Bill C-56

Affordable Housing and Groceries Act

An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Competition Act

Part 1 amends the Excise Tax Act in order to implement a temporary enhancement to the GST New Residential Rental Property Rebate in respect of new purpose-built rental housing.
Part 2 amends the Competition Act to, among other things,
(a) establish a framework for an inquiry to be conducted into the state of competition in a market or industry;
(b) permit the Competition Tribunal to make certain orders even if none of the parties to an agreement or arrangement — a significant purpose of which is to prevent or lessen competition in any market — are competitors; and
(c) repeal the exceptions in sections 90.1 and 96 of the Act involving efficiency gains.

The Economy

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was shopping for the Leader of the Opposition to help him.

If the Conservatives want to do something for Canadians, not just ask questions but do something, they should vote for Bill C-56. It is going to help Canadians. It is going to stabilize prices in Canada. It is going to bring competition to this country. What we need is for them to act.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Minister of Innovation]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question.

Canadians know not to take advice from the Leader of the Opposition when it comes to the economy. The last time he advised Canadians, he told them to buy cryptocurrency. Now he is suggesting that Canadians buy $120 turkeys. I have news for him. I found a Butterball turkey for $30, and I think I can deliver it to his official residence.

If the Conservatives want to do something for Canadians, they should vote in favour of Bill C-56 to help Canadians now and bring down prices in Canada.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, two weeks ago, we introduced the affordable housing and groceries bill, which will incentivize the construction of more rental housing and increase competition, particularly among grocery stores. Instead of working with us to move this forward before Thanksgiving, the Conservative Party chose to obstruct debate because it has no plan for supporting Canadians. Actions speak louder than words. I am therefore asking all members of the House to work together to pass Bill C-56 as soon as possible.

Housing

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, in my first answer, let me just congratulate you in this historic role. It is historic for Canada.

While the Conservatives recite trite and misleading talking points, our government is acting for Canadians. With Bill C-56, we would be getting more homes built by lifting the GST on purpose-built rental, and we would be acting to stabilize grocery prices with historic changes to competition law that would bring competition to the grocery sector.

Opposition Motion—Carbon Taxes

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and to the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity]

Madam Speaker, my colleague's argument is, in fact, doomed to fail. Quebec has had a cap-and-trade program for over a decade. Perhaps that is because, unlike the Conservatives here, Premier Legault's government genuinely believes in fighting climate change.

Quebec's food inflation is equivalent to Ontario's, and we are looking to implement real solutions for affordability. The Conservatives have no credibility when it comes to issues of affordability or climate change.

If the members opposite would like to support affordability, they should vote for Bill C-56, the affordable groceries and housing act, but they are playing games on the other side for bumper stickers and T-shirts. This is not serious policy. They need to talk to at least one expert about what they are talking about.

Business of the House

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate you on your appointment, even though it is temporary, but I would also like to thank you, on behalf of the government, for agreeing to serve as interim Speaker to ensure an smooth transition while we await the next Speaker of the House of Commons. Thank you for taking on this role as dean of the House.

Tomorrow, we will begin the second reading debate on Bill C‑50, the Canadian Sustainable Jobs Act. On Monday, the House will stand adjourned to mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. When we return on Tuesday, the first order of business will be the election of a new Speaker. When we resume our work that day, we will continue the second reading debate on Bill C‑56, the Affordable Housing and Groceries Act. On Wednesday, we will resume debate at second reading of Bill S‑12, an Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Sex Offender Information Registration Act and the International Transfer of Offenders Act. If the debate on Bill C‑56 is not completed, we will resume second reading debate on Thursday. On Friday, we will proceed to second reading of Bill C‑49, an Act to amend the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act.

Carbon Pricing

[Anita Anand, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to put the question to the opposition as to whether those members will actually support Bill C-56, which is before the House.

Instead of voting against every measure that goes to support Canadians, whether it is senior citizens, workers or small businesses, the Conservatives have a choice. We urge them to vote in favour of Bill C-56.

Opposition Motion—Carbon Taxes

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to say hello to the hon. member from Calgary who just shouted something out. He is a gentleman and an avid golfer. I wish him the best.

Making sure Canadians have access to affordable child care is important, but we also know that far too many Canadians are struggling with the increasing cost of essentials, such as housing and groceries.

Such initiatives as putting a price on carbon, an effective and affordable way to combat climate change, has been putting more money back in the pockets of Canadians. Eight out of 10 households get more money back than they pay, with low- and middle-income households benefiting the most.

We know that more needs to be done to address affordability. That is why we began this fall parliamentary session by introducing Bill C-56.

I just came from subbing in on the finance committee with CMHC officials, and it was great to talk about the removal of the goods and services tax on new purpose-built rental housing to encourage the construction of more rental homes, including apartment buildings, student housing and senior residences, across Canada.

I come from an area of the country where builders build houses and the associations are located. Since 2015, I will put on record, I have argued that we remove the GST on purpose-built rental housing in combination with the provinces. The GST combined with the HST would allow, encourage and incentivize more purpose-built rental housing to be built across the country and here in Ontario even more so. All the associations are applauding it. I encourage this measure and that Bill C-56 be passed as quickly as possible by all sides of the House.

For a two-bedroom rental unit valued at $500,000, the enhanced GST rental rebate could deliver $25,000 in tax relief.

This is another tool to help create the necessary conditions to build the types of housing that we need, that Canadians need and that families want to live in. This measure would also remove the restriction in the existing GST rules to ensure that public service bodies, such as universities, colleges, hospitals, charities and qualifying non-profit organizations that build or purchase purpose-built rental housing, are permitted to claim the 100% enhanced GST rental rebate. The government is also calling on the provinces that currently apply provincial sales taxes or the provincial portion of the HST on rental housing to join us by matching our rebate for new rental housing.

In fact, the finance minister of Ontario, an old colleague of mine whom I worked with for a number of years in Toronto at DBRS, came out that same day and said that the Province of Ontario would be joining the federal government in removing the tax on purpose-built rental housing, the HST portion on the federal side. We encourage all provinces and territories to join in, follow the lead of some of the provinces and territories and eliminate the provincial component.

We are also requesting that local governments put an end to exclusionary zoning and encourage building apartments near public transit in order to have their housing accelerator fund applications approved. Earlier this month, the government announced that London, Ontario, will be the first city to benefit from this fund, and it will certainly not be the last. It represents one of the ways we are encouraging initiatives aimed at increasing housing supply. It also supports the development of complete, low-carbon, climate-resilient communities that are affordable, inclusive, equitable and diverse.

Every community across Canada needs to build more homes faster, so we can reduce the cost of housing for everyone. We know that there are more cranes currently in the city of Toronto than in any other city in North America. We could combine cities in North America, and we would not reach the same number of cranes. I want to salute all the builders and workers out there from the carpenters union, IBEW, the pipefitters, everyone working on the condos and high-rises in downtown Toronto, in the GTA, across Ontario and Canada who get up every morning and build the housing we need. We need to applaud them. We are going to give them more work, not just today but in the years to come.

Without more homes in our communities, it is difficult for businesses to attract the workers they need to grow and succeed. When people spend more of their income on housing, it means less money is being spent in our communities for necessities such as groceries. We are taking immediate steps to enhance competition in the Canadian economy, with a focus on the grocery sector, to help stabilize costs for middle-class Canadians.

Through Bill C‑56, the government is introducing the first series of legislative changes to the Competition Act to give more power to the Competition Bureau to investigate when industries are behaving unfairly, for example where price fixing or price gouging is occurring, and take enforcement action; remove the efficiencies defence, to end anti-competitive mergers that raise prices and limit choices for Canadian consumers; and empower the Competition Bureau to block collaborations that stifle competition and consumer choice, particularly in situations where large grocers prevent smaller competitors from establishing operations nearby.

By making these changes, we will empower the Competition Bureau to investigate price gouging and price-fixing. I have been calling for this for a very long time. More competition and less consolidation, more innovation and lower prices mean more choice for consumers across Canada.

In conclusion, our government understands that many Canadians still need to get through these difficult times. Canadians are being pressured, and we understand that. The focus of our government is investing in Canadians, restoring middle-class prosperity and building a country where everyone has a real chance to succeed. We will continue to do that day after day.

Government Priorities

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, over the summer, I had the pleasure of connecting with the hard-working residents of Brampton, whether through round tables, community events, my annual barbeque attended by hundreds of residents, or simply knocking on doors and listening to their concerns. They told me that we need to take strong action to address affordability and build more housing, which is exactly what we would be doing with Bill C-56, the affordable housing and groceries act.

Tangible measures like these, with respectful debate, are exactly what Canadians expect from their parliamentarians, not daily shouting and heckling, and not polarization. As we start the fall session, I encourage all members to work collaboratively and set aside the partisan games.

Grocery Industry

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Minister of Innovation]

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

I am glad to see that he knows that inaction is not an option. That is exactly why we convened the country's food executives with a very clear objective: to stabilize prices in Canada. I expressed the frustration of 40 million Canadians, saying that the number one issue for Canadians is affordability and the price of groceries.

We have introduced Bill C-56 which, for one, will tackle competition, because we want more of it in this country. I expect my colleague to support this bill so that we can move forward for the—

Foreign Affairs and International Development

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Madam Speaker, I cannot say how surprised I am, to say the least, that we are addressing this issue today—not that I do not consider it important, on the contrary. My office and the office of my colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan held discussions prior to the first meeting of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development so that we could again bring up the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, given the events of recent days and weeks. There was then an agreement.

Yesterday, during the very first meeting of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, I did say that we wanted to revisit this issue, since we have an open study, so to speak, on the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and recent events require us to look at this issue again. We therefore had discussions with our Conservative colleagues about this.

Suddenly, this morning, without warning, the Conservatives moved this motion to adopt the 11th report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. Not that I do not think this report should be adopted or that this is an important issue. It is a matter of the utmost urgency, and I will come back to this in a moment.

There was, however, a distinct lack of co-operation on the part of our Conservative colleagues, a lack of consultation and communication, even though our offices had been in contact for several weeks about the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. As a result, I can only conclude that this is a delaying tactic that has nothing to do with the substance of the issue. This is a parliamentary guerrilla tactic to prevent the government from passing its inflation bill.

At the same, I must say that I disagree with the Liberal Party’s Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader when he says that the inflation issue is more important in the calculations or in the ranking of important matters. I know that our constituents are living with the daily consequences of inflation and the housing shortage and that it is vitally important that we address this issue. Moreover, we were scheduled to discuss this, as part of the study of Bill C-56.

However, right now, there are people losing their lives in Nagorno-Karabakh and the international community is showing little or no concern. There are only a few countries, including France, in particular, that really seem to care about what is happening in that region.

Azerbaijan claims that Nagorno-Karabakh is part of its territory. International law seems to confirm the Azerbaijani claim. However, if it is true that the people of Nagorno-Karabakh are part of Azerbaijan, how can we tolerate, under the principle of the duty and responsibility to protect—a concept that was adopted by the United Nations at Canada’s instigation—a government literally starving and attacking a population in its territory? That, however, is what is happening.

For several months, after the 2020 conflict, the government claimed that it wanted to adopt a balanced position, stating that it did not know what was really happening on the ground. It said that it did not really know who the attacker was and who was in the wrong.

However, since then, the facts keep pointing at Azerbaijan.

There was a reluctant statement from Global Affairs Canada, which we actually reiterated in the report, that simply called on Azerbaijan to live up to its commitment under the peace agreement that it reached with Armenia after the 2020 conflict under Russian auspices. This statement called on Azerbaijan to live up to its commitment to keep the Lachin Corridor open and call on it to respect the terms of the ceasefire.

Aside from this half-hearted statement, not much has been done by the Canadian government. Of course, a special rapporteur was sent, and none other than Stéphane Dion, Canada’s ambassador plenipotentiary, who is the right fit for all purposes and missions. He was sent to Armenia to support Armenian democracy. Some recommendations were taken from his report, including the recommendation to open an embassy in Yerevan, a commitment made by the Prime Minister several years ago that is finally being implemented. How can we accept that Azerbaijan has, on several occasions, not only violated the ceasefire agreement reached with Armenia in 2020, but also blatantly crossed into Armenia’s sovereign territory?

In the House, since February 2022, we have stood in solidarity in our determination to denounce Russia’s illegal and unprovoked aggression against Ukraine. Several countries around the world look at Canada and its claims to defend international law, human rights and the rule of law, and then wonder about how we seem to apply things differently based on the situation. Palestine has been living under occupation since 1967 to near total indifference. Armenia has been subjected to military attacks by Azerbaijan to near total indifference. The Canadian government is determined, and we completely support it, to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression. Why then the double standard? Why not be just as firm about Azerbaijan’s aggression against Armenia as we have been and still are about Russia's aggression against Ukraine?

Azerbaijan violated the peace agreements once again by launching a military offensive in the Nagorno-Karabakh region on September 19. People are fleeing by the hundreds, fearing repression. Indeed, there have been disturbing reports about how the Azeri troops are treating the civilian population. There are reports of summary executions and discrimination against Armenian populations. For months now, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh have been suffering the effects of the blockade, which Azerbaijan initially tried to deny so as not to be accused of violating the terms of the ceasefire agreement signed with Armenia in 2020.

Azerbaijan is a rather authoritarian state that rarely tolerates protests. However, it did tolerate a months-long protest by so-called environmentalists who blocked the Lachin corridor under the pretext of wanting to prevent mining developments in Nagorno-Karabakh. The fact of the matter is that Azerbaijan's main fear was that mining resources would flow from Nagorno-Karabakh into Armenia. Under the pretext of preventing mining development for supposedly environmental reasons, these activists were therefore tolerated in the Lachin corridor for months.

In January of this year, I brought this serious situation before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. In the wake of the blockade of the Lachin corridor, we conducted a study on this specific situation at the request of the Bloc Québécois. That study eventually led to this report, which is quite brief. As I was saying, it essentially repeats the wording of the Canadian declaration. I felt that the Liberals wanted to soft-pedal, that they were not too eager to adopt a report. I told them that it was the Global Affairs Canada statement repeated verbatim and that they could not be against that.

One thing led to another and they ended up accepting. However, I get the impression that as a result of Azerbaijan lobbying certain Liberal MPs, they were reluctant to take a position, much like the government. The report says:

That the committee report to the House that it calls on the Azerbaijani authorities, in accordance with its obligations as a party to the trilateral declaration of November 9, 2020, and following the appeal made by the Government of Canada on December 14, 2022, to reopen the Lachin Corridor and guarantee freedom of movement in order to avoid any deterioration in the humanitarian situation, and that, pursuant to Standing Order 109, the Government table a comprehensive response to the report.

The response came. On June 14, the Minister of Foreign Affairs sent us a two-page response that was interesting but contained many of the same soothing statements that the government has been offering up for months concerning the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. It said that the government was following developments closely, that it was monitoring the situation every day, that it was urging Azerbaijan to open the corridor, and so on. Meanwhile, in violation of the terms of the ceasefire agreement, Azerbaijan repeatedly resumed hostilities, including against Armenia. This development met with, as I have said, near total indifference.

Azerbaijan eventually realized that the truth about the corridor supposedly being blockaded by eco-activists was coming out. Public protests are not permitted in Azerbaijan, except in the Lachin corridor, curiously enough. The Azerbaijan government realized that no one was buying its story, so it decided to just set up a military roadblock, right under the noses of the so-called Russian peacekeepers. The ceasefire agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia in 2020 was brokered by Russia, which was supposed to guarantee that the ceasefire stayed in place by having troops on the ground. Who knows why Russia's attention seems to be elsewhere, but the Russian peacekeepers barely fulfilled their role. I would go so far as to say they did not fulfill it at all.

In fact, they were even used by Azerbaijan to carry out attacks not only against Nagorno-Karabakh, but also against Armenia itself. The same aggressor that we are denouncing in the war in Ukraine is abetting Azerbaijan in attacking another independent nation, the only democracy in the Caucasus region, where we have committed to defending democracy, yet we are doing nothing. We are letting it happen.

Canada makes soothing comments that it is monitoring the situation very closely, that it is paying attention to what is going on, that it is urging Azerbaijan to reopen the corridor, but this is no longer about reopening the Lachin corridor. The territory of Nagorno-Karabakh has been occupied by the Azerbaijani military. Its population, which has been starving and deprived of all basic medical supplies for months, is now under military occupation by Azerbaijan, which is committing atrocities against the civilian population. Again, this news has been met with near total indifference.

Words cannot express how disappointed I am with the Liberal government's attitude toward this conflict. For months, it suggested that we could not be sure which nation was the aggressor was in this case. What will it take for the Liberal government to understand that Azerbaijan is the aggressor, that the fact that Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan under international law cannot justify military aggression against innocent civilians and cannot justify a nation literally starving its population? In another context, that would be called genocide. This is a very serious issue.

I certainly do not want to downplay the importance of the debate we are having on the adoption of the 11th report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. However, I cannot help but wonder once again if this is the time to discuss it. I know our Conservative colleagues are genuinely and deeply concerned about the situation because, as I stated earlier, we have had discussions. Our offices have had discussions about the fact that we wanted to raise this issue again in the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. Since our offices have been in contact, why are we being surprised this morning by this motion to adopt the report? Why were we not consulted? Why were we not even informed?

This morning, I was coming out of another committee when I was told I had to speak. Why proceed this way on such an important issue that should see us all working together?

What we are seeing, unfortunately, is a political move by our Conservative friends to derail and delay debate on the inflation bill. I come back to the comments by the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader. I am not saying that the issue is more important than what is happening in Nagorno‑Karabakh, because people are dying right now in Nagorno‑Karabakh, but our fellow Canadians in every riding are dealing with the problem of inflation. Our fellow Canadians in every riding are dealing with the problem of a housing shortage.

Our Conservative colleagues rise every day in the House and say that the current inflation is unacceptable, but they come here today with this delaying tactic. Someone would have called them whited sepulchres.

We saw yesterday how hypocritical our colleagues can be, and I use that word carefully. When it was proposed that the passages in which the veteran of the Waffen-SS was in our gallery, and even the related video excerpts, be removed from the record of the debates, they refused. My Conservative colleagues need to show some honesty. If they are as interested in the issue of Nagorno‑Karabakh as they claim, they should not proceed as they did this morning.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan never complains about doing it. Is it a coincidence that concurrence motions on reports are never moved during Conservative opposition days, but always when dealing with government legislation?

When the Conservatives use this tactic, and they have done it many times before, it is always meant to prevent debate on the government agenda, because there are other opportunities to debate these types of important issues. If the Conservatives were very serious about the issue of the concurrence motion that they are moving, there are other ways of doing it. They know that, but they like to use the concurrence motion in order to frustrate government legislation.

Bill C-56 is too important for Canadians. We will get it through, no matter what kinds of games they play, because it is important to Canadians.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I sense frustration from the Bloc member. I too join him in the frustration, because I too recognize these issues that are having such an impact on Canadians. No matter where one lives in Canada, the issues we were supposed to be debating today are having an impact. There is legislation to address this. We need to pass that legislation, Bill C-56, which is there to support Canadians from coast to coast to coast. That is what we were supposed to be debating.

For people who maybe do not necessarily follow all the details of the proceedings of the House, this motion brought forward by the Conservative Party has very little to do with the issue within the motion and has everything to do with trying to frustrate the debate on these very important issues. This legislation is important. We should be passing Bill C-56. There are other opportunities for the Conservatives to debate this issue. It is an important issue.

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

Madam Speaker, usually I would indicate that it is a pleasure to be able to rise to address a particular issue in the chamber. I would like to break my speech into a couple of parts related to the issue at hand.

First, I would like to provide a bit of background as to why we are debating this issue before us. Suffice it to say that all issues are ultimately important, particularly in the minds of many different people. When we have a finite amount of time to debate issues on the floor of the House of Commons, we have to try to place them, whether they are opposition agenda items or government agenda items, in some sense of an order of priority. War and things taking place internationally have always played an important role in debates of the chamber.

Members will recall last Monday, for example, we had the very serious issue of foreign interference being debated. I would have thought it to be universally accepted by most members of this chamber, but it was not by the Conservatives because I believe they had one person come in to speak once and that was it. Then they were absolutely quite. They did not get engaged, yet that was on the issue of foreign interference.

I can assure members across the way that the level of interest on that issue is actually quite high, yet the Conservative Party, with the exception of its very first speaker, was absolutely silent. I suspect it was because its members wanted to have their fingers in the air to figure out what they could or should be saying. That was an important international issue.

When we think of foreign affairs, we often have take-note debates and emergency debates. These are opportunities not only for opposition members but also for government members to stand and express concerns by reflecting on what their constituents are saying about that particular issue, and they can raise it in great detail. That is one of the advantages of the rules we have to accommodate issues of this nature.

I think people need to be aware of the background of these reports. For example, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, who did not participate in the international interference debate last Monday, and who often likes to talk about his concerns about what is happening around the world, has brought forward a concurrence motion. I want us to put this into the proper perspective of when the report was actually tabled, which was back on February 17 of this year. Allow me to read the entire report. I can assure members it will not take long, but so I do not misquote, I will put on my glasses.

The report, which was tabled on February 17, states:

That the committee report to the House that it calls on the Azerbaijani authorities, in accordance with its obligations as a party to the trilateral declaration of November 9, 2020, and following the appeal made by the Government of Canada on December 14, 2022, to reopen the Lachin Corridor and guarantee freedom of movement in order to avoid any deterioration in the humanitarian situation, and that, pursuant to Standing Order 109, the Government table a comprehensive response to the report.

It is one paragraph that was brought into the chamber on February 17. Do members know there was actually a response to that report? An official response was given. Did the member refer to, cite or quote the response? I am not convinced the member is aware that there was a response given to the report on June 14 of this year. If so, he could have read first-hand how the government responded to that report.

Did the standing committee meet to discuss the response to the report and give an indication as to whether it wanted to have further debate on the issue? I do not know. I am not on the foreign affairs committee, nor have I asked any of its members. However, if I were to speculate, given the track record of the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, I would suggest that it likely did not.

Why do we have it today? I was supposed to be the first one to speak today. Do members know what the topic was? It was to be on Bill C-56, which is a wake-up call for the Conservative Party of Canada. People are hurting. Interest rates, inflation, what the grocery store giants are doing, and housing are the important issues that Canadians are facing today. This is not to take away from the importance of the issue described in that one-paragraph report from the standing committee months ago. After all, the government gave a formal response to it.

All issues are important. The reason for this motion is not to say we want to have a debate on this issue here on the floor of the House of Commons, but that this is being used as a tool to prevent the debate the was supposed to be taking place to deal with the Canadian economy and how Canadians are hurting. The members of the Conservative Party want to play games and filibuster. Shame on them for that sort of behaviour as an official opposition.

There are mechanisms from which the Conservatives can choose, such as opposition days, where they have a number of days every year to choose to debate important issues. For instance, they can add additional substance to the one paragraph that was provided by the standing committee. They could express other concerns. They could draw in the comparison, as the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan did, with what is happening in Ukraine today.

As one of my colleagues said, the Conservatives are putting politics above people. That is shameful. If the member or the Conservative Party, because I think this is its agenda, did not want to use one of their opposition days and were keen to have this debate in a forum that would allow people to really get engaged on the issue, why would they not approach the government and ask for a take-note debate? To the very best of my knowledge, and I sit on the House leadership team, that was not done.

There is no member who brings forward more petitions than the member across the way. How many petitions has he tabled with respect to this connection for humanitarian aid, the Lachin corridor? I will get more into that shortly. To what degree has that taken place? Better yet, I am having a difficult time trying to recall when the member rose with a request for an emergency debate on this issue. The reason we cannot remember a date is that he did not request one.

The only reason this concurrence motion has been brought forward for us today is because the Conservative Party has, once again, fallen into two principles. The first is character assassination. Every opportunity the Conservative members get, they try to make the Prime Minister of Canada look bad, even if it spreads false information. They are very good at this. The other thing they want to do is frustrate the House and what is taking place on the floor. Today is a very good example of that.

The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan in particular, and all Conservative members, needs to realize that the people they are hurting—

The Economy

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the MP for Vaughan—Woodbridge for his hard work for his constituents and all Canadians.

Canadians need more homes built faster and they need affordable groceries. Bill C-56, which the government tabled last week, would help to provide both.

With this bill, we would remove the GST from the construction of rental housing to build more homes faster. We would empower Canada's Competition Bureau to help small grocers compete. We are demanding CEOs of Canada's largest grocers to present a plan to stabilize prices.

We are going to continue to move forward with a serious plan to help Canadians.