Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to join the debate today. I am joining from Brockville, Ontario.
We are discussing a very important matter. The measures that are proposed in our opposition day motion have been mentioned by the previous speakers and my colleagues, and they are incredibly important. The reason they are important is that we are hearing from businesses about the growing uncertainty that we have moving into 2021.
The year 2020 has been unprecedented, and it has required the government to move fast. The current government has enjoyed unprecedented support from the official opposition. There was, perhaps, a risk at some point this year that we might have to change the name of the official opposition, because we unanimously agreed to so much of what the government put forward so that we could quickly help Canadians.
However, in that process we also proposed a number of changes to the proposed legislation that we believe would have been of better service to Canadians and to businesses. In some cases, they were not adopted by the government, and in other cases they were. An example of the types of proposals we made that we now know, at the first introduction by the government, would have been helpful to Canadians writ large is the CERB back to work bonus, which we proposed as one measure. Of course, giving Canadians the opportunity to earn beyond the lowest threshold, while getting them back to work and allowing businesses to continue to operate, would have been immensely helpful to businesses.
The same is true of the first iteration of the emergency wage subsidy. It was originally proposed at 10%, but requests by the opposition for that amount to be raised to 75% has likely had the greatest effect on businesses and Canadians' livelihoods and lives from coast to coast to coast. I hear from my constituents that the 75% number has been the difference. Not every business has been able to access that program, but this is the type of program that was responsive to the calls of business groups and independent businesses. I am very pleased that was one change the government made.
The Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program was quite flawed and underutilized in its initial iteration. Businesses were frustrated by that. The relaunch of that, following the suggestions and the intervention of the opposition, resulted in a program that will hopefully be able to allow more businesses to stay open and to keep the lights on, but for many that assistance will come too late.
When we are moving so quickly on all of these programs, and speed was a necessity in 2020 to help address these gaps, some of the mistakes that were made were made while there were better options and other perspectives at the table. We had questions around the emergency rent assistance program and how it ended up with CMHC as its administrator, and questions around connections and conflicts of interest, when it had been proposed, at the time, that the CRA ought to be able to administer the program.
The same is true with the now famous and scandal-plagued summer employment program proposed by the government. It was widely panned by folks who work in that industry. At the same time, Conservatives were calling for more funds to be invested in the Canada summer jobs program, which is a successful program.
While we were moving quickly, the government, in a few instances, looked like it wanted to reinvent the wheel, instead of investing, with the support of the opposition, in existing programs and leveraging Canada's public service, which was able to ultimately, in the end, deliver on those programs anyway.
At the beginning of the pandemic there was concern among opposition parties and Canadians when there was a proposal by the government to be able to tax and spend without parliamentary oversight. We could only look to the government's better angels and imagine it wanted to move quickly and was worried that it would not have opposition support; however, the government continued to enjoy opposition support after we were able to draw the attention of Canadians to that troubling matter.
I raise that issue because we find ourselves now at the end of the year, in December. It is hard to believe it is December. We had an opportunity this summer, when the official opposition, the Conservative opposition, called for the House to continue to meet throughout the summer in a hybrid format, as it is meeting today, to deal not just with COVID-related measures but with the business of the House. I have heard concerns from government members about the opposition slowing down legislation, when in fact the opposition proposed that the government continue to operate and meet throughout the summer.
At the end of the summer, and the four days that we ended up having for these special sittings of the House, Parliament was prorogued for six weeks. During those six weeks, let alone the summer period, there would have been all kinds of time for the finance, government operations or other committees to review the spending to date and the planned spending going forward. That is not what we saw. That gives my colleagues and me pause. Canadians wonder who is keeping an eye on the register while all this is going on.
Once we did come back, following prorogation, we had a more than 30-hour filibuster at the finance committee with respect to a question of privilege. This was not an ideological difference between members. This was very much a procedural issue that bogged down a committee that should have been doing a lot of heavy lifting during the pandemic, when businesses and individuals were looking for real support from the government and looking for Canada's parliamentarians to do the heavy lifting.
We know rapid testing would have been a real boon to businesses and to the economy, to be able to bolster testing efforts and to track and trace COVID-19 throughout this year. We were slow. As a country, we were slow to get those tests out to the provinces. Today, we heard good news. There is going to be a very limited release of COVID vaccine in Canada, but Canadians wonder what the timetable looks like for next year. When are they going to be vaccinated? Who is going to be vaccinated first? How are those vaccines going to be administered? We are looking for a plan from the government on those measures.
While we are expecting the government to be able to deliver in response specifically to the pandemic with things like rapid testing and vaccine distribution, we are also looking for it to turn its eye to the small businesses that have had an incredibly difficult year, an unparalleled year with respect to how bad it was. We need the government to take a look at planned tax increases for small businesses, hit the pause button, let people catch their breath and let businesses start to earn in what we hope to see in 2021: a return to normal, as vaccines roll out and we better understand COVID-19.
This is really the nature of what we are looking for regarding this opposition day motion. When we look at increases to CPP, the carbon tax and planned escalator taxes, businesses want to see a signal from the government that Canada's Parliament has their backs. Canada's official opposition, the Conservatives, want to let businesses know we do have their backs and we are looking for all members in the House to join us in sending that very important signal to Canadian businesses.
With that, I believe my time is running out. I am thankful for the opportunity, and I look forward to taking questions from colleagues.