House of Commons Hansard #28 of the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was deal.

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

HousingAdjournment Proceedings

6:30 p.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Mr. Speaker, when I rose to ask the Prime Minister about the failures of his national housing strategy, including the glaring absence of a housing strategy that would be led by indigenous people for rural, urban and northern indigenous people, I received the usual meaningless talking points, despite the Liberals pledge in 2017 with the introduction of the national housing strategy to address the housing crisis for Inuit, Métis and first nations people.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development even said on the public record that the Liberals were committed to a separate national urban indigenous housing strategy by and for urban indigenous people. However, years later there is still no action.

Aboriginal people in Canada are 10 times more likely than non-aboriginal people to become homeless. When I pointed out that 40% of the homeless population in Vancouver was indigenous people, the Prime Minister was busy patting himself on the back with self-congratulatory rhetoric that I do not even think he realized how severe the housing crisis was and how grossly disproportionate it was effecting urban, rural and northern indigenous communities.

Across the country, indigenous peoples are experiencing the highest levels of poverty, with a shocking 25% of indigenous people living in poverty, despite making up only 5% of Canada's population. High poverty rates for indigenous people are part of the continued legacy of colonization. Ignoring the housing crisis they are facing will only result in having these numbers increase and further perpetuate the impact of colonization.

With a staggering 87% of indigenous households not living on reserve lands, we need to have an affordable housing strategy to address the needs of indigenous people living in the rural, urban and northern parts of Canada. It is a matter of urgency requiring immediate action that is consistent with international human rights law.

This strategic approach must be founded upon cultural-based practice and action, led by indigenous people for indigenous people. No more kicking the can down the road. Canadians need to see the allocation of the necessary funds to support the national housing strategy in budget 2020 and action for a urban, rural and northern indigenous housing strategy led by and for indigenous peoples. The government promised to do better, Canadians expected better and the government must do better.

HousingAdjournment Proceedings

6:30 p.m.

Spadina—Fort York Ontario

Liberal

Adam Vaughan LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families

Mr. Speaker, we all agree. I am very proud to have helped move the motions at committee to start the process of driving forward an urban, rural and northern indigenous housing strategy to make sure that people that are governed outside the Indian Act, close to 87% in my province but 80% across the country who live outside of the national indigenous organizations governance structures, have their housing needs met. They need to be met now. They needed to have been met years ago.

I am proud to be part of a government that not only passed the national housing strategy, which incorporates the move towards self-directed, self-designed and self-delivered indigenous housing programs in this area but also has started to make profound investments in that very same space.

Our 2016 budget included $564.7 million in new funding over the next three years to address pressing needs in 464 first nations communities. We have also, as part of the 10-year housing strategy and part of the reaching home strategy, for the first time carved out an indigenous stream, which is indigenous-led, indigenous-designed and indigenous-delivered in communities right across this country.

We did something else which is profoundly important. In areas where homelessness is high and the point-in-time counts show a strong indigenous population unfortunately is being over-represented, we have started to convert even the designated communities to indigenous leadership so that indigenous housing providers can provide support for those communities right across the country from coast to coast to coast.

In Vancouver, in B.C.'s Lower Mainland, the community entity that manages the funds for that part of the country and the community advisory board is now being led by indigenous leadership and indigenous housing providers precisely because we recognize their expertise but also their cultural capacity to deliver better services for people that are homeless.

As I said, the government committed in mandate letters to the Minister of Northern Affairs, to the minister that I work for, and also to the minister of indigenous infrastructure to deliver an indigenous-led urban, rural and northen housing strategy. Those dollars will be building upon investments that we have made already as part of the national housing strategy. In fact, $225 million over the last three years has been invested specifically here.

We did one other thing that I am also very proud of and that is we made sure that CMHC stops its practice which it has been conducting over the previous decades of disqualifying indigenous applications as they came forward by saying that the applicant has to go to INAC, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, to get money. All applications, indigenous and non-indigenous, that come forward to serve indigenous communities are now incorporated into the national housing strategy under all of the $55-billion program. We are having real success with that.

We also negotiated accords with the provinces and territories across this country a responsibility for those provincial accords to address indigenous housing in off-reserve areas, including supports to sustain the existing program and existing rental supports that are needed to make and sustain affordable communities for indigenous people. We also made sure that capital dollars were allocated in that area.

The member is correct. This is an area that is going to require this Parliament to act with great deliberation and to make substantial investments.

It is unfortunate that the NDP platform does not mention indigenous housing in urban spaces at all. It also is unfortunate that the three different letters that have been posted by the leader never once mention indigenous housing, not specifically and not intentionally.

I am glad that the member opposite has raised this issue and has driven this issue forward to make sure that her party takes this issue seriously. I look forward to her support at committee and her support of the federal budget and support of the findings that our government will produce to show the way forward.

We can solve this crisis. If we do not solve the crisis of urban, rural and northern homelessness, if we do not have a self-directed fourth pillar in the indigenous housing programs of this country, we will never solve homelessness and we will never achieve reconciliation and we will never achieve the dreams of decolonization that the member talked about.

Our government is committed to achieving this. I am committed to achieving this. I look forward to working with members opposite to make sure the dollars flow, the housing is built and people are cared for.

HousingAdjournment Proceedings

6:35 p.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Mr. Speaker, "There is a specific kind of hypocrisy when government over-promises but continues to under-deliver, which serves nothing more than to damage an already fraught relationship. In the emerging political momentum on tackling the indigenous housing crisis and homelessness, urban and rural indigenous stakeholders cannot be an afterthought in the process." That is a direct quote from Marc Maracle, the Gignul Non-Profit Housing Corporation representative.

The comments from the parliamentary secretary, while political, do not serve the work that needs to be done. The fact remains the government ignored and did not even see the need to address the urban, rural and northern indigenous communities' homelessness crisis. Now it is talking about it but that talk has gone on for years and years and it is now time to act.

The NDP is always ready to see action become reality. We will be at the table at every turn, pushing the government until indigenous communities in urban, rural and northern communities are housed.

HousingAdjournment Proceedings

6:35 p.m.

Liberal

Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON

Mr. Speaker, let me be crystal clear. The $2.2 billion reaching home program has a specific indigenous-led homelessness component to it that specifically addresses the needs, goals and aspirations of indigenous housing providers fighting homelessness right across the country.

Additionally, we have put $55 billion into housing. Those housing dollars are available to all indigenous housing providers across this country on an equal terms basis.

That is a foreshadowing to the important work we have to do to set up a fourth, distinct and deliberately intentional funding formula that builds on the $225 million we have already invested, without the help of the New Democrats, who never promised a penny of this in their platform and have never asked for a penny of this in any of their budget submissions. We have put those dollars into play, which are building properties right now. I was in Vernon, B.C., where I opened an indigenous elders' seniors residence. I have worked in Sturgeon Falls, where we have produced new housing. I have been here in Ottawa with the Inuit community. We have also delivered new housing as a direct result of the investments to the national housing strategy.

There is no hypocrisy here. There was action, an investment and a commitment to work for even better results in this Parliament.

Natural ResourcesAdjournment Proceedings

6:40 p.m.

NDP

Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC

Mr. Speaker, last December I asked the Prime Minister about the financial situation surrounding the Trans Mountain pipeline. As most Canadians know, the government now owns this pipeline, having bought it in 2018. We paid $4.5 billion for the pipeline, a price that has most charitably been characterized as being at the higher end of the valuation range. By other analysts, it was considered overpriced by a billion dollars or more.

I asked that question because the Parliamentary Budget Officer had just reported that the pipeline was losing money. To be accurate, it actually posted a small profit in 2019 due to, according to the PBO report, tax recoveries due to negative earnings before taxes and changes in the provincial corporate tax rate. Therefore, the taxpayers, particularly those in Alberta, continue to subsidize this project.

In my question I also mentioned the analysis of Trans Mountain's financial situation by economist Robyn Allan. She found that the tolls charged by the pipeline only covered about a third of the cost of running it, and that these tolls were constrained by the way Canada had bought the pipeline, through shares instead of capital assets.

The Prime Minister answered with two familiar narratives. He said that Canada needed access to new oil markets outside the United States, and even after I had explained why there would be no profits for Trans Mountain, the Prime Minister said that all those profits would go to “nature-based solutions and new technologies”.

I will say briefly that all analysts would agree that almost all the oil that may flow one day through the Trans Mountain expansion pipeline will go to the United States, not Asia, since it is in the U.S. that the best opportunities for bitumen lie. The narrative that the government and industry are spinning about the need for pipelines to tidewater is not at all accurate.

I want to spend the rest of my time explaining why the Trans Mountain expansion project will result in little or no profits for shippers or the government. The government has been saying for months that tax revenues will increase by $500 million per year once the expanded pipeline is in place. That assumption is wildly incorrect for two reasons. First, it was based on an estimated project cost of $5.4 billion and, as I will mention shortly, that figure has changed a bit. Second, it is also based on the incorrect assumption that all the oil production in western Canada would benefit from better prices produced by having a pipeline to tidewater.

As we have all heard, there is often a considerable differential between the price of oil received by some producers in western Canada and the general world price. That differential is caused by shipping constraints when refineries are shut down for maintenance or pipelines are shut off to fix leaks, so a bigger pipeline would help eliminate that differential. However, according to Natural Resources Canada, the differential only affects about 30% of oil produced in Canada, so profits would only increase theoretically for about 30% of oil producers, and even those profits are at risk because of the rising costs of the project.

I asked a second question on Trans Mountain a few weeks ago when the company announced the price of the expansion had gone up from $5.4 billion to $12.6 billion, and as project costs skyrocket, profits for the companies that have pledged to use the pipeline quickly vanish. They go down because a portion of the pipeline shipping toll fees for those producers is linked to the costs of the project. As the tolls go up, profits go down, and if the cost is truly $13 billion, they essentially vanish. It is those non-existent profits that would theoretically generate the tax revenues the Prime Minister would want to use to fight climate change.

Natural ResourcesAdjournment Proceedings

6:40 p.m.

Central Nova Nova Scotia

Liberal

Sean Fraser LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance and to the Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance

Mr. Speaker, as always, I appreciate the question and commentary from my colleague, who I know cares deeply not just about this project but about the environment more broadly.

As has been canvassed in this House many times, the Trans Mountain project matters to Canada. There are a number of reasons for that, but if we acknowledge that the oil and gas sector is a part of the Canadian economy that cannot be shut off overnight, we should do what we can to maximize the economic return while our energy producers are continuing to take part in employing Canadians and growing the economy. That said, we have to recognize that we are in the midst of a massive transition toward a low-carbon economy, and there cannot be a higher priority for the government.

With respect to the project, despite some of the issues that were raised by my colleague, we are confident that the project remains commercially viable. There is going to be a serious economic return from this project, although it was sort of dismissed. The fact remains that because we sell primarily to customers in one country, the United States, diversifying the markets these products could be sold into, whether they end up in the United States or in Asian markets, will create a competition in the marketplace that will increase the price, which will not only create economic returns on this specific project but will pay off across the energy sector more broadly. That does not even touch on the fact that thousands of Canadians in a part of the country that is deeply concerned about its local economy will now be working on this project.

I know there was some criticism on the basis that this was treated as some sort of a subsidy. The original question giving rise to the remarks this evening referred to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. I just came back from a finance committee meeting where the Parliamentary Budget Officer confirmed that in fact this is the purchase of an asset, not a subsidy.

The costs have changed over time, but that is because this project is different from what it was in 2017. We have put in place higher standards for environmental protection. We have engaged in a meaningful way with indigenous communities, and there are going to be more union jobs on this project as a result of some of the changes. If those come at a cost, the arm's-length Trans Mountain Corporation will need to recognize that it needs to meet the standard that the Federal Court has recognized is appropriate for this case.

To summarize, this project is proceeding in the right way. With regard to indigenous communities in particular, there are now 58 agreements with indigenous communities that represent over $500 million in benefits. When the project is complete, the contract awards will exceed $1 billion. Importantly, every dollar of profit, whether from the operation or the eventual sale of this project, is going to go to the transition toward a green economy.

The original question was critical, asking why we would do this when we could be doing that. It ignores the fact that we have invested about $70 billion toward the clean transition and have advanced Canada's first-ever national plan to combat climate change. It includes, of course, putting a price on pollution, investing in energy efficiency that will see 90% of our electricity generated from non-emitting sources by the end of the decade, massive investments in the transition toward electric vehicles, the single largest investment to protect nature in the history of Canada, new investments in research and innovation, and a phase-out of coal by the year 2030, to name but a few of the items that we are pursuing.

The fact is that the project remains in the national interest. We know it will put Canadians to work, but importantly, we have not taken our eye off the ball of the need to transition to a low-carbon economy. That remains at the top of our priority list as a government.

Natural ResourcesAdjournment Proceedings

6:45 p.m.

NDP

Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC

Mr. Speaker, I will finish by pointing out two things.

First is the obvious change in the world oil market that has happened over the past few days. The world price is now hovering around $30 a barrel. Oil sands projects are not economical at those prices, and there is no indication that those prices will increase back to levels where they will be economical.

Second, according to recent polls, Canadians are increasingly opposed to the Trans Mountain expansion, especially as they see the cost rise to astronomical levels. In B.C., more people now oppose the project than support it.

How much will Canadians pay for the Trans Mountain expansion? Why does the government not abandon this expansion and instead invest those billions into projects that will put people to work in good jobs right now, instead of waiting for some mythical tax profits to magically appear?

Those increased taxes are not going to materialize, they are not going to provide any money to create the good jobs that western Canadians need now, and they are not going to provide money to do the good things around climate action that need to be done right now.

Natural ResourcesAdjournment Proceedings

6:45 p.m.

Liberal

Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS

Mr. Speaker, with respect, we maintain that the project remains economically viable, and we intend to eventually divest this project into the private sector. I expect the very likely outcome that it will actually do better than break even and will turn a profit. Based on the economics, despite the recent short-term change to the price per barrel of oil, which is having a serious economic impact on the world economy, this particular project does remain viable.

The hon. member finished his commentary by saying there is a need to take action on climate change. I could not agree more. The fact is we have invested more than any government in the history of Canada toward measures that will actually fight climate change and protect our environment. I could list a few of them.

I look forward to sharing the measures that will be contained in the upcoming federal budget and that hopefully will be implemented in this Parliament. They will position Canada as a world leader in the fight against climate change. Anything less would, quite rightly, fall short of the expectations that Canadians have of our government.

International TradeAdjournment Proceedings

6:50 p.m.

NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening, after a full day of debate on the Canada-United States-Mexico trade agreement, to follow up on a question I asked in question period some time ago around the provisions protecting Canadian businesses, which see U.S. government procurement as an important part of their business, from the buy America policy.

We are told that these agreements are all about unfettered access to markets, yet there are companies like New Flyer, which manufactures buses in, among other places, Transcona, that have to shift jobs from manufacturing facilities in Canada to the Untied States because the U.S. content requirement for things like buses increases under the buy America policy.

I am hoping that a representative of the government can explain tonight the rules, if there are any, that protect Canadian businesses from the buy America policy. In the event that there is no preferential access for Canadians with respect to American government procurement, what reciprocal limitations are put on U.S. businesses applying for government procurement contracts in Canada?

International TradeAdjournment Proceedings

6:50 p.m.

Mississauga Centre Ontario

Liberal

Omar Alghabra LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister (Public Service Renewal) and to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs

Mr. Speaker, the question my hon. colleague from Elmwood—Transcona asked is timely because today we started debating third reading of Bill C-4. Hopefully the bill will be passed in this Parliament with the support of all political parties in the House, including the NDP. I want to thank the member and his colleagues for their support.

The issue of buy America is very important. Our Prime Minister and our Deputy Prime Minister, who at the time was Minister of Foreign Affairs, have been very public and vocal about our intent and desire to resolve this issue with our American friends. There has not been a public or a private opportunity that the Deputy Prime Minister has not raised this issue. In fact, we utilized the support we have from team Canada, which includes provincial premiers, legislators in the House of Commons, senators, and governors in the United States, to make sure we sent a strong message to our friends in the United States.

Last summer I attended the National Governors Association conference in Utah and I had a chance to meet with several governors. Some of them were surprised to learn that 34 out of the 50 states have Canada as their number one customer. In fact, all 50 states have Canada as their number one, number two or number three customer. We made every effort to remind our friends in the United States that it is important to treat Canadian businesses with equal access to economic opportunities, because doing so is not only in the best interest of Canadian workers and Canadian businesses; it also serves the interests of American businesses and American workers.

International TradeAdjournment Proceedings

6:50 p.m.

NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I will start by quickly noting that the NDP's support for this particular iteration of the deal was contingent upon some successful negotiation with the government on things that we think are important in going ahead on trade policy. Also, a number of the things we think are laudable about the agreement were secured not by our government but by American politicians, which is too bad, frankly, because we would like to see the Canadian government as a champion of things we support.

In the parliamentary secretary's answer, I did not hear a definition of the rules that apply to Canadian businesses applying for American government procurement work and vice versa. I wonder if he would be willing to follow up in a letter and outline what rules govern the application for procurement projects from parties of one country to another, going each way. I would appreciate a letter to that effect.

International TradeAdjournment Proceedings

6:50 p.m.

Liberal

Omar Alghabra Liberal Mississauga Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague again for his support and also for raising this important issue, because I know that it is very important to many Canadian businesses and workers.

I want to take a moment to remind the member and colleagues here in the House that we were negotiating with an American president who wanted to limit trade and make it very difficult to access a free flow of products and services between our two countries. It was a challenge at times, but we persisted. We insisted on protecting the interests of Canadian businesses and workers, and we reached a good deal.

That said, there is still a lot of work to be done, and just as we have collaborated on Bill C-4, I look forward to continuing to collaborate with our colleagues in the NDP to achieve an even better agreement in the future.

International TradeAdjournment Proceedings

6:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton

The motion that the House do now adjourn is deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6:56 p.m.)