Finance Committee on April 30th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

I have Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Hallan, Mr. Chambers and Mr. Baker.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to welcome Mr. Turnbull and congratulate him on his new role.

I would like to move to amend the motion, changing it from “invite” to “summon”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

You moved to amend the motion. Okay.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you.

That amendment has been moved. Am I correct?

Terrific. Now I'll be speaking about the amendment, if that's correct.

With respect to Bill C-59, I want to clarify that there is no conspiracy afoot to delay this legislation. The fall economic statement was introduced almost six months ago. It's actually unprecedented. It's running parallel to the budget. That's not because of Conservatives. That's because of the Liberal Party's mismanagement of their calendar. Those are just the facts.

As part of the discussion on Bill C-59, yes, we think it would be informative and illustrative to have Mr. Carney appear. He is the former governor of the Bank of Canada. He's the former governor of the Bank of England. We believe he's not just a random Liberal and not just any private citizen. I think it's been well reported out there that he will be the next leader of the Liberal Party. His input on Bill C-59 is not only important but also critical.

We followed the legislative process. We invited him as part of the process. He refused to appear. It is not the first resource of Conservatives or, I would think, of any MP to summon someone. We give them, first, a chance to respond. He failed to respond. Now we're bringing in the next part. Bill C-59 is, of course, about ready to conclude. We have the budget going forward, so it is not out of order. In fact, it's completely within order. We followed the process. We put him on the witness list. He refused to attend. Now we're coming back.

We weren't going to summon him, but the NDP seem to think it's required. We will agree somewhat reluctantly with their request to summon Mr. Carney, because we think it's a bit of overkill. We would expect and hope that all members would utilize, in a common-sense manner, the powers that are bestowed on us to get important witness testimony from Mr. Carney.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Lawrence.

I have Mr. Hallan on next, then Mr. Baker and Mr. Ste-Marie.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Canadians are terrified, because if they know that Mark Carney is going to be the next Liberal leader, there's no hope at the end of this tunnel right now. There's no hope at all that their mortgage, their rent, the grocery prices will come down. It's going to be more of the same—the carbon tax, high prices. People who came here for the Canadian dream will never see it. Young people will never see home ownership. It will just be a continuation of the same elitist Liberal Party doing what they always do, rewarding their friends and leaving everyday Canadians more and more behind.

That's what Canadians are terrified of. That's what Mark Carney needs to come here to answer for. Will it be the exact same, this pathway to the reality that Canadians, who are going into food banks and living in their cars, are facing?

I would hope that Mr. Turnbull, who recently shared a Mark Carney video, would also want him here to answer about the video he was sharing. Maybe he wanted to be the first one out of the gate to endorse Mark Carney. Maybe Mr. Turnbull could be one of the first to join us and say, yes, let's have him come here and answer, because he was recently promoting him.

I would also hope the NDP would want him to come here and change their stance on this motion. When the IMF is saying that Canada is most at risk in the G7 for a mortgage default crisis, Mark Carney is calling anyone who agrees with that an alarmist and saying it's not happening. Of course, he doesn't understand that. He doesn't understand how out of touch he is. Mark Carney doesn't understand the pain that Canadians are going through as he sits in his ivory tower along with Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland. I would hope the NDP would support this, so he could come here and explain himself as to why a report done by the IMF is saying Canadians are most at risk in the G7 for a mortgage default crisis, why those are the facts. It's not being alarmist at all; that's the pain Canadians are facing.

I'm going to ask both the Liberals and the NDP, and this coalition, to think once again. Canadians are terrified about the future of Canada. They're even more worried there's a pathway to a quadrupling of the carbon tax under Mark Carney and Justin Trudeau. He needs to come here and answer for that, as he'll most likely be coronated as the next Liberal leader.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Hallan.

I have Mr. Baker, and then Mr. Ste-Marie.

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thanks very much, Chair.

I give a big thanks to the Conservatives for wasting a bunch of people's time and taxpayer dollars here.

We should be focused here on issues that matter to Canadians. I think most of the members around this table are trying to do work that helps Canadians with affordability, with the cost of housing and with the economy. This is another delay tactic.

I have sat on this committee for a few years now, and I watched last year as the Conservatives used delay tactics over and over again to delay clause-by-clause on the budget. I was hopeful that this year would be different, but it's not. Despite the fact that Canadians need our help, Conservatives would rather politic at this committee rather than pass legislation that actually helps them. They could improve the legislation. They can amend it if they'd like, but let's get the legislation that helps Canadians done.

The Conservatives don't want to do that. They want to sit here and politic.

For Canadians watching at home, I would ask you to think about how this is what they do when they are in opposition and when they don't have the majority of the votes. Imagine what these guys would do if they were in government. Imagine how they would spend taxpayer dollars, committee time, government time and House time. When they rage about challenges that Canadians are facing and then get in the way of MPs doing their work and getting stuff that matters to Canadians done, that's who these folks are.

The second thing I would say is that I am really surprised that the Conservatives seem to know so much about the Liberal Party leadership race and who's running. I'm a Liberal. I feel like I'm pretty plugged in, and I haven't heard Mark Carney announce anything about a leadership race.

I will be honest with you. I will worry about who's running for the leadership of any party when the party calls a leadership race. Right now, we have work to do at this committee to help Canadians. That's what we should be doing.

This committee isn't a platform to invite media, invite guests and waste the time of our hard-working civil servants and taxpayers so you can politic about another party's leadership that you know absolutely nothing about.

Sure, we could sit here and talk about the leadership aspirations of the Conservatives at this table. Why is Mr. Hallan auditioning for Mr. Scheer? Why has Mr. Scheer come to this committee? Mr. Scheer doesn't come to this committee to talk about affordability and housing. He comes only when it's time for politicking. Why isn't he here when he should be working on behalf of Canadians?

What does Mr. Morantz know about the leadership race that I don't? I don't really care. Let's talk about it off-line, and let's focus on affordability, housing and the other issues that matter to Canadians. That's what's in this bill. It's going to help Canadians. Let's focus on that.

The last thing I will say is about something that I can't let go. Mr. Hallan used the words “dollars for dictators”. If these guys actually cared.... Do you know who the most dangerous dictator in the world is right now?

[Some hon. members]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

It's actually Vladimir Putin, because not only has Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, but he will invade other countries if the Ukrainians don't win. We will be the next ones. It will be our soldiers fighting next, defending us against Russian aggression along with the Europeans and the Americans. Every dollar we spend now to help Ukraine is millions of dollars less that we spend in the future. Every Ukrainian fighting on the front line right now is one less Canadian who will have to fight in the future.

But do you know what the Conservatives opposite, who talk about dictators, do? They play into their hands. They vote against every single thing that we have tried to do to support Ukraine. By the way, one of the things that Mr. Davies mentioned is how this ridiculous waste of time that the Conservatives have perpetrated in this committee is delaying the process of this committee in getting to the budget, which actually has $2.4 billion in support for the Ukrainians.

Maybe the Conservatives—instead of playing into Vladimir Putin's hands all the time by voting against weapons, voting against Operation Unifier, voting against free trade with Ukraine, voting against financial support for people who are fleeing the war and have come here to Canada, and calling Ukraine a “faraway foreign land” but then claiming they care about dictators—should actually vote in support of Ukraine to help them win the war. Ukrainians are on the front line, not only fighting for themselves but also fighting for us.

We've had enough hypocrisy, enough talk and enough nonsense at this committee. Let's get back to work and pass this legislation, because that's what Canadians need.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Baker.

I have now Mr. Ste-Marie, and then after that it will be Ms. Dzerowicz and Mr. Hallan.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, everyone. It's difficult for me to speak after Mr. Baker's very strong and heartfelt speech.

I first want to greet Mr. Turnbull and congratulate him on his new position, which brings him to join our committee.

As several colleagues have said, I hope we can get back to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C‑59. I'm thinking in particular of all the senior public servants who are here today. We shouldn't hold them up too long unnecessarily.

I have great respect for Mr. Carney, who was Governor of the Bank of Canada and then Governor of the Bank of England. I always wish we could hear from him in committee, so I support the proposal to invite him to testify.

On the other hand, I'd like to say to my NDP colleague that he'd have my agreement if he ever suggested that the committee invite Jim Stanford. He's been here a few times too. It's always interesting to hear him talk about all the economic issues.

So I'm in favour of the motion for the reason I've just mentioned, not for the reasons raised by the Conservatives. However, I will be against the amendment, because I don't think it's useful at this time to send a subpoena to Mr. Carney to force him to come and testify for four hours.

That's my position.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Ste‑Marie.

MP Dzerowicz.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. I very much agree with the comments of Mr. Baker and Mr. Ste-Marie.

The Conservatives are showing, Mr. Chair, that they actually don't care about industry. I'm going to reiterate a bit of what I've said before. It's been said by a few other people, but I want to put on the record that they're going against industry interests and, indeed, against the very interests of the oil and gas industry and renewable companies in the very ridings of some of the Conservative members who are here.

They want the clean economy investment tax credits passed right now in order for them to put a plan in place and to start decarbonizing and meeting emissions reductions targets. They've been very clear. I don't know why it is that Conservatives are going against their own stakeholders and against what industry is actually asking us to do.

There is another thing that is important to put on record, and it's ridiculous that we have to do this, but nonetheless, let's do it. They obviously did not get the memo, Mr. Chair. Carbon pricing—or the carbon tax, as the Conservatives like to sort of brand or label it—has not caused food prices or home pricing to go up. Inflation has been a global issue.

After the pandemic, globally, we've had a huge inflation issue. What's happening is that prices have gone up, not only on food but also on housing, and that's been exacerbated because we've had a housing crisis, because three levels of government for over 30 years have stopped investing in housing.

They have to stop lying and misleading Canadians. The carbon pricing or carbon tax does not cause inflation. I will also say to you—

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. I think Ms. Dzerowicz said that we have to stop lying. I'm pretty sure that's unparliamentary language, and I would ask her to withdraw and apologize for that comment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I didn't hear that.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thankfully it's recorded.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I did say lying, but that's what's happening. It's the truth.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

With the greatest respect, Mr. Chair—

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I will then withdraw and say, the massive misleading that the Conservatives are doing is awful.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

On the same point, she has to apologize, Mr. Chair. In the House, the Speaker has made it very clear. When another member accuses members of lying, they have to withdraw and apologize. I would ask you to be consistent with the ruling of the Speaker and insist that Ms. Dzerowicz also apologize.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

No, I refuse to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Mr. Morantz, I heard Ms. Dzerowicz change the wording, and I'll go with that.

Ms. Dzerowicz, continue.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I've withdrawn my comment.

Witnesses we invite to this committee can say no for any reason. I'll also say to you that a number of witnesses have told me that they don't want to come before this committee.

I want to be very clear. I've never spoken to Mr. Carney about this. I'm talking about other witnesses.

They refuse to come before this committee. They see the Conservatives as gimmicky. They see it as a waste of their time. They see that the Conservatives are not really looking for answers; they're looking for social media clips. They see that they are badgered and bullied, and they don't see a lot of the questions that are posed by the Conservatives as serious, so they refuse to come.

What I would also say to you is that we have had witnesses come before this committee whom the Conservatives have requested, and the Conservatives will ask questions but provide zero seconds for witnesses to actually respond. Why would any witness want to come before this committee if that is the way they are going to be treated?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Dzerowicz.

We have Mr. Hallan and then Mr. Davies.