Debates of Nov. 5th, 2020

Opposition Motion—Tax Measures to Support Canadians

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Madam Speaker, I know all of us are eagerly looking forward to hearing the rest of my hon. colleague's speech, but I think he may have omitted that he is sharing his time with the member for Halifax. I thought I heard him say this, but I am not sure.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the friendly reminder. Yes, I will be sharing my time with the member for Halifax.

As I was saying, the great folks in Oshawa received some wonderful news today from a corporation: Over 2,000 people will be hired back at the Oshawa plant. That is where the direction of the Canadian economy is going as we recover. It is great news for all of Ontario and all of Canada, and particularly for suppliers, for the main street in Oshawa and for the supply base of our tier one, tier two and tier three suppliers in the auto parts sector. It sets us up in a really positive way. This comes after the announcements by Ford, another corporation, and by FCA, another corporation.

When we talk about these corporations, we must remember they are people. The interesting thing is that a lot of pension funds manage money for nurses, front-line workers and teachers. They invest in these corporations. They hold their shares, they hold their bonds and they hold real assets. They are corporations of people.

Sometimes I hear rhetoric on the other side of the aisle, and it is frankly disappointing. I find it unrealistic. I find it shameful, to be honest. Yes, corporations across this country and across the world need to pay their fair share of taxes and be good corporate citizens. I very much dislike corporate cronyism, as I call it. However, at the end of the day, they employ Canadians. Small mom-and-pop shops depend on corporations. We depend on them. It is a beautiful virtuous circle.

I ask the members opposite, when we talk about corporations, to remember that these are people. These are people who create good middle-class jobs and employ millions of Canadians.

I will now move on to the main area I want to focus on: pharmacare.

The Government of Canada recognizes Canadians should not have to choose between buying groceries and paying for medication. That is why the government is committed to implementing a national pharmacare program to ensure that all Canadians have access to the prescription drugs they need. It is a goal we have been working toward since we first formed government in 2015. It remains our goal, as clearly stated in September's Speech from the Throne.

The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us all how important it is that Canadians have access to the medicines they need for keeping themselves and their families healthy. This is particularly true for Canadians who have lost coverage, or are at risk of losing coverage, during the pandemic. In response, our government is ramping up efforts to implement a national pharmacare plan that gets Canadians the drug coverage they need.

Our actions to date are concrete. The government is already acting on key recommendations from the advisory council on the implementation of national pharmacare, and our approach is in line with the council's advice.

Given the scope of the transformation required to achieve national universal pharmacare, the council suggested it would be practical to adopt a phased approach to implementation. Guided by the council's recommendations, budget 2019 outlined foundational elements to help Canada move forward on implementing national pharmacare, including developing a strategy for high-cost drugs for rare diseases.

We recognize that for many Canadians who require prescription drugs to treat rare diseases, the costs of medications can be astronomically high. That is why budget 2019 proposed to invest up to $500 million per year, starting in 2022-23, to help Canadians with rare diseases access the drugs they need.

Working with the provinces, territories and other partners will be key to developing a national strategy for high-cost drugs for rare diseases that allows us to gather and evaluate evidence, improve consistency of decision-making, and access and negotiate prices to ensure that effective treatments reach the patients who need them. In the recent Speech from the Throne, we committed to accelerating work on this strategy and expect to begin consultations very soon.

Budget 2019 also set aside $35 million over four years to create a Canadian drug agency transition office. This office will set the stage for the creation of a Canadian drug agency, which will enable a more coordinated approach to assessing effectiveness and negotiating prescription drug prices.

We will also accelerate work on the development of a national formulary, with a comprehensive, evidence-based list of prescribed drugs. This will promote more consistent coverage and patient access across the country and help keep drug prices low.

All these initiatives must be done in close collaboration with the provinces and territories. They are responsible for health care design and delivery in this country, and their collaboration will be key to the success of national universal pharmacare.

However, before we can implement a national pharmacare program in Canada, we need to address the rising cost of drugs in this country.

As the use of higher-cost specialty drugs, or personalized medicine, increased, Canadians could not afford to pay higher-than-average prices for drugs. This was not sustainable. What could we do? The answer was not that we should spend more. We already spend more per capita on pharmaceuticals than nearly every other country in the world. We needed a solution to bring fair prices and sustainable drug costs to Canada.

Part of the problem was that Canada's approach to patented drug price regulations was outdated. Our previous pricing regulations were established in the 1980s. We have more than 100 different public drug plans and thousands of private drug plans, which means that drug coverage is provided by a patchwork of payers. It was well past time to bring these regulations into the 21st century.

To make drugs more affordable, Canada needed a modernized approach to regulating patented drug prices that would protect Canadians from excessive prices. That is why last summer the government modernized the patented medicines regulations that provide the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board with the tools and information it needs to protect Canadians from excessive prices of patented medicines.

We will now benchmark prices against countries that are economically similar to Canada from a consumer protection standpoint. This is known commonly as benchmarking. Previously, the price ceilings for patented drugs in Canada were set by comparing our prices against prices in seven predetermined countries: France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. As a result of this benchmarking exercise, the list of countries has now been updated to remove the United States and Switzerland, and to add Australia, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain, for a total of 11 countries. Now we must deal with drug value and affordability.

We must also consider the value the drug offers and its overall affordability. Most other countries with a national pharmacare program already do this.

When setting a price we need to consider three things. The first is value for money. Does the drug offer a therapeutic benefit that justifies its cost? Second is the size of the market. How many people will it benefit? Third is Canada's GDP and GDP per capita. Can we afford to pay for it? These changes will provide the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, commonly known as the PMPRB, with the tools it needs to protect Canadians from excessive drug prices, and this will bring us in line with the policies and practices of most other developed countries.

These regulatory changes were critical steps toward improving the affordability and accessibility of prescription drugs. Along with other consumer protection initiatives at the PMPRB, we anticipate these changes will save roughly $13 billion over the next 10 years. This is a significant savings for Canadians. From the savings, public and private drug plans will have greater capacity to improve benefits for plan members and to consider new therapies that are not currently covered. All Canadians, including those with drug plans and those paying out of pocket, will benefit from lower prices of prescription drugs.

Modernizing pricing regulations complements the work already under way at Health Canada to streamline the regulatory review process for drugs by enabling priority drugs to reach market more quickly, and it supports—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Unfortunately the member's time is up. He will be able to add anything else he wishes during the questions and comments.

The hon. member for Hamilton Centre.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I recall that back in August, the hon. parliamentary secretary laughed at Denmark's proposal to tax the most wealthy. Today, he wants to dismiss our plan to tax the most wealthy among us, the 87 families that have more wealth than the bottom half of this country. He defended them with the very tired assertion that corporations are people. Let us talk about those people. Let us talk about the Bezoses, the Zuckerbergs and the Westons, all the people who have profited off this pandemic.

What does the parliamentary secretary have to say to the people on the front lines who we declared essential and who had their pandemic days rolled back, while the wealthy people he is defending right now have made record profits during this pandemic?

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

Madam Speaker, I have been in Parliament now for five years, and the first thing our government did when we were elected was raise taxes on the wealthiest Canadians and cut taxes for middle-class Canadians. We introduced the Canada child benefit, which lifted hundreds of thousands of kids across this country out of poverty. We created over a million jobs before COVID-19, and our economy is recovering faster than the economy of the United States, according to nearly all experts.

We are on the path to recovery. We are doing the right thing. We are going to keep lifting children and families out of poverty. We are going to provide housing. We are going to do the great things that people sent us here to do and voted for us to do.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member mentioned the PMPRB quite often. On that subject, one of the things we have heard a lot about is that is drugs like Trikafta, which treats cystic fibrosis, and many drugs for rare diseases have been unable to enter Canada.

Could the member speak about what his government is doing to ensure these life-changing drugs can come to Canada?

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

Madam Speaker, to be frank, I have a nephew who has a rare condition, one of five in Canada. Rare diseases and rare disease drugs are so important too, especially for my family.

There is a special process for Canadians to access rare disease drugs. There is an application process they can go through. On Trikafta, I believe over 200 Canadians, if I am not mistaken, have applied for that drug and have received it. We are investing $500 million into a rare disease drug strategy. We will be there for Canadians, especially our most vulnerable Canadians who are inflicted with a rare disease.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Madam Speaker, I was appreciative of the member's preamble about General Motors investing again in Canada, bringing jobs in the manufacturing sector back to us.

The opportunity for all strategy to reduce poverty includes employment and pay equity. The member was just getting into the pharmacare and the fact that our government was saving over $13 billion in drug costs for Canadians. We are working on dental care, but we need the provincial partners to be at the table with us.

Could the member comment on the complexity of getting pharmacare and our commitment to getting the job done?

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

Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely right. I am blessed to have Martinrea, a facility in my riding, employing almost 600 people in the auto parts plant.

With regard to pharmacare in our beautiful country in which we are blessed to live, we must deal with a fiscal federation. We must deal with the provinces on pharmacare. Each province has its own plan currently in place. We must negotiate with them. We have been doing so and we need to come to the table with a lot of good will, which we have. Our concrete actions in the last several years, including budget 2019, speak to the investment we will be making to ensure Canadians have access to affordable prescription drugs.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities]

Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to speak to the motion before the House today put forward by our colleagues in the NDP.

I believe there is much good in the motion and there is an opportunity for the government and NDP to reach common ground on many of the issues that it seeks to address.

In 2019, when voters elected a minority government, the clear message was that Canadians wanted us to work together on their behalf, to reach across the aisle and find a way to work together for all Canadians. I have appreciated the occasions on which the NDP has agreed to work with our government and on the side of Canadians to advance a number of key measures. I want to thank New Democrats for that.

I also know my colleagues in the NDP will remember just how quickly the government acted during the early days of the pandemic, in partnership with them, to pass legislation and get crucial supports to Canadians and to the businesses where they worked and relied upon. The pace of that effort was truly unprecedented, with parliamentarians and bureaucrats alike working around the clock.

Understanding the breathtaking complexity of getting that help to Canadians, it was astonishing to me that the NDP would pack an opposition day motion, a motion that is granted but a single day of debate in the House, with proposals and programs that would necessarily require far more time and far more consideration, and I would remind the NDP, proposals that would require the agreement of provincial and territorial governments.

In a single paragraph of fewer than 150 words to be considered for a single day in Parliament, the NDP is seeking to establish a wealth tax, a universal basic income, a dental care program, a pharmacare program and to immediately fund a housing program. All of this is in a single paragraph, fewer than 150 words, to be debated for a single day.

The lack of substance in the NDP motion makes it an unserious proposal on matters that are of profound seriousness. In fact, the motion is much more of a slogan than an action plan. It is a good thing, then, that the government is already executing an action plan on a number of these measures and making substantial progress.

Let us call the motion for what it is. It is a motion designed to grab a headline and perhaps to win social media likes. However, for the benefit of the record and for the benefit of those watching from home, let us stick to the facts instead.

This government has a strong, demonstrable record on fighting income inequality and on fighting poverty. As I have already said, there are areas where the government and the NDP share common ground and where I believe we could reach a positive outcome for the people who sent us here.

This government has a clear plan to implement national pharmacare. Since the very beginning of this Parliament, we have told the New Democrats that we are here to work with them on a national dental care program. After decades of inaction on housing at the federal level, our government has introduced Canada's first-ever national housing strategy, which has already helped over one million Canadians find a home, and that is just a start. These active Liberal programs are the major sound bites of the NDP motion.

Therefore, let us address each in greater detail now, beginning with income inequality.

Income inequality is a real issue in Canada. It is exactly why our government made as its central focus, supporting the middle class and those working hard to join it. We were elected on that very promise not once but twice, and it remains a key priority.

Since forming government, we have improved tax fairness by closing loopholes, eliminating tax breaks put in by the Conservatives that disproportionately benefited the wealthy and investing heavily to crack down on tax evasion and tax avoidance. Perhaps most significant is that one of our very first acts was to cut taxes for the middle class and raise them on the top 1%. That was a measure, by the way, that not only did the Conservatives vote against it but so too did the NDP.

Of course, there is more to do to build a more inclusive economy and make Canada a fairer, more equitable place. That is why the recent Speech from the Throne announced, among other initiatives, limiting the stock option deduction for wealthy individuals at large established corporations and fighting corporate tax avoidance by digital giants. Surely, this time around the NDP will find it can support the government on these ongoing efforts to fight income inequality.

Now I will turn to poverty reduction. I am on the record stating that I believe a universal basic income is something that the government ought to consider. I have worked diligently with my stakeholders in my riding of Halifax to bring the case to the relevant ministers. Our government has shown that it is committed to ensuring that Canadians have the financial support they need to keep food on the table and put a roof over their head.

For example, we introduced the Canada child benefit, which has since been celebrated as one of the most successful supports for low and middle-income families, putting more money, tax free, into the pockets of nine out of 10 Canadian families that need it most. Inexplicably, it was yet another measure that both the Conservatives and the NDP voted against.

As another example, we increased the guaranteed income supplement for low-income single seniors, improving the financial security of almost 900,000 seniors. We introduced the Canada housing benefit in partnership with provinces to provide direct financial support to help tenants cover their monthly rent.

Then in the depths of the pandemic, we came through for Canadians again. Nearly nine million Canadians received the Canada emergency response benefit, or CERB. Over 3.7 million workers were supported by the wage subsidy. Over 700,000 students received the Canada emergency student benefit. Millions of seniors and persons with disabilities received a special one-time payment to help them cover increased costs related to the pandemic.

Looking ahead, we still have the backs of Canadians as we forge a strong pandemic recovery. We have expanded EI, making it more generous and more accessible. We have introduced new benefits for those who will not qualify for EI but still need income support.

The Speech from the Throne announced our intention to introduce a Canadian disability benefit modelled after the guaranteed income supplement for seniors.

This government has been there for Canadians from the very start. We were by their side through the depths of the pandemic and we will continue to be there for them in the days ahead.

Let us turn now to national pharmacare and dental care as raised in today's motion.

Leaving aside the fact that this accounts for just 21 words in the motion, I remain puzzled as to why the NDP members would think this motion is a suitable vehicle to develop such programs. Of course, their leader has never fully grasped the constitutional division of power, as health care remains under the authority of provinces. This means we must work with our provincial partners on such programs.

To that end, we have been perfectly clear through the 2019 campaign and in the Speech from the Throne that we will implement national pharmacare. This remains a priority of the government and we will get it done.

A dental care program is also important. As I mentioned, we have already signalled to the NDP, from the very outset of this Parliament, that we will work with it on this program. These are important measures—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order, please. I want to ask the members in the House to hold onto their thoughts and ideas as opposed to shouting them out at this point. There is going to be five minutes for questions and answers, so I suggest members jot those down so they do not forget them.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I was not shouting out. I was trying to explain to the member for Hamilton Centre that the member for Halifax was making absolutely no sense. I could not hear him. I was actually trying to do your work—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

That is not a point of order. I would again ask the members to hold onto their thoughts. If they are not in agreement, they can raise that during questions and comments.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member for Timmins—James Bay ensuring I can be heard in the House.

These are important measures. We have alignment, but there is a proper course of action that accommodates the complexity of these programs and the constitutional duty we have with the other orders of government to respect their jurisdiction.

Finally, I want to speak about housing and indigenous housing in particular.

I began my tenure in the House as the chair of the Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee. I know that first nation communities feature some of the worst housing conditions in the country. Nearly 20% of indigenous people live in housing that needs major repairs and 20% live in housing that is overcrowded.

We took action right from the start. Our 2016 budget included nearly $600 million in new funding over three years to address pressing needs on reserve. These investments benefited hundreds of first nations, allowing the repair and renovation of thousands of housing units, while building housing knowledge, skills and expertise in those communities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made indigenous people living in poor housing conditions even more vulnerable. Therefore, our government took action, boosting investment in shelter spaces for indigenous women with $44.8 million over five years to build new shelters across the country. The recently launched rapid housing initiative is investing $1 billion to create up to 3,000 permanent affordable units for vulnerable populations across Canada, including indigenous people. First nations, Inuit and Métis organizations have already codeveloped with the government distinctions-based housing strategies that meet their unique housing needs and these are backed by total federal investments of $1.5 billion.

However, we need housing strategies that are for indigenous people by indigenous people. Our government is now focused on working with indigenous partners and housing providers to develop an urban indigenous housing strategy that will advance reconciliation and self-determination.

I close as I began. There is common ground on these important issues, but slogans disguised as motions do not get the job done; action does. It is my sincere hope that the NDP will support the action we are already taking and will be taking for the people of Canada who are counting on all of us to get it right.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for talking about indigenous housing. Right now we have a crisis going on, especially when it comes to urban indigenous housing. In the Alberni Valley, where I live, over a third of homeless people are indigenous.

The member cited creating a for indigenous by indigenous program, an urban, rural and northern housing strategy. Liberals have not been moving forward on that. We have been hearing from grassroots organizations that they want this plan to be developed.

We are also hearing from people who are living the experience. Alice Sam from Ahousaht was just quoted in the newspaper saying that a lot of these people are coming from a place of trauma and not from a place of wanting to disrupt. Therefore, those who are hard to house are not getting the support they need. This is outlined in both the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action and call to justice 4.7 of the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

The government has not followed through with its commitments for a plan or strategy, whether they are to the TRC or the calls to justice. It needs to do this. It needs to do this quickly. Lives are being lost and many people are vulnerable. In fact, many of them are ending up on the street, becoming prey to mental illness, addiction and the opioid crisis. Lives are being lost.

The government needs to stop talking. We need real action. The member talked about action. Let us see action.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his tremendous passion. It is a passion that I have great respect for and that I share on the matter of indigenous housing, and reconciliation overall.

One thing we learned at the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs is that the crisis we are facing today took generations and generations to create. We are not going to be able to fix it in two or three years. It is going to take time to build trust. It is going to take time to have the required dialogue, and it is going to take time to get into the fine details of design, tendering and construction. These things all take time, and they cannot be accomplished with a snap of the fingers.

Discussions with first nations are under way in earnest, and the national housing strategy, which will be putting $55 billion into this over 10 years, is going to go a long way.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member across the way mentioned the rapid housing initiative and has been speaking of housing in the north more broadly.

In my riding of Kenora in northwestern Ontario, we see many of these issues day after day. One of the things that concerned me when the rapid housing initiative was announced is that there seems to be a specific focus on urban centres when, meanwhile, northern rural regions and indigenous communities seem to have to fight for the rest of the funds.

I would ask the member why northern Canada and indigenous communities, more specifically, weren't offered a specific stream as part of this initiative.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate very much that this is my first opportunity to have an interaction with the member for Kenora in the House, and I am grateful for that.

The rapid housing initiative is a $1-billion fund that has two main streams of $500 million each. The first $500 million is going to 15 Canadian cities, as the member suggested. Those cities were identified based on their high levels of homelessness, the high level of precarious housing among renters and other factors. That is where the pain was being felt the most.

The other $500 million is available throughout the country. Any community or housing organization has access to those funds in the project stream.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, we heard the member talk about and plead for, actually, the New Democrats to work with Liberals, yet every step of the way their policies have been a dream deferred.

What does the member for Halifax have to say to folks from Gottingen or Uniacke Square, the people who are waiting for housing and these types of social programs, when he and his government decide to vote against universal pharmacare, universal dental care and housing?

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, I am honoured that the member has taken the care and time to get to know some of the African Nova Scotian communities that I have the privilege to represent.

I can tell the member what I tell them, because I speak to them every week, and oftentimes more than once a week. I tell them that I am there to listen to them. I am here to connect them with the programs, which we have worked so hard to create, that will benefit their communities and that have already benefited communities in Halifax.

There is more work to be done. I continue to spend a great deal of time and energy with those in the African Nova Scotian community in Halifax to help them be the very best they can be in terms of the economy, cultural recognition and all they aspire to be.

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

Madam Speaker, I will start off by saying I will be splitting my time with the member for Timmins—James Bay.

I am really here today to talk about the issue of fairness. It is a bit disheartening to listen to some of the speeches from the government members right now. For example, in the last speech the member talked about housing. We know that over 90% of the funding for housing has gone specifically to Ontario, and B.C., the province I represent, got less than 1% of that funding. I can tell members that in British Columbia, the issues around housing are dire.

Today we are talking about a motion that is a vision to move forward. It is about fairness. If nothing else, COVID—19 has revealed, in a new and terrible way, the vulnerability of so many people in all of our communities. In my office we receive phone calls daily from people who are struggling. They are small business owners doing everything they can to survive, seniors, single parents, persons living with disabilities, families, single people and so many more.

When I talk to those people they are worried. They are fearful of the future and not feeling very hopeful because there is just not enough for them to get by on.

This is not the reality for everyone in Canada. I think when we look at what we are talking about today, that is what we need to focus on. This is about fairness and addressing the disparity between the very wealthy in this country and everyone else. We now know that over this period very wealthy people have become $37 billion richer. They are making record profits during this pandemic.

We think of Galen Weston, the owner of Loblaws. His wealth went up by $1.6 billion while his company cancelled hazard pay benefits to grocery store workers in June. These workers, who are, as so many in this place have said today, the unsung heroes of the pandemic, have some of the lowest incomes. They are being paid at a wage they cannot even survive on.

Jim Pattison's grocery store chains cut back pandemic pay while his wealth increased by $1.7 billion during the pandemic. Chip Wilson, Vancouver real estate investor and Lululemon founder, saw his fortune stretch another $2.8 billion. This is while so many are struggling just to make ends meet, to pay rent, to put a bit of food on the table for their family, and when people are running out of housing.

In August, the owner of Amazon became the first person to amass a net worth of over $200 billion. That was up from a mere $113 billion back in March. Amazon is not even paying taxes in Canada, but its workers are being exploited, and the benefits to that company are fundamentally huge.

This is a story of injustice that the NDP wants to start addressing. If we can find $12 million to help Loblaws purchase fridges, maybe we could find some money to actually invest in programs and supports that are going to take the most vulnerable Canadians and give them a hand-up, because they definitely need that.

I also want to address something I heard from members of the government today. Again, they were talking about how the NDP did not support the tax cut to the middle class. Let us be really clear. The motion that was made in this House made sure that people making $47,000 or less would get zero, and people making above that, up to $100,000 a year, got some tax money back.

I do not know how the Liberals experience the world, but the majority of the people in my riding feel that $47,000 is a good income, and they deserve to get a little back because they work hard every single day to support our communities. There are a lot of very wealthy companies making a lot of money from the hard work they put in every day. It is my opinion we should be in this place fighting for their rights and their justice and making sure they have a fundamental right to move forward in their lives without all of these barriers.

I represent a rural and remote riding. In my area, fisheries and forestry have been the backbones of our economy for a very long time, and they are struggling. Fisheries are struggling because there are so many decisions made by DFO and the minister without any meaningful consultation or joint problem solving. Then we have the forestry sector, which is incredibly strong, but just before COVID started it went through a long and painful strike.

All of these communities in my riding that took a breath in, thinking, “Oh, thank goodness, the strike is over” were immediately hit with COVID. Resource communities work really hard. They built this country, and they are always left behind.

As I watch these big companies grow richer and richer off the backs of the people working every day in my riding, members better believe I am going to stand up and talk about fairness and justice for my constituents.

Looking at pharmacare, I want to remind the government members who are getting up to talk about their great dedication and how these things take time that 23 years ago the Liberals promised they would move forward with the pharmacare program. They have still not done it.

One in five Canadians, that is 7.5 million people in this country, have either no prescription drug insurance at all or inadequate insurance to cover their medication needs. What that means is one in five Canadian households, just in this past year, report a family member who did not take their prescribed medication because they simply could not afford it.

I was recently contacted by a constituent in my riding. She earns a low income, and she has worked hard her whole life. She has just been diagnosed with diabetes and cannot afford her medication. Another constituent just contacted my office and his partner has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The medication, even with his insurance, is over $1,000 a month.

When I look at what has happened in the last few months with COVID, dispensing fees have increased because people are not able to take the full amount of medication they are used to. Instead of three months, it is down to one month. That means seniors and low-income families are really struggling, because they cannot afford those extra dispensing fees. Some of us have the privilege of thinking that is a small fee, that we can pay that. However, for low-income families, that is not a small fee.

Canada should not be a country where a doctor can take someone into their office and diagnose them with something, and they walk out of the office not being able to afford that medication.

Let us talk about dental care. Let us talk about a vision where people actually get the dental care they deserve. The PBO costed out our dental care program, and it would save money. It would be reasonable to cost. I think about how many people contacted me when we put forward this idea. I was actually shocked. I knew it was an issue, but until we actually started talking about it, I did not know to what degree.

In one of my communities, a local dentist organized a bunch of dentists to come together one day a year, to work on people's teeth. The lineup starts at 6:00 a.m. and is so long they have yet to get through it. The need is dire, and this is a matter of justice.

When we talk about a guaranteed basic livable income, which is another very important issue because it really targets the people who need it. Yesterday I had the pleasure to host a virtual town hall on seniors with Laura Tamblyn Watts from CanAge and Isobel Mackenzie, the B.C. seniors advocate.

What we heard, again and again, is that poverty for seniors is increasing. The government gave a one-time payment of $300 for seniors who are receiving OAS, and an extra $200 for those receiving GIS. The members of our community, the seniors of our community receiving the guarantee income supplement desperately need more than just a one-time payment of $200. I would even recommend a full $500 should be given to help these people, just to have a common sense of dignity.

I look at housing for seniors. We just had a new homeless bridging house set up in our community in Campbell River. There are only 20 beds and over 70 applications. The majority of the applicants are seniors who are begging for a place to stay. I think about Port Hardy in my riding, which is working so hard to get some housing for seniors so it can keep them in the northern part of the riding. All of that work is being done independently of any support.

I think of the poverty law advocacy program in Powell River that let us know they have seniors coming in again and again because they cannot fight the system. This is unacceptable in our country.

I hope that the people in this House understand that this is a vision for moving forward that will give absolute supports to the people who deserve it. We will hold to account those big corporations that are making profits from a pandemic. It is the right thing to do. I hope people will stand up for it, because it is certainly time.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate some of the comments the member has put on the record.

I, too, would like to see a lot of things happen. It does become a bit of a challenge at times, in terms of being able to make it happen. Let me give a specific example and follow it with a question.

I am sure the member is fully aware that in order to maximize the benefits of a national pharmacare program, the provinces have to be onside. If the provinces are not onside, the benefits of a pharmacare program cannot be maximized.

Does the member believe, as I do, that there is a responsibility for Ottawa to work with provinces to try to develop the best national pharmacare program possible for Canadians?

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

Madam Speaker, I think it is absolutely imperative. My problem is it has been 23 years. I am sure the Liberals could have worked it out with the provinces if they had started when they promised it.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I applaud the member opposite's passion for her community and for her citizens, but I have come to one of the revenue provisions that has been contemplated: the taxation of excess profits.

My question is twofold. First, is there a working definition that has been embedded in the motion, or is there one that is being contemplated? Second, what would that cover? Would it cover something like an item being sold for $10,000 more than its $13,000 value, such as something like ventilators? Is that what is being contemplated?