Debates of June 17th, 2020

Supplementary Estimates (A)

[The Deputy Chair, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Chair, I must reiterate the points made by my opposition colleagues and add my voice in protest to the current process we find ourselves in.

Normally, standing committees of the House of Commons would meet to discuss the portion of the estimates relevant to their portfolios. Committee members can then approve, reduce or deny any provision in the estimates. Indeed, this is a foundational element of why we have Parliament in the first place.

Now we are in committee of the whole, for a maximum of four hours, where no amendments are possible. We are forced to vote yes or no to the entire package the Liberal government has thrust upon us. I find it completely unacceptable that the President of the Treasury Board said in his remarks today that we have maximum transparency.

Before us are some of the most important decisions in the history of our country. Indeed, look at what happened at the UN today. This is not how our parliamentary democracy is supposed to work. The disregard from the government today, and, by extension, the disregard it has shown all Canadians, cannot be understated.

Let us meet all summer. Let us restore Canadians' faith in our federal legislature. Let us do the job we were elected to do. I wanted to make that point before turning to my questions.

My first question relates to public safety in the estimates.

I noticed that Canada's CORCAN revolving fund is aimed to draw from the consolidated revenue fund. It has increased from $5 million to $20 million. This fund is intended to provide employment and training opportunities to reintegrate offenders into Canadian society.

From the time this fund was created in 1992 until present, Canada's total prison population has not increased by more than 10,000 inmates. Fortunately, on a per capita basis, Canada's prison numbers are steadily decreasing. Why, then, does the funding envelope need to be quadrupled?

Could the Minister of Public Safety speak to this matter directly as it relates to the federal institutions in my riding? I am not saying I am opposed to this. I am just seeking some clarification on why the funding quadrupled.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Madam Chair, the Correctional Service of Canada is committed to protecting the safety and health of staff, inmates and the public during these unprecedented times. CORCAN operates through a revolving fund. This provides it with a line of credit so that it can buy inventory ahead of time that will allow it to fulfill contracts with clients. This line of credit is currently set at $5 million. Given the COVID-19 situation, we need to increase that line of credit to up to $20 million because the Correctional Service of Canada has more inventory on hand that it has not yet sold.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Chair, I am thankful for that clarification.

My second question relates to the student summer grant.

The student service grant is slated to get almost $1 billion, but despite being announced in April, the program is still not available. Is it the government's intention to wait until summer is over before allowing students to apply for summer volunteer jobs?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Minister of Employment]

Madam Chair, as I have said previously, in the upcoming days we are going to open up the I Want to Volunteer portal, which will give students the opportunity to be paired with summer service opportunities. We wanted to make sure that we did not burden non-profits. Obviously, in this time of the COVID pandemic their resources are stretched. We wanted to make sure that we had a strong support network for non-profits and students so that—

[The Deputy Chair, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon has time for one more question before we go to his colleague.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Chair, I see a $418-million fund for payments to establish a COVID-19 emergency support fund for cultural, heritage and sports organizations. How much of this fund has been used? Are phase one funds fully allocated? What is the state of the phase two rollout? Will the government commit to tabling a breakdown by riding of the organizations that receive funding?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages]

Madam Chair, obviously we believe in the importance of arts and culture. Contrary to the past government, we decided to really help the sector because artists right now do not necessarily have jobs and a lot of theatres are closed, so $500 million is there to help them, and they also have access to CERB as they do not have access to a job right now.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Madam Chair, I have a question for the Minister of Transport, for whom I have a lot of respect.

The expenditure here is listed as $264.6 million for Via Rail. I was just wondering if the minister could give us an idea of what that would cover in this period of time.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Madam Chair, it is a standard procedure that we provide initially, at the beginning of the year, funding that we then supplement. It is merely to cover its operating costs.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Madam Chair, in addition to that, there is $312 million to CATSA. There are a number of little notes there. Can the minister provide a breakdown of what that would cover as well?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Madam Chair, it is a very similar situation. It is to cover operating expenses as the year goes on. Some of it will be used to purchase full-body scanners, something that CATSA requires for security purposes.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Madam Chair, there were announcements on March 11 and April 23 in regard to dollars allocated for research, such as $29 million to human health therapeutics. With all of those, does the Government of Canada own any of the proprietary rights that may come out of the research, a possible vaccine, etc.?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Madam Chair, I would suggest to the member opposite that it is in Canada's best interests that we work with pharmaceutical companies and with researchers to ensure that we are at the cutting edge of research. That is why we have been making these investments, to make sure that Canada is well prepared to take advantage of what comes forward.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Madam Chair, at this point in the whole process I, like others, am frustrated by this. It has been going on for a long time. The fact is that I have asked three questions and got zero answers. I think I asked them in a polite manner. My colleague from Ottawa asked the minister a question in regard to the UN Security Council and did not get any answers.

All I can say is that if it is a good investment, they can tell us what it is. If it is $40 million to get a UN security seat, let us know. If we are putting money into Via Rail, let us know. How much is for new trains? How much is for maintenance? How much is for labour?

That is all we are trying to ask here. It is not that we are trying to slip anyone up or anything. It is just a respectful question to try to get a good answer, so if we are going to go through the process, how about we just get some real answers? I think we can handle them, and if they are good investments, let us support them.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Minister of Innovation]

Madam Chair, I want to thank the hon. member for the way he presented his questions. He is absolutely correct. The investments we have made, particularly when it comes to vaccines and therapeutics, are designed to support Canadian solutions.

That is why we invested $175 million for AbCellera, a biotech company out of Vancouver that is working on identifying antibodies. Ultimately, it actually identified one antibody for a drug therapy.

That is the type of investment that we are making, which will benefit not only Canadians but many people outside of Canada as well.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Chair, I thank you and the members who have gathered here to study the supplementary estimates. I am particularly grateful for the opportunity to participate in this.

I want to begin by acknowledging we are on Algonquin territory, and I say meegwetch to the Algonquin peoples.

Before I begin, because this is probably the last time I will have in a while to address my friends here, and I like to think we are all friends, I want to start by saying that when we look around the world, the countries that have had the least partisan approach to COVID-19 are the countries that have done the best. In fact, it is often pointed out in the media these days that the countries with women leaders have done particularly well: Iceland, Finland, Norway, Denmark, New Zealand, Germany and Taiwan. On top of the fact that those countries happen to have women leaders, all of them also use some form of proportional representation in electing their governments. There is something significant about the non-partisanship that occurs in a system where one does not vote using first past the post.

Over my years in this place and my years in politics, I have come to believe that first past the post tends to encourage the worst instincts in politics. I think the worst instinct in politics at this moment when Canadians are looking to us, as elected members if we do not work together would be for me to not thank the people I stand looking at this time. That is why I came to this side of the House, because I want to thank them.

I do not imagine any of them have had a day off in a long time. If Canadians think we are not working, we are working. I know my colleague from Edmonton and I are working wherever we are. Since March 13, when we adjourned, and I am not looking for sympathy, my one day off was Mother's Day.

I am hoping that all of us will be back here on July 8, but I know these government members, their senior civil servants and their families have been feeling this. When members are on the front bench of the government, they are working darn hard to try to help all Canadians.

Yes, to the extent the government has fallen short, we do have to make it accountable. However, I cannot say I think the people sitting in front of me here today have not been working their hearts out to try to help Canadians, and for that I thank them. It has not been easy for anyone. I know when we can be less partisan, we will do a better job.

I want to reflect, as many members of the opposition have, on the sliding concept, which has been falling out of favour for a very long time. This is what I want to talk about with my unfortunately very long and good memory.

Parliament is supposed to control the public purse. There is no question the Parliamentary Budget Officer was correct that four hours is not enough to study the supplementary estimates.

The other day I wondered when it was that I last felt like this. It was when I was first elected, and it was my first Speech from the Throne on June 3, 2011. How would I remember that? I remember because some weeks later what came to be discussed in the media was how Parliament could have approved billions of dollars in supplementary estimates without studying them at all. There was a hue and cry.

I knew I was diligent and I could not have missed that. How could there have been a unanimous consent motion that I had missed when I was always here? How could it have happened?

This is what happened. On June 3, it was the Speech from the Throne and we were in Centre Block. Other members, like the Minister of Transport, will remember those days. I had not yet had my hip replacement, so in the time it took me to walk back down the Hall of Honour from the Senate to get back to my desk in this place, $6 billion in supplementary estimates had been deemed studied, deemed passed, and deemed toasted, dusted and done by unanimous consent.

Had I been here, rather than limping down the hall on my cane, I would have said, “Hold your horses. We're not going to approve $6 billion in supplementary estimates without studying them.” I am offering that up to say that the fact that happened then does not make four hours right now.

We were not in a pandemic then, so I will say we have a few more excuses for having different kinds of procedures. I will hold the government to account and make sure that when we resume, and I gather we will look at the main estimates again and will have more time to study them, that we really will have the opportunity to study. A pandemic is also no excuse to not have a real Parliament.

I have never been part of the House leaders' discussions, obviously, but I would prefer that we had not come up with a COVID-19 committee format, because, quite honestly, we were doing most of what gets to happen in the House of Commons. If we had seen this coming, we should have created two sets of Standing Orders: one for when things are normal and one for when we cannot meet.

I take the point that has been made by the Leader of the Official Opposition that this Parliament met right through the Second Word War. Well, sure, there was no reason not to sit right through the Second World War; we were not all contagious. We cannot all sit here side by side and go back and forth to our ridings without risking being disease vectors and contaminating our communities, but it is still not adequate, and so I am on both sides of the fence on this.

However, before we get through much more of the pandemic, I hope we can have a full House of Commons at a distance. The only missing piece is the voting at a distance, which we could easily do. Once we add that piece in, we can take on the legislation that needs to be studied. We could have full, long studies of every single aspect of every budget in committee meetings. Indeed, the finance committee has been meeting. I attend it regularly. It is hearing from dozens of witnesses. We have the technology to allow Parliament to meet, and that is what I hope we will do, because we need to see democracy in action; and for democracy to be in action, every single Canadian needs to be represented by their own member of Parliament, not by proxy, not by party whips. Everybody needs to be engaged, and that is what happens when we have the hybrid model, in which we have shown that this technology works.

Our only problem is that we are not using the Standing Orders for Parliament. We are using committee rules, because it is a COVID-19 committee. It does hold people to account, and I have to say that I think the five-minute rounds are far more interesting and bring more interesting information to light than the 30 seconds back and forth in our normal Standing Orders for question period.

In any case, I want to turn to the questions that I have about the supplementary estimates, and I will turn to the ministers.

My first question would normally be for the Minister of Public Safety. I am not sure who is taking questions related to the RCMP. It is the Minister of Transport.

To the hon. minister, on page 2-59, I am wondering if we can get some detail on this. On the record, obviously, the Green Party is very much in favour of the new $380 million to compensate members of the RCMP for injuries received during the performance of their duty, but there is an unexplained item here of $18 million.

For people watching from home, the total budget of the RCMP is in the order of $3.7 billion, and so $18 million is a pretty trifling amount out of a $3.7 billion budget. However, since it is not explained, I wonder if the hon. minister can assure us that none of the $18 million in this line item is for anything, in the context of our current deep concern about systemic racism within the RCMP, for a militarized response to peaceful protesters and the things that are now current in our conversation through Parliament and the media.

What is this $18 million for? I am hoping it might be for de-escalation training.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Madam Chair, I want to reassure my colleague that it is not for any of the things she was asking about.

This $18.1 million is the balance of the funding announced in budget 2019 to strengthen the policing operations of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as it is described. Very specifically, this $18.1 million will be used to ensure that we have a sufficient number of RCMP cadets going to the Depot, which is where they train. It will also include elements such as recruitment, cultural awareness and de-escalation specifically. This funding is integral to ensuring that we meet our commitments to government priorities.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Chair, I turn now to the minister responsible for indigenous services.

We have been waiting a long time for a response from the government, more than a year. As a matter of fact, the day that the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry was delivered, it was close quarters at the Museum of History, and I was actually sitting with the hon. minister as that report was released. It has been a long wait. The minister today was not the minister then, and I cannot address him directly, but it has been a long wait for a response.

I see three different funding items in three different pockets for responding to the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Some of it is from CMHC, some of it is from the parallel agency Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, and some from the Department of Indigenous Services.

I wonder, since we have not yet had a political response, what is the funding response.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Minister of Indigenous Services]

Madam Chair, I must confess I am having some difficulty seeing the member opposite on the other side of the House. It is much more comforting to have her here, although she does keep us quite heavily to account, as people paying attention can clearly hear.

The member will have noticed, and underlining her point is the fact that the national action plan is not a static document. Vote 10 in particular has $6 million appropriated to continue engagement with members, including families and subscribers, for the calls to justice.

The member will also have noted last week that we announced $40 million for 10 new shelters across Canada. This is not a static document.

I will take the time to also say that this is not a federal document. This is a document that involves input from provinces, from territories and, most importantly, from indigenous peoples who guide the way forward as to how we move forward as a nation. The funding response is one element. We did not wait to do so.

There is a legislative response that is embodied in Bill C-91 on indigenous languages and in Bill C-92 on child and family services. These are all part of what we call a whole-of-government approach, but underscoring that, more important should be the fact that this is about keeping people safe and keeping the most vulnerable people, indigenous women and children, safe in our country as we move forward. Again, the document is not a static document. It will be a guide for how we move forward as a nation.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Chair, this is for the hon. minister again. It is probably because there is not this level of specificity or maybe I have missed it, but I do think friendship centres are terribly important, particularly for urban indigenous peoples.

I wonder if there is anything in the supplementary estimates that speaks to the needs of friendship centres across Canada.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Madam Chair, that is an exceedingly important question.

In budget 2019, there were tens of millions of dollars invested in infrastructure and support for friendship centres. This was a historic amount. As we have seen, we have received pressure from urban indigenous groups that are serving indigenous peoples, indeed half of the indigenous population off reserve. Clearly that pressure from a financial perspective has been seen and felt. We deployed $15 million on an emergency basis to supply indigenous communities or service organizations that needed it to help people in urban settings. We also recently allocated $75 million to further respond to the overwhelming demand that we received at Indigenous Services Canada.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Chair, turning my attention to tourism, I am looking at the document and see within the economic development portfolio certain amounts of money. I wonder if there is a single figure that one can look at because at this point the businesses I am particularly worried about, that are still falling between the cracks, are in the tourism sector.

I wonder if the hon. minister can point to a single number out of these documents, because I think perhaps tourism funding is found in a few different pockets.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages]

Madam Chair, indeed, tourism support is across the economic development portfolio. We have already announced $70 million. That is $30 million to Destination Canada to support destination marketing organizations, which we call DMOs, all across the country. We are also supporting businesses directly, but if the member would like to have more information and it would be useful, of course we can send the information to her.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Chair, the Minister of Transport was earlier asked by my colleague about the funding for Via Rail. In the last few moments, did any further details surface in briefing notes? I am very supportive of Via Rail and I wonder where the money is going.