Debates of Sept. 19th, 2018

The Environment

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, again, we see that the NDP is still trying to claim that there is a choice to make between what is good for the environment and what is good for the economy. We know, and Canadians know very well, that the only way to build a future for our children is to protect the environment, fight climate change, and invest in good jobs and in a stronger future for our young people and our communities.

The NDP does not understand how to do these two things at the same time. That is why we will continue to do so in a reasonable and respectful manner.

The Economy

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, a year ago, the American administration radically lowered corporate taxes, which made our businesses less competitive. Unfortunately, the government did nothing. The Conference Board of Canada published a study, which concluded that 635,000 Canadian jobs, or $85 billion of Canada's economic activity, are at risk as a result of the government's inaction. This led the Conference Board's president, John Manley, to state that the government absolutely needs to have a plan to strengthen Canada's competitiveness.

When will the government do something and take John Manley's recommendation, who, by the way, is a former Liberal prime minister?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we realize that our businesses need to remain competitive. This is why we are proud to have lowered taxes on small businesses across the country. We lowered these taxes on January 1, and we will lower them again this coming January 1. We are also looking at investments to keep our businesses competitive with the United States.

That said, we know that cutting taxes for the rich is not the way to create economic growth. This is what the Conservatives do not understand.

International Trade

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's unprovoked and inaccurate partisan attack against Conservatives on NAFTA today confirms again that his election strategy is to strut around pretending to stand up to Donald Trump. It is ironic, though, because his increases in taxes and his heavy regulation have led Canadian dollars to head right down south to Donald Trump's America, where Canadian investment is up two-thirds while U.S. investment in Canada is down by half.

Will the Prime Minister stop all the drama on NAFTA and stop sending our money and jobs south of the border?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, if the member opposite wants to clarify things, he can immediately say that he disagrees with Stephen Harper's analysis that it would be better to sign a bad deal than to have no deal, because that is what Stephen Harper is on record as having recommended to Canadian parliamentarians and to Canadian negotiators. If he disagrees with Stephen Harper on that position or on any other position, please let him say so and set the record straight.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what I disagree with is the Prime Minister's agenda, which is sending money, business and cheap oil into the arms of Donald Trump. His higher taxes have sent money south. He blocked a pipeline to the Atlantic and another to the Pacific, which means we have to pump cheap oil into the United States, and he gave $4 billion to a Texas oil company that is building pipelines with Canadian tax dollars in Donald Trump's America.

Again, will the Prime Minister stop the drama and stop sending our jobs, oil and money down south?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Obviously, Mr. Speaker, the member opposite agrees with Stephen Harper that it is better to sign a bad deal than to have no deal. Well, we disagree and Canadians disagree.

On the issue of getting our resources to new markets, we understand how important it is, and their failure for 10 years to get a pipeline built that will get our resources in a significant way to new markets is on them. We know that the way to get these things built properly is to work with indigenous peoples and to make sure we are protecting the environment. That is what Canadians asked us to do and that is what we will be doing.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister personally intervened to veto a pipeline to the Pacific. Then he regulated to death another pipeline to the Atlantic. That means we have to send billions of dollars in discounted oil to Donald Trump's America. He then raised taxes on businesses, which has led to Canadian investment in the U.S. going up by two-thirds while American investment in Canada is down by half. He then gave $4 billion to a Texas oil company to build pipelines down south. With enemies like that, Donald Trump does not need friends.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, there is just too much wrong with the previous member's statement to go through it, but I will address the question of energy east. A private company made a determination that they no longer wanted to move forward with a project when oil had fallen to half the price it had been when they initially proposed the project. It actually never reached a point where we could have weighed in on it one way or another, because they withdrew the project because they also had another pipeline going south that they had trouble filling the space on.

This was a market decision by a private company, but the member opposite does not really know anything about that, does he?

Health

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this summer I met Petra Shulz, an Edmonton mother who lost her son to an opioid overdose. She described the devastating impact this tragedy had on her family, and many like hers. Today, we learned that over 1,000 Canadians lost their lives to opioid overdoses in the first three months of 2018, a 5% increase over 2017 and a 44% jump over 2016.

Opioid deaths have increased every single year of the government's mandate. Will the Prime Minister admit that his approach is failing and tell the House what he will do to reverse this deadly epidemic?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we are deeply concerned about the opioid crisis in Canada. Between January 2016 and March 2018, approximately 8,000 Canadians tragically lost their lives to apparent opioid-related overdoses. We have responded with new federal investments, new legislation and regulatory action, such as $231.4 million of investments to improve access to treatment, to address stigma and to gather more data to help address the opioid crisis.

We know there is much more work to do but we will not treat this is as a criminal issue. We will work with the partners to increase access to treatment—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Order. The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

Employment Insurance

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfair that employment insurance provides only 15 weeks of sickness benefits. Johanne, one of our constituents, had to go back to work while still in poor health, just three months after a tough battle with breast cancer. What can happen when someone is forced to go back to work before they are fully recovered? They can suffer a relapse.

Johanne and her family have lost everything: their house, their life savings, everything. What are the Liberals doing about it? Nothing. For hundreds of thousands of people, 15 weeks is not enough time to recover.

When is this government finally going to take action?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, it is always hard to hear stories about Canadians suffering, and we are doing everything in our power to help them.

We have made firm commitments to enhance the employment insurance program to better meet the needs of Canadian families.

We have created a new family caregiver benefit. We have relaxed the rules for sickness benefits. We have improved the application process to make it easier for Canadians to access their benefits.

Naturally, there is still a lot more to be done, and we are working together with Canadian families to help them even more.

Fisheries and Oceans

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues know, the economic, cultural and ecological importance of our oceans to Atlantic Canadians cannot be overstated. As depicted in Robert Chafe's play Between Breaths, the goals of working the sea and protecting our country's endangered whales are both vitally important to us.

Can the Prime Minister confirm that our government's significant measures to protect the North Atlantic right whale have balanced the protection of this iconic species with the help of Atlantic Canada's fisheries?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we have put in place the necessary measures to protect this iconic species and to ensure continued access to our fisheries. Since taking clear and coordinated action, I am happy to report that thus far we have not had a single reported death of a North Atlantic right whale in Canadian waters.

I also want to thank industry leaders who cooperated with our measures. However, I am glad that our snow crab and lobster fishers have also enjoyed good fishing seasons.

The Economy

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Speaker, when knocking on doors in my riding this summer, I kept hearing frustration at the Prime Minister's continual failures: his failure to build a pipeline; his failure to support Canadian oil, and instead importing it from countries like Saudi Arabia; his failure to keep jobs in Canada; his failure to support small businesses and instead over-regulating and over-taxing them, putting some of them right out of business. Does the Prime Minister understand that his failures are costing Canadians their livelihoods, and does he even care?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, not only do we care about Canadians, but we have invested concretely in making their lives better. I am talking about half a million new full-time jobs since we took office. We are talking about the lowest unemployment rate in 40 years. We are talking about investments that have lifted hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty. We have lowered taxes for small businesses. We are drawing in global investment. We are delivering with the highest growth rate in the G7 last year. This is what Canadians expected. This is what we are delivering for the middle class and those working hard to join it.

Natural Resources

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

But not for middle-class oil and gas workers, Mr. Speaker. Some 1.2 million barrels a day are flowing through new pipelines approved and built under Conservatives, which will rise to 2 million when Keystone XL is done, with no tax dollars needed. As of today, the Liberals have added zero after three years in government, and they blew $4.5 billion in tax dollars that will go into the U.S.

Every time the Prime Minister points to the past and blames others, he admits that he failed, and the Liberals still have no plan for the future. Their summer of failure is becoming their legacy of failure and it is hurting the whole country. When will he pull his ban-on-pipelines Bill C-69 and give a plan for Trans Mountain?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, just to correct the record a bit, as a government we have expanded export capacity for the Alberta Clipper project, we approved the Nova Gas pipeline, the Line 3 replacement project, the Arnaud apatite mine, Woodfibre LNG and the Ridley Island propane terminal.

We are moving forward on getting projects done and getting them done the right way, which both respects indigenous peoples and works in partnership with them. We are working to make sure that the environmental science and the protection of our ecosystem is front of mind. We know from 10 years of failure by the Conservatives, because of their narrowing of the scope of projects, that we need to restore the confidence of Canadians.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

What about Trans Mountain, Mr. Speaker? For the last two years, they said over and over again that their plan would have shovels in the ground by now. The Prime Minister himself said, “Canada has completed the deepest consultations with rights holders ever on a major project in this country”. He claimed that the process brought in “indigenous communities...respects science...[and] gets the social licence”. Well, the court clearly ruled: He failed, failed, failed and failed. Today, there is no Trans Mountain expansion and it has been 20 days without a plan. Why should Canadians believe any word he ever says?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, here is the difficulty for Conservatives. They have actually spent the past three years telling us that we should not be doing so much on the environment, we should not be fretting about consultation with indigenous peoples, but that we should just plow ahead like Stephen Harper did. He did not succeed in 10 years of trying to plow ahead. What we have heard from the court recently was that it was good that we were doing consultations and working with indigenous people and that it was good we were taking seriously the science, but we need to do a little more. That leaves the Conservatives on the wrong side of history, and we are going to do things the right way.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, when asked about the job losses in the energy sector, a direct result of Liberal failures on pipelines like Trans Mountain, the Liberals' response is to take credit for jobs at Amazon. Are they trying to say that the thousands of highly skilled professionals, such as welders, pipe fitters and engineers, who have lost jobs across Canada should find work at an Amazon warehouse? Another 8,000 Canadians are unemployed because of the Prime Minister's summer of failure. What is the Prime Minister's plan to get these experienced professionals back to work in the energy sector?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, what folks in the energy sector understand very clearly is that there is no path forward for our energy sector unless we also protect the environment and unless we build partnerships with indigenous peoples. The old ways of doing things failed for 10 years under the Conservatives. We now know that being respectful and thoughtful about how we move forward is what Canadians expect. That is exactly what we are going to do. While they are still worried about suddenly putting a price on pollution, we know that moving forward responsibly is the only way to get things done in this country.

Veterans Affairs

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

Mr. Speaker, recently I heard from Stephane, a veteran from my riding diagnosed with PTSD while serving in the Canadian navy for 28 years.

Counselling, medication and therapy were not working for him. It was not until he got his service dog, Sarge, that he could finally get out of the house, go for a walk and talk to people. Sarge saved his life.

The long-awaited Université Laval study states that service dogs, like Sarge, save veterans' lives. However, the Liberals continue to deny veterans and their families the funding they need.

Why is the government stalling on providing the funding required for life-saving service dogs for veterans?