I would like to know whether she, too, thinks it is time that the digital giants paid their fair share and contributed to the finances of the country, Quebec and the provinces so that we can make improvements in important sectors. I am thinking particularly of health, where we have been waiting for transfers for a long time, of help for seniors and of many other issues. I am sure the member can give me some examples.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question.

Bill C‑18 is another bill that we are working on. The principle of this bill is to help small media organizations. This is another example of the Liberals saying one thing and doing another. This bill will not really help small organizations because Bell Media, Rogers and CBC will get all the money. I would prefer that Facebook and Google put money into a fund and that the small media organizations sign an agreement to share the money.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives claim to defend working people, who are bearing the brunt of this inflation crisis while billionaires make record profits. However, we in the NDP called on all parties to get behind a plan to tax the rich, and the Conservatives voted against it. Why do the Conservatives refuse to make the rich pay their fair share?

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I really believe people should pay their fair share, but Conservatives are also advocates of reducing taxes to make a competitive business environment and to help hard-working Canadians who are struggling. Right now, that is why we are asking to cut the carbon tax. It is inflationary, and it is increasing the cost of groceries, gas and home heating, which are not luxuries. Why is the member who asked the question propping up the government to put those taxes up on Canadians?

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House of Commons, especially to speak to financial bills.

I always think back, whenever I get an opportunity to speak in the House on a financial bill, to what our old friend Jim Flaherty must think of a bill such as this. I think he would have a wry little grin and probably think that it did not quite come up to the measure of what he would be able to do, perhaps.

I also think about Milton Friedman, the father of modern economics in many ways, and what he would say about inflation, because if members go to Santa Claus parades or events in their communities, what are people going to be talking about? They are going to be talking about the economy, inflation, the carbon tax and some world events. Milton Friedman has been dead a long time, but as he said, inflation is “too much money chasing too few goods”. He also said, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.”

The Liberal government has said many times, and has passed the hat on excuses for inflation, but it has kind of settled at its last chance to say that inflation is a global phenomenon and we had no chance. However, if we look at the G7 and G20 countries, they all spent; they mega spent. They spent huge percentages of their entire economy, so if everybody is spending that much, we just need to look at what Mr. Friedman said so many years ago. It is quite simple.

I will give the Liberals credit for one thing. Somebody in here slipped a line into the foreword that says, “But we cannot support every single Canadian in the way we did with emergency measures at the height of the pandemic.” The government was spending a lot of money, and some of it very valid. It continues with, “To do so would force the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates even higher.” Here the Liberals are admitting in one line that they cannot do it all for everybody because it would raise spending too much, and on the second line they are saying they would have to raise interest rates to fight the impending spending inflation that would be caused.

“It would make life more expensive, for everyone, for longer. So as the central bank fights inflation, we will not make its job harder.” Well, that would be the first time in seven years the Liberals have made that decision.

I know other members have talked about public debt. To service the debt, the interest we would pay, and members have heard the numbers already, is $24.5 billion this year, $34.7 billion next year and $43 billion in 2023-24. Now, we are not in a debt spiral like the one some of the countries are heading towards yet, but that is a concern.

In the notations in the fall economic update, there is 425 billion dollars' worth of T-bills and bonds that will have to be sent out to the market in the upcoming fiscal year. Now, that is a lot of money to put out into the market and ask people to buy the T-bills, etc. One huge concern out there is if there are no bids, and we have seen that happen in other countries where there are no bids on government debt. I think there probably will be, but that is an awful lot of money to put out in one year, which is a little surprising.

I still have Bill Morneau's first budget from 2016. He had that nice book, which is in my office. I looked at it before I came over here. The Liberals inherited a balanced budget from the Conservatives in 2015, which is a fact. I will also mention that the inflation rate in October 2015 was 1%. There was a balanced budget and 1% inflation. The debt when Bill Morneau was the finance minister was $1 billion. It was $1 billion for Bill Morneau. Under this finance minister seven years later, it was $1 trillion, and now the number is $1.8 trillion. That is $800 billion in seven years, which is a lot of spending. It takes an Olympic effort to spend that much money in that period of time.

The net debt is $1.2 trillion. That is what they always hang their hat on, the net debt-to-GDP. The issue that I think most of us would like to bring up, and I am welcome to be corrected if I am wrong here, is that a lot of the assets, about two-thirds of the assets that the government lists, is CPP and QPP. It is really not even a government asset, if we think about it. It is kind of a dotted line to an asset. Really, if we took out the CPP and the QPP, the net debt would be a lot bigger. I think what I saw on a report was that we would not be number one, in terms of dept-to-GDP. We would be more like four or five, in terms of debt-to-GDP.

These are just some clouds on the horizon. If we do not take care of our fiscal house, we are going to have some long-term issues.

The economic report also talks about what happens if things are not as rosy as presented. That is when it gets really concerning. From now until 2027, believe it or not, the best-case scenario is that we are going to add another $200 billion to our debt. The worst-case scenario is that it is 50% worse, and we are going to add $300 billion to our net debt. I think that is a concern because, next year, the worst-case scenario is a $50-billion deficit.

We keep adding these on, piling these on, and I think a lot of people are looking at this and they are saying, “What am I getting for my money?” A lot of people, in my area, if they are going on a vacation now, if they are lucky enough to be able to afford one, do their level best to avoid Pearson airport. They will try Hamilton. They will try somewhere else, like Kitchener. They do not want the hassles of the Pearson airport.

I think to myself, here we are in one of the wealthiest nations in the world. We should have the best: the best ports, best airports, best infrastructure and best government service. If we want a passport, it should almost be next-day service. Everything is a mess.

Look at immigration. Look at how many unfilled positions there are in our country. Our office is inundated with people who are at the end of their ropes with trying to get somebody to come and work in their businesses. It is just one mistake from immigration, another one and another one. We would like to bring these hard-working people in and let them really put our economy to work.

If we went around and we asked parents what some of their issues are, what some pinch problems in their finances are, health care might be one of them. It is maybe not a financial one, but certainly there are concerns regarding emergency rooms. I am sure that everybody in here who has a kid or an elderly parent knows that it is hours upon hours if we have to go to the emergency room. We have shortages in every position in health care. It would have been great to see a better plan from the government to really deliver an improvement to our health outcomes.

Even the $10-a-day day care business, I have a bit of an issue with that. According to Statistics Canada, there are about 660,000 Canadian families that do not use the government-run day cares. They receive nothing. They do not get $10-a-day day care, so almost half of the kids out there do not get that. Once we are in Ontario, say, for example, when one is in JK, at four years old, parents probably need the extended day program. That is $28 a kid every day. If one had two kids, that can be hundreds and thousands every month.

Yes, if one is lucky enough to get one of those spots in a licensed day care, one is going to pay $10 a day, but the other problem is that, in Ontario, we almost have a deficit of 100,000 ECE workers, day care workers. In the future, this increase to $10 a day is really zero if we do not have the staff to fill the jobs.

There is a lot here. I am sorry if I sound like I am being pretty critical here today, but there is plenty of material to be critical of. That is our job over here. The Liberals will tell us how great they are, and it is our job to point out some of their shortcomings.

The last point I have is on clean tech, hydrogen and critical minerals. I think we would find a lot of commonality, potentially, on all sides. One of the issues we have is that we can never get any of these projects done. To do these projects takes years if not tens of millions of dollars.

With that, I thank the House for the time and I will take my questions.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the member covered a lot, which was excellent and informative. I want to dive into one specific comment that was made around the supports that were given to Canadians during the pandemic.

Is the member asserting we should not have issued the Canada emergency response benefit, a benefit his party supported?

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Speaker, no. One will find, on the record, that at the time Parliament gave unprecedented support to the government to do what was best for Canadians so they could keep their homes and not go into a financial crisis. Once we got to a certain point, there was $200 billion in extra spending that had nothing to do with pandemic supports. That is really where the problem is.

The U.S. had the same problem, and that is why its inflation went crazy too. If it would have just kept it to what it was, we would have a different level of inflation at this time, and maybe very little. We certainly see the deficit spending in the first four years of the government, which was $100 billion in deficit, and that is a lot of money. It is 30% of our total debt. These little things make a big difference.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to hear the member for Huron—Bruce open his speech by referring to Milton Friedman as the founder of modern economics. Of course, we are talking about the 20th century and not the 21st century. I wonder, in the 50 years that have passed since Friedman advised Reagan and Thatcher, whether the member is familiar with a living Canadian economist called Jim Stanford, who has talked about how the causes of inflation have changed and about how applying the old solutions Milton Friedman talked about will only cause greater pain for Canadians and greater damage to our economy?

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Speaker, sometimes things change; sometimes things do not change. I met Jim many times and he is a nice fellow. If we read what he wrote many years ago, in some cases 50 years ago, he talks about too much money chasing too few goods. Anybody can pick up something, read it and think that, yes, we have too much new money being printed from the Bank of Canada, the Federal Reserve and the ECB that is chasing too few goods. It is pretty simple. However, I do respect Jim's writings. He has done a lot of work through the years with the CAW and Unifor, so I would not want to disparage Jim at all; that is for sure.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for an excellent and very interesting speech.

The new trend among Conservatives is to say that for every new expenditure, an old expenditure must be eliminated so that the balance remains at zero. They are obviously forgetting about inflation and economic growth. That is forgivable, however, since we know that economics is not the Conservatives' strong suit.

Having said that, I would like to ask the member how much more money would be available for health transfers if we abolished all oil subsidies.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will say one thing about that member, which is that I cannot compete with him in haircuts. He has a great haircut. I have nothing to compete against this guy on that.

Years ago, when we balanced the budget the last time after the last economic crisis, we had a very similar program. We reviewed the spending and there were tons of programs out there that delivered no services anymore to people. We were able to balance the budget in a really fair way and it really got Canada back on track and slingshotted the economy for the next 10 years, in my opinion.

There are ways to balance the budget that are fair. In fact, believe it or not, I think the Liberals are even taking the Conservative leader's approach and doing that. They have new spending but new savings have to be found, and that is a fair approach to take during these times.

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

Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to participate in the debate on the Liberal government's 2022 economic statement.

Not surprisingly, the government is sticking to very liberal economic measures. Nothing conservative to see here. We have noticed a pattern of ongoing deficits and promises to balance the budget a few years from now. Whether good times or bad, the government does not seem too concerned about achieving that financial goal or acting responsibly.

I would also note that the government expects its rising carbon tax to bring in significantly more revenue over the next few years. This leaves Canadians struggling with the Bank of Canada's interest rate hikes very little financial wiggle room.

This economic statement does nothing to address the many issues Canadians grapple with on a daily basis just to live with dignity.

We have all noticed the rising price of food, especially meat, fruit and grain and dairy products. The entire agri-food supply chain is under tremendous pressure from world markets. Staple foods are in short supply and transportation costs are exorbitant at a time when Canada is already experiencing a labour shortage.

We are easily talking about an increase of $3,000 per year for a family of two adults and two children. The housing affordability situation is adding unprecedented financial pressure, with the Bank of Canada raising interest rates from 0.25% to 3.75%.

Furthermore, the bank is planning two more rate hikes, in December and February. For a family with a $400,000 mortgage, a four-point increase means an additional $16,000 in annual interest costs.

This is, of course, after-tax dollars, so after the additional $3,000 for groceries, it means another $19,000 for the family budget.

We must not forget the additional transportation costs for families, given the increase in the price of gas and the carbon tax that is also driving up gas prices in Canada.

For a family that uses 100 litres of gas per week, that means an extra $60 per week, easily, and therefore another $3,000 per year.

If I do the math, that means an extra $22,000 per year, and that is just for the basic needs of a family of two adults and two children. There are also all the goods and services needed for the family's well-being, which have also been affected by inflationary costs. That is easily an extra $2,000 per year.

That brings me to a total of $24,000 in additional expenses. That is a huge amount of financial pressure on the average Canadian family.

I would like to have seen more conservative measures in the economic statement to reassure Canadians that their tax dollars are used wisely, for the right purposes and at the right cost.

This means avoiding the Liberals' wasteful and excessive spending and their infuriating practice of buying too much only to throw it all away or overpaying for goods and services.

Canadians are demanding—and deserve—good government management on all fronts to ensure that we maintain our social safety net as we know it today.

I am a father to five children and I am fortunate to have grandchildren. When I go to sleep at night, I think of my constituents who share their financial problems with me. I think of those families who are going hungry and who, even after cutting their expenses as much as possible, have to painfully humble themselves and use the services of a food bank.

Everywhere across Canada, food banks are seeing a large increase in demand for food support. This demand has increased by 35% compared to 2019, the period before the pandemic.

We also see that many more students and young families are having to turn to this type of assistance to cope with the rising cost of rent, groceries and transportation. Of course, then there are the winter months, which drive up the cost of living even further as a result of the need for heating during these long, cold Canadian winters.

Across Canada, people are getting poorer thanks to the inflationary policies of this Liberal government, which has been spending freely and recklessly since 2015. Specifically, I am thinking about the princely tastes of the Prime Minister, who treated himself to a $6,000-a-night suite at the taxpayers' expense. I am also thinking about the ArriveCAN app, which cost $54 million to develop when it could have been done for $250,000. Then there was the purchase of twice as many medical ventilators as needed, at a cost of $403 million. That money was spent for nothing, for no good reason other than poor planning.

Most importantly, we cannot forget that our national debt has doubled since this Liberal government took office. It is now at $1.2 trillion, putting enormous interest pressure on the federal budget. The Prime Minister and his Liberal government will pay $43.3 billion in interest charges annually, which is the budget of several government departments combined, like the health transfer budget and the social housing assistance budget. Our social safety net is at risk of suffering for decades to come as a result of the Liberal government's ill-considered choices.

The government must encourage Canadians to participate in the labour market in order to reduce the labour shortage in our economy. I do not understand why the Prime Minister did not make it a priority in the economic statement to implement measures that would give Canada some fiscal flexibility.

I would like to give the government members a reality check as they are also failing Canadians who are sick. I would like to remind the government of Bill C-215 on employment insurance, which seeks to increase the number of weeks of sickness benefits from 15 to 52 in cases of serious illness, such as cancer. I would like to remind the government that, when Canadians are trying to recover from a major health issue, a mere 15 weeks of benefits does not give them financial security. The government is offering 26 weeks and will deprive over 31,000 Canadians a year of the weeks they need to recover their health.

This bill was passed by the House and reflects its desire to make these additional weeks a reality. It would resolve the economic protection issue for generations to come. I would also like to point out that the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities voted unanimously in favour of allowing the bill to move to third reading. According to parliamentary procedure, the bill now requires a royal recommendation so that it can be passed.

While we are debating this economic statement, which does not reflect all of the critical needs of Canadians, I will speak on their behalf and implore the government to reconsider and reform the EI system by passing Bill C-215. Bill C‑215 illustrates what the Canadian Parliament and all parliamentarians can do by working together, in the best interests of all Canadians. It is time to set partisanship aside on this matter, in the collective interest of building the Canada of tomorrow, with all Canadians on an equal footing when facing the challenge of a serious illness, especially in light of the current economic crisis. Let us be attentive and compassionate towards one another to build a better world here in Canada.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence]

I thank my colleague for his speech, Mr. Speaker. It is always interesting to listen to him talk about the economy.

However, I would like to draw his attention to the fact that in addition to having rehired everyone who lost their job during the pandemic, which is more than three million people, 400,000 new jobs have been created in the meantime.

Canada has the lowest unemployment rate in 40 years and our AAA rating has been reaffirmed. Our country is in a good position and that is because of the investments we made.

My colleague talks about immigration. I would like to hear his thoughts on some of the changes we made to encourage more immigration to add to the workforce.

This bill has some good things that are very interesting and will help Canadians.

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

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

On immigration, the economic statement does not actually say anything about a process to bring newcomers into Canada any faster. I do not know if my colleague is having issues in his riding, but in my riding and every other riding in Canada, there are all kinds of problems with immigration files. Unfortunately, the department can take up to four years to fix those problems. If we want to bring more people into Canada through immigration, the government will have to find a way to speed up the process. There is nothing at all about that in the economic statement.

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

Mr. Speaker, I was so pleased to hear our colleague's remarks on Bill C‑215, an initiative he put forward together with the member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup.

I would like to hear his version. Why is this bill moving so slowly? It might be naive of me to ask, but I thought the NDP was very supportive of the bill. The Bloc Québécois certainly is, and it is even on the Conservatives' agenda.

Why does he think this is happening? It is such a great bill.

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

I thank my colleague for this excellent question.

At present, the ball is in the Liberal government's court. The entire House voted for the bill and the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities voted unanimously in favour of the bill.

We are at third reading stage. However, this bill must have a royal recommendation from the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance. We all know that it is up to the government. I hope that the government will get onside before the holidays so that the bill receives royal recommendation. This would provide financial relief for those who are sick and financial protection to all Canadians for generations to come. It has taken 50 years to get to this point. In the next few days, let us seize the opportunity to provide protection for the next 50 years.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I really enjoyed what the hon. member had to say in his speech, particularly the value of the principle he mentioned, about making sure all parliamentarians support Canadians in a non-partisan way. I really appreciate the member for his comments, because I believe he is sticking up for his constituents, albeit all of us are here to do that.

However, one important piece of that is making sure we have a strong revenue source for our national revenue. Numerous times we heard the leader of the Conservative Party rail against the banks and against the profits of the banks. The fall economic statement offers a 15% tax by way of the Canada recovery dividend, something New Democrats pushed for and something we support, which would ensure that Canada has a revenue from those who have grossed proportionately a profit of over $1 billion.

Why are the Conservatives now backing down, when we have a chance to tackle the problems with the banks?

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

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

As I said in my speech, with regard to the money the government spends, we want to ensure that no money is wasted, and that the goods and services we buy are paid for at fair value. We want to avoid what happened with the ventilators, for example. Their purchase price was $403 million too high. We cannot find anyone to give them to or sell them to. Does that seem right?

It is vitally important that Canadian families are able to work and that they have money left in their pockets so they can support themselves. Unfortunately, I cannot say any more because my time is running out, but we could debate this issue for a very long time.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP and the Liberals are patting themselves on the back for this fall economic update. They should not. This is a fall update. Canadians are falling, and the NDP-Liberal government is failing. Canadians are seeing their standards of living erode and the cost of living skyrocket because of inflation.

If one wants to get depressed, they should go grocery shopping. Basic food costs are way up: bread, apples, cereal up 17%; lettuce is up 21%; chicken, 11%; cheese and bacon, 10%; pasta is up 22%. For those who want to cook from scratch because they think they are going to save, flour is up 24%.

The Abacus poll that came out earlier this month said that 50% of Canadians are finding it a lot more difficult and 38% a little more difficult. That means almost nine out of 10 Canadians are feeling the impact of inflation at the grocery store. One in five Canadians are saying they are having to reduce meal sizes or meals altogether in order to save money. This is Canada.

More people are going to the food banks now than in history, 1.5 million in October alone. I know this has been repeated by a number of speakers, but I think we cannot just accept it as just another statistic. These are Canadians who are facing tremendous difficulty. I talked with the local food bank where I live, in Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, and they said they have never seen anything like it.

The Liberals just shrug their shoulders and do not take responsibility for this mess. They blame it on Ukraine, on COVID, on anything but themselves. Going back to the polls, 56% say the Liberal policies on inflation are making things worse, while only 7% say it has helped. The summary of the Abacus poll is this, right here: Inflation is making life difficult for millions and is the number one political issue in Canada. The biggest impacts are felt in food, but millions are finding it difficult to cope with their energy and housing costs.

On the issue of inflation, Liberals are like a deer caught in the headlights, stunned and dangerous. I have seen deer sometimes in traffic. They can bounce around anywhere. What we are seeing are the Liberals making poor decisions that are causing a serious accident in Canada.

I wish I could just say it was an accident. Let me explain. They have printed hundreds of billions of dollars that they put into the economy over the past three years. Nearly half of that money that they have pumped into the economy has had nothing to do with COVID. The money supply has increased by 25%. What does that mean? It means there is a lot more money around for the same goods than there was a few years ago. That just makes everything more expensive. It is like Canadians have had a big pay cut. They may not have seen the number of dollars on their paycheques go down. As a matter of fact, it may have even gone up a little, but because the dollars do not go as far, it is essentially a significant pay cut.

It seems that the Liberals have seen this pandemic as a time to be silly with Canada's economy. That is a nice way of saying stupid. The finance minister said it was no big deal to print money or to borrow money. She said, listen, it is half a percent. It is at only half a percent. Let us just borrow, borrow and borrow and spend, spend and spend. They said it was going to be like this for years to come. In the past few months it has gone up 750%. Yikes. That is how much interest rates have gone up: 750%.

Now there is trouble. The cost of interest rates on the deficit is going to be as much as what the government is spending on health care. In this very dangerous time, when we are seeing war in Ukraine and threats elsewhere, it is going to cost more than the government spends on National Defence, which, I will say, is not a priority for the Liberals at all. This is very significant.

Canadians are very concerned about energy costs to heat their homes and keep fuel in their cars so they can go to work, go to the supermarket and take their kids to sports. Seventy-five per cent of Canadians say this is an important issue. The Liberals are absolutely oblivious to our call to axe the carbon tax, which is making everything more expensive, from transportation and food costs to everything else.

I must admit it is very challenging for me, and I am sure for my colleagues, to listen to the Liberals brag and pontificate about their plan to save the world by tripling home heating costs. They have a tax plan, but not a climate change plan. The Liberals' plan is just to promote. We are number 50 out of 63 countries on the greenhouse gas reduction target. The Liberals have not met any of their targets. What they are doing is ridiculous and, yes, full steam ahead toward the iceberg.

I live in the Vancouver area where there are the highest gas costs in North America. It has been up to $2.50 a litre. Something has to give, but the Liberals are basically saying to have no fear, the Liberal government is here, and it has bags full of money to scatter. The Liberals have tremendous causes, each one of them. They put those causes in there for talking points to say they are helping these people and these people for the bad policy they brought in.

The Liberals have lit an inflationary fire, and they are pretending they are trying to put it out. They have doubled the national debt. They recognized that inflation is not great for them politically, so what did they do? They said, “How can we take care of inflation? Let us ramp up interest rates.” That is causing real problems for people who are renewing their mortgages. In the Vancouver area, people having $500,000, $600,000 and $700,000 mortgages are quite common. People are now going to be paying hundreds and thousands of dollars more each month and each year.

The Liberals are just saying that they are going to invest. They keep on talking about investing in this and in that, and that they are going to put money in here and in there. I always hear this word “invest”. First of all, it is not the Liberals' money to invest; it is taxpayers' money. Second, it is not just how much they spend, but how effective they are when they are spending. It should not just go to more bureaucracy. We have a lot bigger bureaucracy with worse results. It should not be there just to pad their friends' wallets, whether it be former MP Frank Baylis with a $250-million contract for ventilators, who charged twice the amount, or the ArriveCAN app.

The finance minister wrote a letter and said that they had a meeting with Chancellor Scholz to get Germany to buy hydrogen. The Liberals did not say anything about Scholz's asking if they could get LNG to Germany. There is a war happening. The Prime Minister said there is no business case.

They are now producing this in Germany. They are now building these LNG plants and they are getting the LNG from other countries. Those could have been Canadian jobs. That could have been money to go towards health care. It could have helped National Defence and in other ways. The Liberals talk about a war on climate change. It is actually a war on the resource sector, which means that our Canadian dollar is not as strong and Canadians cannot purchase as much as they used to be able to.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, for the last 10 minutes my colleague was talking about the economy. I have to say that I have been listening all day. In one breath the Conservatives are saying we are investing too much in Canadians, and in another they are saying we are not spending enough.

They are saying they are the party of compassion. Let us look at which side is compassionate. When we brought forward the child care investment, the Conservatives voted against it. When we brought forward dental, they voted against it. When we wanted a top-up for housing, they voted against it. When we talk about removing the interest from student loans, they are against that. They were against the doubling of the GST for six months, but finally saw the light and backed off.

I would like the member to explain why, if the Conservatives are so compassionate, they are voting against all of these bills to help Canadians with affordability.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would say it is the Liberals' policies that have caused the problems in the first place and that they should go back to the source, to the root, and take care of their spending. It is fine to help, but they should find some savings in other places. They have not. They still have a $37-billion deficit and it is accumulating.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by thanking Climate Action Network International for its work on the climate change performance index that was referenced by the member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, which ranks Canada 58 out of 63. It is a deplorable record. One reason that is the case is that we continue to add new subsidies to the fossil fuel sector. One example is the new $8.6-billion tax credit for carbon capture and storage at a time when oil and gas companies are making record-breaking profits.

I wonder if the member could comment on whether he is similarly concerned with the wholesale margins in the oil and gas industry right now. The reason why Canadians are feeling the pinch at the pumps is that those margins are up 18¢ a litre. Is he concerned about that and would he support a windfall tax on those profits so we can do more with respect to taking action on the crisis we are in?

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree that companies need to be paying their fair share. I will make note that this year the Alberta government is seeing a massive amount of revenue coming in, and a lot of that is because of the incentives to help in Fort McMurray. That is now going to the government and making a tremendous difference.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that my colleague from Mirabel asked the question earlier. We have entered a new era of magical thinking by the Conservatives who imagine that an exact amount of money will be taken from somewhere and invested elsewhere, as though this can be done with a snap of the fingers. Where do they suggest these revenues be collected?

I mentioned the issue of taxing GAFAM, as did my colleague from Drummond. There is also the issue of tax evasion and tax avoidance. Could the money that is being invested in the oil companies not be invested elsewhere to help other sectors that will be more economically vulnerable in the tough year ahead, such as seniors and health transfers? Where could the government collect this money to be reinvested?

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is not up to the government to decide where investments will be made. For resource or other projects, it is up to the companies and investors to make that decision. What is happening now is that there are no investments because projects are not getting approved in Canada to our detriment.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my constituents once again for giving me the opportunity to be here and represent them.

One of the things I heard a lot about this past summer was not so much about the billions of dollars being spent, although people do talk about that, but the level of competence of the government. That is one of the things we should focus on here. The government loves to talk about all the money it is spending everywhere on all kinds of things, usually not getting value for money. My colleagues have mentioned that already. As we see a number of different initiatives, what a lot of my constituents realized this summer was that the government is broken. Conservatives have talked before about getting some of the most basic services, such as a passport, which used to be received in a few days and is now taking literally weeks and months. Some people were waiting six months. It was unbelievable.

We talk about this lofty immigration goal of 500,000 people, but what we are not talking about are the two and a half million people who are waiting to get into this country. We need workers in a big way. The Liberal government likes to talk about things, but not look at what is being delivered. That is one of the things we should be focusing on. What are the deliverables? What has happened? We have all heard stories from people who have called us about visitor visas, immigration issues, work issues and people trying to get workers in this country. We know we have a major labour shortage, yet the government has been incompetent or does not have the ability to deliver the most basic goods and services for Canadians.

This economic statement promises to deliver more money. It is going to deliver another $40 billion. One thing my colleagues have mentioned over and over again is that this has been driving inflation. If we look at what is happening with a number of things, we see that, as we continue to have too few goods being chased by too much money, it is a major issue.

We also know that the Prime Minister has added more debt than all previous prime ministers combined. I want everyone to think about that for one second. I will repeat that. The Liberal Prime Minister has added more debt than all previous prime ministers combined. If we think about that, the money spent in the last 100-plus years has now been spent very quickly. The government will talk about how all these things were so important. The Auditor General and the Parliamentary Budget Officer have said, as a matter of fact, 40% of all this new spending actually had nothing to do with COVID. Once again, the high-level story is that we had to spend all this money on COVID, but then we find out that only 40% of it had anything to do with COVID. That is absolutely a challenge.

We know that our country's debt interest is going to double this year. We are going to see interest payments go up and more money spent on interest payments than the Canada health transfer. That is somewhat troubling. As interest rates continue to climb, people's mortgage payments are going to double, some up to $7,000 a year. The Bank of Canada has basically said that it is going to continue to hike interest rates as it tries to deal with inflation.

There is a major housing crisis in this country. We have seen what has happened in major markets like Vancouver and Toronto, some of the most overpriced markets, not only here in Canada but in the world. We have seen the money spent on the homelessness initiative, and it is pretty timely. We see that in the Auditor General's report that just came out in the last little while. I will read part of the summary, which states:

As the lead for Reaching Home, a program within the National Housing Strategy, Infrastructure Canada spent about $1.36 billion between 2019 and 2021—about 40% of total funding committed to the program—on preventing and reducing homelessness. However, the department did not know whether chronic homelessness and homelessness had increased or decreased since 2019 as a result of this investment.

That is a direct quote from the Auditor General. I will read one more paragraph, as follows:

For its part, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, as the lead for the National Housing Strategy, spent about $4.5 billion and committed about $9 billion but did not know who was benefiting from its initiatives. This was because the corporation did not measure the changes in housing outcomes for priority vulnerable groups, including people experiencing homelessness. We also found that rental housing units approved under the National Housing Co-Investment Fund that the corporation considered affordable were often unaffordable for low-income households, many of which belong to vulnerable groups prioritized by the strategy.

Let us think about this. The government wants to brag about how much money it has spent on homelessness, yet we have no way of knowing if it has gone to the people who need it the most. That is one of the things we need to look at and have a conversation about.

We have talked about the cost of what has gone up. We have many Canadians within $200 of insolvency, not being able to pay their bills because of the high amount of inflation. Thirty-one per cent of Canadians say they do not make enough money to pay their bills and debts. This is certainly worrisome. We know that paycheques do not go as far as they used to. We also have Canadians cutting their diets, and seniors who have to choose between heat and food. Winter is coming. We live in a northern country and have to deal with that very issue.

We can look at food bank usage. We have seen the Canadian record of 1.5 million visits, with an increase of 35%, and we know that 33% of those using food banks are children. That is somewhat troubling given that children normally make up 18% to 19% of the population.

We keep talking about the tripling of the carbon tax because it is causing everything to go up in price. We can look at what is going on with that. Those who in live in cities have the option of public transit. Although I do represent a rural riding, it is not the most rural in Canada. I would say a lot of places in northern B.C., northern Alberta, northern Ontario or northern Quebec are more rural.

We have limited public transportation in my riding, but I can assure members that the moms, dads and families there need to drive everywhere. They need to drive to take their kids to school. They need to drive to take their kids to sports like hockey. They have to drive their car just about everywhere, so when they are told they have to pay more money in a carbon tax, it is not an option for them because of their way of life. We do not have the option of being able to use public transit all the time in every situation.

My friends talked about the availability of day care. I will not hit that again, but as we look at these things, we also have to consider the fact that we live in a northern climate. We do not have the option of whether we heat our homes or not. It is something we have to do. The Liberal-NDP coalition fails to recognize the fact that individuals have to heat their homes. This is not a luxury good.

We could talk about farming next. One of the things about farming that I find troubling is the tariff on fertilizer coming from Russia. What a tariff means is that farmers will have to pay more. However, the tariff was not to punish Russia in any way, shape or form. I have had farmers reach out to me and say they could not believe it. They pre-ordered their fertilizer, the government decided to put a tariff on the fertilizer and it has done nothing but drive the cost of our food up.

Let us think about that for one second. A tariff means that Canadians are going to pay more for something they had no control over. Farmers were not given six months or a year to try to change where to get it from. It is problematic when we look at those kinds of things.

Here is a government telling Canadians how much it cares about them. Here is a government telling them to look at all the money it is spending. Here is a government telling them that the carbon tax is good for them and that they need to pay it because it will make all things better. However, the reality is that it is costing everyone more money and food prices have gone up.

I could talk about restaurants that have reached out to me. Chicken has gone up almost 100%, and the oil they cook in has gone up over 100%. That is not 8%, 9% or 10%. Those are major numbers.

When governments are talking about how much money they are spending, I would ask this: Are people's lives better off? Do people have access to more services? Do they feel like the government is more competent? Do they feel that as a result of the money and taxes they are paying, their life is better?

I guarantee that if asked these questions, Canadians would realize the government is not delivering on what it is talking about. It is not delivering on what it is promising. I will leave it at that.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

It being 6:45 p.m., pursuant to an order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on the amendment.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the amendment be carried or carried on division, or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

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

Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded division.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Pursuant to order made on Thursday, June 23, the division stands deferred until Tuesday, November 22, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I suspect if you were to canvass the House you might find leave to call it seven o'clock so we could begin Adjournment Proceedings.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed from November 21 consideration of the motion that Bill C‑32, An Act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 3, 2022 and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

It being 3:15 p.m., pursuant to order made on Thursday, June 23, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the amendment of the member for Calgary Forest Lawn to the motion at second reading stage of Bill C‑32.

The question is on the amendment. May I dispense?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

[Chair read text of amendment to House]

(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #219

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I declare the amendment lost.

The next question is on the main motion. If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes the motion to be carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would request a recorded division, please.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #220

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Finance.

(Bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

I wish to inform the House that because of the deferred recorded divisions, Government Orders will be extended by 24 minutes.