Debates of Oct. 8th, 2020

Judges Act

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The question is on the motion.

Pursuant to order made on Wednesday, September 23, we will not call for the yeas and nays. As a result, if a member of a recognized party present in the House wants to request a recorded vote or request that the motion be passed on division, I invite them to rise and so indicate to the Chair.

The hon. Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, we would request a recorded vote please.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Pursuant to order made on Wednesday, September 23 the division stands deferred until Monday, October 19, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I suspect that if you were to canvass the House, you would find unanimous consent to call it 6:30 p.m.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind members that there is still some business left in the House. For those individuals who are leaving, I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving weekend.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

Indigenous Affairs

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

Madam Speaker, I am here today because, earlier this week, I asked a question on the realities of murdered and missing indigenous women across Canada. What I really want to point out is that within communities across this country there are organizations fundraising to help find missing indigenous women and girls across Canada, and how unacceptable that is.

I spoke about the Lil' Red Dress Project, which was created in 2018 when Jeannine Lindsay and Carla Voyageur came together around a kitchen table to discuss what they could do to raise awareness and how they could do something more for the families who had lost or were missing one of their beloved female loved ones.

These amazing women came together, and they have many volunteers, including Carla's own children, who help bead small red dresses for earrings and pins. All the money and proceeds they get from those beautiful pieces of art go into putting up billboards across communities that identify indigenous women who are missing.

What is most ironic about this is that they got the idea from a non-indigenous woman's family, which collected funds to put up a sign to identify that she was missing. This was an amazing thing.

However, we understand that we have a terrible situation in this country, where missing and murdered indigenous women are lost. They are falling through the cracks, and now the only way these folks can actually get action is to fundraise to get these signs up.

Too many families across Canada are missing their precious loved ones. I think all of us in this House have to take responsibility for understanding that there are families, indigenous families, across this country who every day do not know where that beautiful soul is. They are afraid when their girl children, their wives and their sisters go out into the world, because they do not know if they may become one of these sad stories.

I think of the fact that in 2016, local families in the Comox Valley created an annual Women's Memorial March in memory of Selina Wallace, who went missing February 7, 1971. Her sister Verna has been a strong advocate for the inquiry. She even appeared at the inquiry to share her story about losing her sister and how, at that time, the RCMP did very little to help the family find her. She was able to participate in the inquiry, but she is still waiting to see action.

That is why I have brought this serious issue forward. It is because so many families across this country want to see action now. They want to see preventative measures so that this does not happen again, when again and again, what we see are indigenous women and girls murdered or missing, and not found.

I also think it is important to recognize that all of these communities are coming together across Canada to get these voices heard. The red dress campaign continues to be a fight, but we want to see action, and we want to see the inquiry action items actually put into place.

I am hoping to hear from the government today that there will finally be action.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations]

Madam Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge that I am speaking from the territories of the Mississaugas of the New Credit.

We share the sense of urgency of the hon. member. Our hearts are with the survivors and families of missing and murdered indigenous women, girls, two-spirit and gender-diverse people. Addressing violence against indigenous women and girls has been an urgent priority of the Government of Canada since the pre-inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls was launched in 2015, to inform the design of the first ever national public inquiry into the ongoing tragedy. The final report of the national inquiry calls upon federal, provincial, territorial and indigenous governments, as well as indigenous leaders, survivors and families, to develop a national action plan that sets a clear road map to ensure that indigenous women, girls, two-spirit and gender-diverse people are safe. That is exactly what we are doing.

As the Speech from the Throne highlighted, our priority is to accelerate the work to develop a national action plan. This work is being led by indigenous women, two-spirit and gender-diverse partners. Guided by families, survivors and grassroots community groups, the national action plan will respond to this national tragedy in an accountable and enduring manner.

Our government invested $30 million over five years to support indigenous-led engagement throughout the development and implementation of the national action plan. We have already provided $2.4 million to national and regional indigenous organizations to ensure that they are resourced, and can meaningfully participate in combined efforts to improve the safety of indigenous women, girls, two-spirit and gender-diverse people. We will not let survivors and families down.

Work is well under way through a series of working groups led by indigenous women. The groups are also comprised of indigenous governments and organizations, federal, provincial and territorial governments, two-spirit and LGBTQ organization leaders, family members and survivors.

Also, as the member acknowledged, our government did not wait to act to ensure that indigenous women, girls, two-spirit and LGBTQ+ people were safe wherever they live. Some of those actions included reforming the child and family services system, supporting families navigating the justice system through the family information liaison units in place in every province and territorial jurisdiction, and investing in housing and emergency shelters.

We will continue to focus on prevention, healing and putting in place concrete measures to end this national tragedy.

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

Madam Speaker, for me the reality is that right now across Canada at kitchen tables, people are figuring out solutions to try to address this issue because they are not seeing the action that the government needs to take.

I think of the Kumugwe Cultural Society that, in 2016, worked with the Village of Cumberland, the Town of Comox and the City of Courtenay so that it could have red dresses across the community to alert people in the region to the reality of so many missing indigenous women and girls. This is grassroots work. I appreciate their work. I think we should all take an opportunity to really thank them for the incredible work that they are doing in terms of educating and leading people forward, but this is the reality. They keep waiting for action. They want to see the government take leadership and because there is that void, they are taking it.

When will the government be accountable for that?

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Madam Speaker, our government has also been working since 2015 to address systemic issues that contribute to this tragedy, and our shared work continues.

As was previously mentioned, we have passed legislation to address the child and family services system to preserve and protect indigenous language and culture, toughen criminal law in cases of domestic assault, and eliminate gender discrimination under the Indian Act. We have also made historic investments in education, housing, policing and shelters.

Our government is working with all of our partners to ensure that we get this right for survivors and families, to honour those lost and to protect future generations.

COVID-19 Emergency Response

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I had asked a question earlier in the week about supports for small businesses, particularly around the rent relief program.

As we all know, COVID-19 has hurt small businesses. I walk around Edmonton Strathcona, around my constituency, and I see far too many businesses have shut their doors, potentially forever.

We know that small businesses are the livelihood of the Canadian economy, that they employ nearly 70% of private sector workers nationwide and they employ 74% of private sector workers in Alberta. We need to recognize that every one of those small businesses represents a hard-working Albertan, a family that is being supported by that business. These people have spent years building these businesses in some cases, investing their own money, their own time and their sweat equity into these businesses.

We were happy to see some of the supports that the government put forward during the pandemic. It was nice to see that the Liberal government was able to listen to the NDP and increase the wage subsidy to 75%, and to make rent and wage subsidy programs available.

However, the supports took so long and sometimes they just were not done properly. These supports were vitally important, but they were frustratingly limited and complicated. I have spoken to small business owners who could not complete the forms because it was so difficult to do that. The goal was to exclude family businesses, new businesses, the self-employed, those who were paid with dividends. They were locked out of the emergency business account loans for months.

CECRA, the rent assistance program, is a prime example. Many businesses in my riding are gone forever because they were not able to access that program. Part was because the rent program was for developers and real estate companies, for landlords, not for those individual companies that were paying the rent. Many organizations could not access that program.

Some other businesses turned on a dime. I was so proud of many of the organizations in Edmonton Strathcona, but if they did not meet the criteria of the 70% loss, they were out of luck. If they had a 60% loss or a 69% loss, they were out of luck.

For those businesses that could access the commercial rent assistance program, it was a lifesaver. Hundreds of small businesses in my riding were able to ride out the storm, thanks to the program. More than 100,000 small businesses nationwide can say the same thing.

That got us through to September. Now what are we going to do? Why would the government throw a lifeline to small businesses if it only throws them overboard as the second wave of COVID-19 hits?

Small businesses need rent assistance now and they will continue to need rent assistance for months to come. We need to know from the government that it will be putting forward a plan that will make it easier for businesses to access, with the same loss in business standards as the wage subsidy. We need to know that it will be backdated from the beginning, because businesses are already broke. We need to ensure that it is tenant-driven for small businesses.

We asked our small businesses to close their doors. We asked them to stay closed for the safety of our communities. Now we have to do what we can to protect those small businesses. We need a rent replacement program, we need it now and we need it to be done much better than it was done the first time.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations]

Madam Speaker, as a previous small business owner, I can fully relate to many of the challenges that are faced by small businesses during this pandemic. Canadian businesses are indeed the lifeblood of our communities and the backbone of our economy, which is why our government is committed to helping businesses weather the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, including by assisting them with fixed costs such as rent.

The government's record on the support we have provided to date speaks for itself. In the spring, we quickly put in place a suite of new broad measures through Canada's COVID-19 economic response plan to provide urgent support to Canadians and businesses as the pandemic swept across the country, measures that have helped to protect millions of jobs and support Canadian employers, big and small, to help them weather the storm and keep their workers on the payroll.

For example, the Canada emergency business account, or CEBA, is helping small business owners and not-for-profit operators to cover their unavoidable costs at a time when their revenues have been temporarily reduced. CEBA has already issued over 767,000 loans totalling more than $30.6 billion.

The Canada emergency wage subsidy is helping business owners and other employers to keep employees on the payroll. Since its launch, the wage subsidy has supported over 3.6 million Canadian employees, with more than $39 billion paid out in wage subsidies.

Also consider the Canada business availability program and other credit and liquidity support, totalling $286 billion, which have ensured that business owners have access to the credit they need to pay their bills and help their businesses stay afloat.

We must mention the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program. Since its launch, CECRA has helped some 130,000 small business tenants who employ over 1.1 million employees by providing over $1.8 billion to pay their rent.

In addition to these measures, the government has provided $85 billion in tax and customs duty payment deferrals to meet liquidity needs of business owners and Canadian families.

In the face of an uncertain economic situation and tightening credit conditions, these measures have supported businesses while protecting the valuable Canadian jobs that depend on them. However, we recognize that many small business owners and entrepreneurs continue to need help with cash flow and paying their operating costs, including rent, and we intend to use our fiscal firepower to make the investments needed to help businesses across Canada face this challenge.

We laid out our intent to continue supporting Canadian businesses in the recent Speech from the Throne, including the extension of the Canada emergency wage subsidy into next summer to help business owners and other employers keep their employees on the payroll.

We will take further steps to bridge vulnerable businesses to the other side of the pandemic by expanding the Canada emergency business account to help business owners with fixed costs and by improving the business credit availability program.

We know that the viability and success of small businesses are essential to our economy. That is why we continue to support them during this unprecedented time, while helping them to build back better and stronger.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, as usual, the Liberals are congratulating themselves on what they have done in the past instead of looking at how we need to support those people who fell through the cracks, those small business owners who were not able to access support.

Going forward, we need to know there is a plan in place for rent assistance for small businesses across Canada. This is an urgent need. This is an urgent call for action for our small business owners. There is no value in saving small businesses through the summer if we allow them to fail in the fall.

The pandemic is not over, not by a long shot, but one day it is going to be over. We need to know that the small businesses in our community, the small businesses that make Edmonton Strathcona unique, will be able to thrive and will be strong going into the future.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Madam Speaker, as I have already said, Canadian businesses are the backbone of our economy. They provide good jobs that support families across the country. Members can be certain that supporting business owners and other employers during this unprecedented time remains an integral part of Canada's COVID-19 economic response plan.

Extending measures such as the Canada emergency wage subsidy and the Canada emergency business account will be critical to assisting Canadian business owners across the country in weathering the COVID-19 storm and building back stronger.

Our government will continue to do whatever it takes to keep Canadians and the businesses on which our jobs and livelihoods depend healthy and stable, so that together they can emerge from this crisis stronger than ever.

Natural Resources

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

Madam Speaker, I had the opportunity to put a question to the Minister of Natural Resources earlier this week in the wake of massive new layoffs in the energy sector both in Calgary and in Newfoundland and Labrador. My question was particularly about Calgary. The answer was wholly unsatisfactory. Perhaps the minister came a little closer to answering the question and acknowledging the role his government played in the exodus of employment from the oil and gas sector.

He spoke about oil and gas companies having to redeploy resources and capital, while adapting to all the challenges within the energy industry worldwide. That is exactly the point. That is exactly what energy companies are doing. They are making business decisions to locate outside of Canada precisely because of the five-year war on the energy industry that has been waged by the government. In my riding, thousands of people have lost their jobs over the years since the government was formed precisely because their employers are making decisions to move to other jurisdictions. They are doing so because of the regulatory uncertainty that has been created by the government through bills like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48.

We hear the rhetoric from the Prime Minister and on down through many members of his cabinet and his party's caucus. There are real repercussions of that in lost jobs and lost livelihoods. I talked to families throughout the 2019 election. They are giving up hope, families are split because members of the family have had to go to other countries to find work. Calgary is their home and they want to be there, yet they are having to go overseas to find work. The government has to acknowledge that its legislation, its rhetoric and the signals that it sends to the investment community have a direct impact on these lost jobs.

I called upon the minister to admit that the Liberals' policies had played a role in these job losses. There are 2,000 more employees gone from Suncor. This economy and my province cannot handle 2,000 more unemployed workers. The answer that was provided during question period was completely unsatisfactory. It will do nothing to give any sense of hope to the workers in my riding and across Canada.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources]

Madam Speaker, before I go into my script, maybe the member should know what is going on in the world.

In the United States, 107,000 workers have been laid off in the oil and gas sector. BP has laid off 10,000 workers around the world. Shell has laid off 9,000 workers around the world. The member wants to tell us that because of Canadian policies, this is going on around the world. He could not be further from the truth, obviously.

Our government is working hard to help the oil and gas sector, and his question is a very important one. We know that in Canada's resource sector, workers and suppliers have been hard hit by the fallout of COVID-19. Nowhere has this been more pronounced than in the petroleum sector, where producers have faced the added challenge of record-low prices caused by the dual impact of a price war and a collapse in demand, something obviously ignored by the member, either willfully or because he is not sure what is going on in his backyard.

The success of Canada's petroleum sector is critical to the successful restart and recovery of the economy. That is why our government is working hard to support the petroleum sector through these difficult times.

As a government, we believe in the future of this sector. I will say it again: We believe in the future of this sector. This includes its role in driving investments in clean technology and new opportunities in areas such as hydrogen and carbon capture, use and storage. That is why we have put in place measures over the past several months that are key to ensuring that Canada emerges with a stronger, more innovative economy in a cleaner energy future.

We started with the Canada emergency wage subsidy, which supported maintaining jobs in all sectors across Canada. For the oil and gas sector, the wage subsidy meant sustaining 80,000 jobs at the height of the crisis across Canada, with 60,000 jobs in Alberta alone.

We went further, with almost $2.5 billion for the energy sector, providing $1.7 million to clean up orphan and inactive oil and gas wells. This is expected to create thousands of jobs, including an estimated 5,200 in Alberta alone, and provide lasting environmental benefits. I must say that the Alberta government and Alberta's Minister of Energy were ecstatic when we partnered to do this with the Province of Alberta.

There is up to $750 million in repayable contributions, through our new emissions reduction fund, to lower greenhouse gas emissions in Canada's oil and gas sector, with a focus on methane. The fund includes $75 million, some of which will be non-repayable, to help the offshore industry in Newfoundland and Labrador create and maintain jobs through emission reduction efforts, and expanded eligibility to help Canadian businesses get the financing they need during this period of uncertainty. This support is available to medium-sized businesses with larger financing needs, beginning with companies in Canada's energy sector, to help them maintain operations and keep their employees on the job.

More recently, our government announced $320 million in funding to support workers in Newfoundland and Labrador offshore. This will stimulate and maintain employment and economic activity in the province and will ensure that it can support middle-class families and communities.

Our government will continue to pursue all avenues to ensure that Canada's energy sector continues to be a key source of the jobs that support a strong economy. We are supporting workers. We are supporting families. We are supporting our oil and gas sector. We are supporting Albertans.

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

Madam Speaker, the arrogance of much of that response reinforces what my constituents have told me on their doorsteps.

The parliamentary secretary mentioned job losses resulting from both COVID and a global price collapse. However, 200,000 jobs were lost in this sector before COVID. Before COVID, Shell, which he mentioned in his response, left Canada, divested itself of Canada. I do not know off the top of my head how many of the employees Shell has shed worldwide were in my riding, but I can assure the member that this is close to home. The government has chased jobs out of Canada, and he knows this if he knows his file.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member was in the last Parliament with us when we did everything to get TMX built, and it is being built right now. He should know this, and I am sure he does. It is such an important file. I know that behind closed doors, from talking to my colleagues in the Conservative Party, they are happy about that. Albertans are also happy that we are proceeding with TMX, and the thousands of jobs that are being created right now because of it.

I want to reiterate that our government believes in the success of the petroleum sector and that it is critical to the successful restart and recovery of the economy. That is why we put in place the measures over the past several months that I have just referred to: because we understand the importance of supporting a sector that is a source of well-paying jobs for Canadians across the country.

We understand that by supporting a strong economic recovery, particularly in the oil and gas sector, Canadian businesses such as Suncor will continue to attract investment and good projects that will support environmental and social priorities and create jobs for Canadians now and into the future.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted.

Accordingly the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 5:34 p.m.)