Debates of Nov. 29th, 2018

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for the member.

The member said that this is an omnibus bill. That is defined as having something in the budget implementation act that would amend something that was not in the budget. Could he mention what he is referring to that is in the budget implementation act but is not in the budget that would make this an omnibus bill?

My second question relates to the discussion a few minutes ago about child care. We had a national child care program under the hon. Ken Dryden in the Right Hon. Paul Martin government. Both the Conservatives and the NDP got rid of that by defeating Paul Martin and bringing in Harper. I hear Conservative members clapping. They must be against child care.

We now have another child care program, which is great. We have an agreement with my riding of Yukon. Now there is another national child care program. Would the member be in favour of the Conservatives getting rid of that national child care program as well?

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

There is quite a bit there to address, Mr. Speaker. I will start with the first question on omnibus legislation. The Liberal government promised not to introduce omnibus legislation, and we have seen it do exactly that through a number of bills that have been introduced in this Parliament. Some have been broken up by the Speaker.

This legislation, at 800 pages long, is being debated under the guillotine of time allocation. One cannot even realistically dive into each and every piece of it. It is in contravention of the promise the Liberals ran on, one of the many promises they ran on, in the last election.

On the issue of child care, the Martin government was indeed defeated, and it was defeated on a number of issues, including the issue the member mentioned. Perhaps corruption might have been a bigger factor in that election.

The previous government introduced the child benefit, the predecessor of the current program of the Liberal government, because the Harper government knew that parents do not want a national federal program such as the one the Martin government fell on. Parents want choice. Parents want money in their pockets so they can choose how to spend it for their families.

In that election, I recall a Liberal saying that we cannot give parents cash, because they will just spend it on beer and popcorn. Such is the type of arrogance that comes from the Liberal Party and why it was defeated in that election.

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

Mr. Speaker, just before the hon. member spoke, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Status of Women gave a speech focused on this budget being about gender equity and gender equality. I would suggest to my hon. colleague that if the government is truly looking to create gender equality, its failed economic policies will do that by men and women being equally unemployed.

I want the hon. member to speak specifically about the competitiveness issue in this country and how the failed economic policies of the Liberal government are affecting our overall economic competitiveness.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member's question goes right to the heart of what I hear when I knock on doors and what I hear in my constituency office when I am back in Calgary Rocky Ridge. Men and women want the financial security that comes with having a well-paying, steady job.

My riding had thousands of high-paying, high-skilled, innovative jobs. Men and women in my riding have worked in the energy industry on the construction side, in engineering and geology and in the manufacturing of components. We have it all in Calgary and Alberta. All of them have been devastated by the events of the last number of years.

Bill C-69 may make it impossible for any pipeline to ever be built in this country. We see the way the government has bungled every pipeline that has come up for public debate, whether it was northern gateway, energy east or the Trans Mountain expansion, which it promised would be under construction during this past construction season but has not happened.

Men and women want to be able to provide for their families and have financial security for their families, and for that they need jobs and economic management, low taxes, a strong economy and investment in Canada.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate for several days, and I have heard a number of different Conservative members talk in a positive way about the hyper-inflation and the cost of housing, particularly in Vancouver and Toronto, being something good and something the federal government benefits from.

I am perplexed, as a Toronto resident and as someone who has seen the impact on marginally employed people, people who are in precarious work, first-time homebuyers, and renters in particular, a group of people that doubled in number and doubled in suffering as a result of 10 years of absence of federal policy from the Conservative Party. Why is the runaway housing market, the hyper-speculation and the risk in the housing market seen as a good thing by the Conservative Party, when it has caused so much hardship for so many Canadians?

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

Mr. Speaker, I sincerely thank the member for this question. It is a great question. It gives me an opportunity to clarify, if he has misunderstood what Conservatives are saying when we talk about the housing boom or the hyper-inflation of real estate values.

It is not good for Canadians. It is not good for the city of Toronto or the city of Vancouver. It is not good for families who need a place to live. However, it helps the government's bottom line when we have runaway asset inflation and the activity that goes on around that, whether it is from construction or from the taxation on all the transactions that occur with these massive house prices. It helps generate revenue to balance, or in this case not balance, a budget. It certainly does not help Canadians who aspire to home ownership.

Conservatives do not cheer for real estate inflation for its own sake. I merely point out that of all the economic factors that have gone into the revenue side of the government's budgets, it has not hurt them.

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

Mr. Speaker, Conservative after Conservative has tried to emphasize the issue of deficits. What I would pose to my friend and colleague across the way is that the member reflect on history. Canada is 151 years old, and 38% of that time, Conservatives have been in government. In that 38% of time, they accumulated about 75% of Canada's total debt. In fact, when Stephen Harper inherited the books of the Paul Martin era, there was a multi-billion dollar surplus. Before the recession even began, he had turned it into a multi-billion dollar deficit. By the time we were finished with Stephen Harper, he had added over $150 billion to our national debt.

My question for my friend is of an obvious nature. Why should the government take advice from the Conservatives, who have failed so miserably managing Canada's debt, let alone that they have been unable to motivate our economy to result in hundreds of thousands of jobs, as we have seen created in the last couple of years?

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

Mr. Speaker, the member does not need to take advice from us. We can work our way up to that. I will ask the member to start by taking his own advice and reading his own policy document that he ran on. He took it to the doors. He told Canadians that he would balance the budget by 2019. He was not telling them the truth.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour today to participate in this debate on the budget implementation act for another budget by this government, and another progressive opportunity to advance many of the important social initiatives we are seeking to undertake to grow this country and make Canada an even better place to live, invest and work, as we move further forward into the 21st century. Today, I am going to talk about a couple of the elements in this budget that are particularly interesting and important, namely pay equity, the Canada workers benefit and our poverty reduction strategy. I also want to take a bit of time toward the end of my remarks to talk about the price on pollution and how I see that as contributing to our overall economic objectives in this country.

First, pay equity is a great challenge that this country and indeed many parts of the western world, if not more than that, have faced and struggled with for many years. For decades now, we have been trying to wrap our heads around how we can combat this problem with the various different initiatives that have been brought forward. What we are seeing today, through this budget implementation act and this government's efforts, is a genuine and meaningful attempt to make real change.

The new act would require that federal public and private sector employers who have 10 or more employees establish and maintain a pay equity plan within the set time frames so as to identify and correct differences in compensation between predominantly female and predominantly male job classes for which work of equal value is performed.

The new act also provides for the powers, duties and functions of the pay equity commissioner, which include facilitating the resolution of disputes; conducting compliance audits and investigating disputes, objections and complaints; as well as making orders and imposing administrative monetary penalties for violations of the act. The new act would also require the pay equity commissioner to report annually to Parliament on the administration and enforcement of the new act.

Equal pay for work of equal value is the smart thing to do. As we are seeing, this is not just about doing what is right; this is about creating a policy that will also better enrich our economy. As we heard earlier from one of the parliamentary secretaries, by properly allowing for and making sure that pay equity is enforced so that women are receiving equal pay for equal work, we actually will have the potential to grow the GDP of this country by up to 4%. We think of the staggering effects that would have, especially for a country that already leads the G7 in gross domestic product growth.

Regarding the Canada workers benefit, part 1 of the act would implement certain income-tax-related measures to ensure that an individual who is eligible to receive a Canada workers benefit could receive that benefit without having to claim it. These changes would allow the Canada Revenue Agency to calculate the Canada workers benefit for any taxpayer who has not claimed that benefit. This means that Canadians who qualify for the benefit would automatically be enrolled, thereby ensuring that no worker is left behind. As we have seen, budget 2018 would also revamp the Canada workers benefit by an additional $500 million per year starting in 2019. Therefore, what we are seeing here is an opportunity to make sure that processes are in place so that each individual who qualifies for this Canada workers benefit would automatically start to receive it. People would not have to go through filing the paperwork, and the hurdles and potentially the red tape involved. Rather than spending their time dealing with those constraints and things that can slow their ability to be out there looking for new employment and new opportunities, we are suggesting that this should be, writ large, something the everyone is entitled to. After all, just because individuals might not have the resources or know how to go about accessing a benefit or, for that matter, even know that it exists, that should not preclude their being able to properly get what they rightfully deserve. That is what this part of the legislation seeks to improve.

For 2019, the Canada workers benefit would be equal to 26% of each dollar earned in income in excess of $3,000, to a maximum benefit of $1,355 for single individuals without dependants and $2,355 for families, couples and single parents.

The Canada workers benefit will put more money in the pockets of low-income workers and deliver real help to more than two million hard-working Canadians. These are people who need our help and who we come to this place to ensure they are taken care of. Therefore, I am delighted to see this new measure in the budget implementation act. it will automatically, by default, set in motion how people will access what they are rightfully entitled to through this program the government is offering.

We are also seeing in this budget implementation act a poverty reduction strategy, and in particular the setting of targets. I know there has been some criticism over the setting of targets in legislation. However, the reality is that if we are not continually setting out our objectives and then coming back to measure how we are completing and living up to those objectives, there is really no way of analyzing how effective we are. As a matter of fact, I would argue that these targets give the official opposition more ammunition to criticize a government if it is unable to meet them. Therefore, I think this is a very bold and important move not just to be able to hold future governments to account, but also to be able to assess how effective a government is at delivering various different programs and strategies, particularly as they relate to the poverty reduction strategy.

Let me talk a bit about what the strategy proposes. Division 21 of part 4 of the budget implementation act will enact the poverty reduction act, which sets out two targets for poverty reduction in Canada. This act in fact launches Canada's first-ever national poverty reduction strategy. The reason we need this is quite clear. Canada is a prosperous country, yet in 2015 roughly one out of every eight Canadians lived in poverty. Let us think about that for a second. In a country as rich as ours in terms of economic performance and resources, we should not be seeing one in every eight people in our country living in what we would consider to be poverty. The investments made since 2015 to support the social and economic well-being of all Canadians, as well as a new investment of $22 billion, will help lift 650,000 Canadians out of poverty by 2019, with more expected as the impacts of these investments are realized for years to come. This strategy sets new poverty reduction targets and establishes the federal government as a full partner in the fight against poverty.

The vision is clear. Canada's first-ever poverty reduction strategy is built on a vision that all Canadians should be able to live in dignity. All Canadians deserve to be treated fairly and have the means to meet their needs. Canada's first-ever poverty reduction strategy is built on the vision that all Canadians should have a sense of security and be hopeful that tomorrow will be a better day than today for them, their loved ones, and generations to come.

As I see that my remarks will likely run right up to question period, I want to make sure that I leave time for my colleagues to question me. However, before we get to that, I want to spend a bit of time talking about carbon pricing.

The facts are clear. Despite the fact there might be some out there who still believe that climate change is not real, it is overwhelmingly accepted that climate change is real and a problem that governments, local, provincial, territorial and federal, need to combat. Indeed, we need to work intergovernmentally throughout the world. This is not a challenge that one part of the world is facing, but one that we are all going to face together. Therefore, we all have to do our part.

In the previous reading of this budget implementation act, I read out 54 different regions throughout the world that currently have a price on carbon, and I will not bore the House by reading them again because they are already cited in Hansard if anyone wants to look at them.

For those who ask what the real impact will be on Canada of putting a price on pollution, I would ask what the real impact was on Iceland, Ireland, Kazakhstan or smaller jurisdictions—I will not list them all again—like Poland and Quebec, that is, whether provincial, territorial or national governments. Throughout the world, there is already a price on pollution and it makes perfect sense to price pollution.

If a company builds a product or an end-user uses a product, they have to pay to make that product. If a company—my background is in economics and I always reference widgets—builds widgets, it will need the various components that go into that. If one of those components harms the environment by polluting it, then it makes perfect sense that the company should have to pay for that component that goes into the widgets.

This is why I am very frustrated trying to understand the Conservative Party's argument against a price on pollution, because pricing pollution leads directly into the economic model of the free market that the Conservatives tout all the time. The Conservatives always say that they believe in a free market. Sure, just as that makes sense, everyone should also pay for the components of their products that contribute to pollution when those productes are being produced, but one would think, by the way the Conservatives are arguing, that they believe in both a free market and free pollution. Therefore, the market is not totally free, because the polluting part is not considered free in the market sense, but as something that can be done without consequence.

According to the recently released report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we know we are heading toward dire circumstances by 2030. If we have do not start to dramatically reduce the amount of carbon and pollutants we put into the atmosphere, we will not be able to go back on this. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change said very appropriately during a recent debate on this topic that we are the first generation to feel the impacts of climate change and we are the last generation to be able to do anything about it. Think about that.

It is not just the minister, me, or any one individual who is saying this. This is in a report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that many nations throughout the world contributed to. It basically says that we are the first ones to feel the effects of climate change and the last ones to be able to do anything about it.

I have two very young children. One is four months old and the other is two and a half. I also have a 14-year-old who is in high school. One of the things that keeps me up at night is wondering what kind of environment and world we are leaving our children. The reality is that if we do nothing about this now, we will be leaving them an environment and a world that will be suffering not only the environmental consequences but also the impacts of weather changes. We are already seeing the changes in weather throughout the world.

We should think about the other social impacts that will occur. Climate genocide is one thing this generation will be accused of if it does nothing. There will be climate refugees, people moving throughout the world to escape the effects of climate change. That will impact the rest of the world. It will impact world order. We know what happens when we start to affect those things: it inevitably leads to war and conflict in various parts of the world.

There are many benefits to a price on pollution. Even if people do not believe any of what I just said, even if they do not believe in climate change and do not believe in the realities of what the intergovernmental report said, they should definitely believe that incentivizing businesses to create new ways of doing things and building new products, investing in renewable energy, and investing in electric cars which are more than doubling in sales globally every year is the way to go.

I have heard my Conservative colleagues quite often tout what we versus other parts of the world are doing. Despite what they might think, I want them to know that China is actually a leader when it comes to renewable energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It is a leader when it comes to bringing new electric vehicles into the marketplace.

We can work on these problems jointly with other countries throughout the world and that is what I implore us to do. By putting a price on carbon we are providing an opportunity not just to green our environment and to create a better environment, but we are providing an opportunity for Canadians through pushing the envelope and looking for new opportunities, new efficiencies and new innovations to drive forward this new economy.

We should be on the leading edge of this. Let us not follow suit to what we are seeing happen south of the border where clearly a lot of the real opportunities are happening in other parts of the world as it relates to innovative programs and projects by the new industry we are creating for the 21st century.

Before I close, I want to talk about one more thing and that is the non-stop rhetoric we continue to hear from the other side of the House as it relates to debt and deficits. The last time that a Conservative government left a surplus was in the 1800s. I find it so ironic how there is this narrative which, to their success, they have been able to build out there and for the large part most people quite often resonate well with it, which is that the Conservatives somehow know how to protect an economy and build up an economy.

In reality, if we look at the last 151 years, 38% of the time that Conservative governments were in power, they racked up 73% of the national debt. How is it possible that we live in this world that they can tout that they are somehow the saviours of the economy? Out of the last 19 budgets introduced by Conservative governments in the House, 16 of them ran deficits. That includes Mulroney and Harper. Of the only three surpluses that they ran, two of them came on the heels of Paul Martin's $13-billion surplus and the other one came in 2015, when they had to sell off the shares of GM at bargain prices, cut EI and slash services to veterans, all to produce a phony balanced budget with which they could go into the 2015 election.

Canadians did not buy into that. They saw right through it and as a reality, the Conservatives now sit in opposition. I reject the notion that the Conservatives are somehow the saviours of our economy because the evidence does not support it.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I realize that everyone is getting excited and during the hon. member's speech there was a little back and forth going on. I want to remind hon. members that we are going by the rules, so hopefully I will be able to hear the question and the answer without heckling.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola.

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

Mr. Speaker, I certainly will try to choose my words carefully because I would like to hear some real answers from the other side and not to inflame them using heated rhetoric.

One, the Parliamentary Budget Officer stated specifically in the report that the budget was balanced. Does the member agree with the Parliamentary Budget Officer?

Two, the member mentioned the idea of free markets. Does he not recognize that Canada and the United States are an interconnected market? We can see from some of the decisions that are being made on both sides of the border and how important trade flows are that it is an integrated market. The B.C. NDP put in their budget presentation that they are worried about an elevated carbon price causing carbon leakage which would push activity and gas to the United States which would then leave us with higher taxes, more regulations, less economic activity and more greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

Does the member understand that a free market without some conditions where there is a level playing field between our two jurisdictions does not make his so-called price on carbon a reality because it puts us into a less than competitive position? I would like to hear the member specifically refer to the dynamics between Canada and the United States on carbon leakage.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will speak directly to that linkage between the Canadian and U.S. economies.

Yes, our economies are linked together. We share an economic relationship with another country, probably unlike any other two countries do in the world, yet at the same time, we are able to advance our own objectives and our own policies that make good sense. We have linked economies with the United States, yet Canada leads the G7 in GDP growth. The U.S. does not. Although we might be linked, there are differences, and there are opportunities to create differences that clearly go to our ability to grow our economy outside the exclusivity of being linked to the Untied states.

The member started off by saying that what I was proposing was heated rhetoric. On the contrary, what I gave was pure fact. I gave facts about the budge and facts about the last 19 budgets introduced by the Conservatives.

The Conservatives would lead us to believe that they had to run deficits because the times were tough. Well, no. If we look back at the last 150 years, it had nothing to do with circumstance and everything to do with Conservative policy.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member made an interesting speech. I especially appreciated the loudness of his voice at the end that let us know how serious he was about what he was saying.

I agree with the member that pay equity is really important. We know that when we make sure that women are getting paid the same as a man for the same work that it is good the economy, it is good for the women and it is good for all Canadians.

It has been 42 years that women have been fighting for pay equity and now in the bill, they are being asked to wait another four years. I would like the member to share with us why he thinks it is acceptable for women to have to continue to wait.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let us not forget that the NDP promised to balance the budget in 2015. The NDP wants the northern European lifestyle on the U.S. taxes, and it is just not going to happen. The reality of the situation is that programs take time to bring on and implement.

I am extremely proud of this government's direction when it comes to pay equity. The member would know, because she voted in favour of my private member's bill that there are opportunities for women to get involved in jobs that traditionally were not given to women.

We need to do more, and we should always strive to do more until we reach that goal of equity.

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

Mr. Speaker, in defence of the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands raising his voice, I would say it is because he understands that the climate crisis is urgent and we need to do more.

The member put out there that Bill C-86 has targets for poverty reduction built into legislation. However, unlike the U.K. and unlike New Zealand, we do not have targets for greenhouse gas reduction and we do not have our plan in legislation. Would he agree with me that it is time we ramped up our ambition and put it into the law?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I greatly appreciate that question from the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. Both of us spoke very passionately in the recent emergency debate on the intergovernmental report on climate change.

I always see the value in putting targets and benchmarks into policy and legislation, because it is an opportunity to be able to assess how a government has done. Quite frankly, I think it would be very bold for a government to do it, because it would create a scenario where it could be held to account later on when whoever the opposition parties may be at the time have the ability to pinpoint and say that the government did not meet what it set out to do, and they are holding the government to account. I always think it is important to put benchmarks into policy and legislation.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands will have four minutes coming to him when the debate on this bill continues.

Jean-Denis Dionne

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Jean-Denis Dionne, one of the pillars of the water polo community in Quebec and Canada.

Mr. Dionne was one of the founders of the Hydres Club in Sainte-Foy, Quebec. He was president of the Quebec Water Polo Federation and represented Quebec within Water Polo Canada as vice-president and director.

Mr. Dionne was a strong supporter of the inclusion of women's water polo at the Olympic Games. Having played water polo at the national level for several years, I was able to benefit from and see the importance of his work.

To honour his lasting impact, the Quebec Water Polo Federation created the Jean-Denis Dionne Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions by administrators of the sport in Quebec.

He leaves behind a significant legacy to the world of sport. On behalf of the Canadian water polo community, I would like to extend my deepest condolences to Mr. Dionne's friends and family.

Whale-Watching Industry

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Mr. Speaker, after nearly 18 months without an operational rail line, rail freight service has resumed for the town of Churchill. This is excellent news that will help lower the costs of food and goods for the people of Churchill and the surrounding area.

However, just as the community is starting to get back on its feet, the Liberal government is trying to kill Churchill's lucrative tourism industry. Beluga whale-watching tours are a critical component of Churchill's tourism industry. Beluga populations are healthy, and an estimated 60,000 belugas migrate to the region. It is clear that the whale-watching industry has had no negative impacts on the beluga whale population.

The Liberals' proposed whale-watching regulations could affect 200 jobs and up to $10 million of economic activity for Churchill, a community that is already suffering economically. I call on the Liberal government to give a complete exemption from these regulations for the whale-watching industry in the Churchill estuary. This would ensure that the tourism industry can continue to thrive and support the entire community of Churchill.

Hockey

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to wish the Cambridge roadrunners girls' peewee A hockey team good luck at the Canada-America hockey tournament in Lake Placid, New York, over the next three days. The tournament is a classic clash of hockey titans, Canadians versus Americans.

Our community and I will be proudly cheering them on. I have had the pleasure of meeting the players and their dedicated coach, Dave Moore, at the Hespeler Memorial hockey arena in my riding of Kitchener South—Hespeler.

These young women have all the things that make an incredible hockey team: heart, focus and determination. I know the team members will represent Canada well, and that they will remind the American hockey teams that hockey is our game.

Go Canada, go.

Harry Leslie Smith

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

Mr. Speaker, in 2013, Harry Leslie Smith wore the poppy for the last time, saying this:

I will until my last breath remember the past and the struggles my generation made to build this country into a civilised state for the working and middle classes. If we are to survive as a progressive nation we have to start tending to our living because the wounded: our poor, our underemployed youth, our hard-pressed middle class and our struggling seniors shouldn't be left to die on the battleground of modern life.

A veteran of the Depression and the Second World War, Harry saw first-hand the futility of fighting for anything other than democracy and social justice. He took his last stand to the next level, touring to support refugees of war and speaking truth to power with an unwavering voice.

Harry took his last breath yesterday. We wish him safe journey.

May we all live to see the day Harry's vision for the world is a reality.

International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, today is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The date of November 29 was chosen by the United Nations in 1977 because of its meaning and significance to the Palestinian people.

Even after 71 years, we still have several generations of our Palestinian brothers and sisters living in refugee camps. Our government has restored funding to the agencies involved with helping women and children. We have taken a firm stand on the issue of Jerusalem. However, I am first to acknowledge that there is lot to be done. We do not have peace in sight.

Canada recognizes the Palestinian right to self-determination and supports the creation of a sovereign, independent, viable, democratic and territorially contiguous Palestinian state as part of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace settlement.

West Lincoln Memorial Hospital

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to share some great news happening in my riding of Niagara West.

As a former president of the West Lincoln Memorial Hospital Foundation, I am excited to say that the West Lincoln Memorial Hospital is finally going to get the funding it needs to be rebuilt.

Yesterday, Premier Doug Ford announced a $500,000 grant to begin the planning of the construction. He also announced another $8.5 million in infrastructure improvements, which are absolutely essential for the hospital to remain viable. This also means that services like obstetrics and surgeries will remain.

Our communities of Lincoln, West Lincoln and Grimsby have received a much-deserved and much-needed new hospital. I want to thank all the mayors, past and present; board members, past and present; as well as the community volunteers who have worked tirelessly on this project.

I would also like to thank my provincial counterpart and good friend, Sam Oosterhoff, for his hard work and dedication to this file. I would also like to thank Premier Doug Ford, Minister Christine Elliott and Minister McNaughton for their great recognition that this was much needed for this hospital.

It is a great day for my riding and I am overjoyed to share this news with the House.

Boréas Technologies

[Denis Paradis, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on November 9, I visited Boréas Technologies, a company in Bromont, to announce a $2-million investment through Sustainable Development Technology Canada.

This investment will be used to adapt new haptic technology, which use the sense of touch to recognize objects that appear on cellphones and other electronic devices.

I met Simon Chaput, the 30-year-old founder and CEO of Boréas Technologies, who really impressed me with his ambition and vision. Simon, who graduated from Harvard in 2017, could have settled anywhere, but he decided to start his company in Bromont.

Bromont is fortunate to have a high-tech park that is attracting innovation and entrepreneurs. Businesses like Boréas Technologies, IBM, General Electric, Fabritec and CGP Expal are extremely important to the vitality of Brome—Missisquoi. I want to thank them for what they are doing for our region.

Cloverdale—Langley City

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Mr. Speaker, tis the season to spread joy and and think about how we can give back to our communities. In my riding of Cloverdale—Langley City, this generous spirit is proudly on display.

At Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary School, students, staff and alumni recently reached a milestone, having made 2,000 blood donations in the last 12 years.

The Salish Secondary school launched its first-ever toy drive. Community members are invited to donate unwrapped gifts. The Cloverdale Library, the Cloverdale Recreation Centre and Pacific Community Church are also accepting donations.

In Langley, the Christmas Bureau is providing gifts and food hampers to hundreds of children and families through the support of donations from local families, businesses and organizations.

I would like to commend these schools and organizations for their hard work and generosity and encourage everyone to consider how they can give this holiday season.

Happy holidays, merry Christmas and a joyous new year to all.