Debates of July 20th, 2020

Recall of the House of Commons

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I wish to inform the House that pursuant to Standing Order 28(3), I sent a notice calling the House to meet this day and I now lay this notice on the table.

Furthermore, on Saturday, July 18, I sent every member a message explaining why the House was being recalled. Let me also advise the House that, in accordance with the representation made by the government pursuant to Standing Order 55(1), I have caused to be published a special Order Paper giving notice of government bills and motions. I also wish to lay upon the table a letter from the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons dated July 18.

I would like to say a few words before we begin today's proceedings.

As was the case for the previous recalls of the House, I understand that there will be agreement to see the application of Standing Order 17 suspended for the current sitting to allow members to practise physical distancing. I encourage all members to follow this and the other recommended best practices during today's procedure.

Accordingly, members desiring to speak and address the Chair may do so from any seat in the House.

Finally, I ask that all members tabling a document or moving a motion sign the document and bring it to the table themselves.

The hon. government House leader.

Business of the House

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties and if you seek it, I think you will find unanimous consent to adopt the follow motion.

I move:

That, notwithstanding any standing order, special order or usual practice of the House,

(a) a bill in the name of the Minister of Finance, entitled An Act respecting further COVID-19 measures, be deemed to have been introduced and read a first time and ordered for consideration at second reading later this day and on Tuesday, July 21, 2020;

(b) at 3:00pm on Tuesday, July 21, 2020, or when no member rises to speak, whichever is earlier, the Speaker shall interrupt the proceedings and put without further debate or amendment all questions necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill, provided that, if a recorded division is requested, it shall not be deferred;

(c) if the bill is adopted at second reading, it shall be referred to a committee of the whole, deemed considered in committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage, and deemed read a third time and passed;

(d) when the bill has been read a third time and passed, the House shall adjourn until Wednesday, July 22, 2020, pursuant to the order made on Tuesday, May 26, 2020;

(e) the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security and the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations be added to the list of committees in paragraph (e) of the order made on Tuesday, May 26, 2020; and

(f) the application of Standing Orders 15 and 17 be suspended until Monday, September 21, 2020.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Does the hon. minister have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

(Motion agreed to)

The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

Response by the Prime Minister

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a question of privilege regarding an incident that occurred in committee of the whole on July 8, 2020. I know you are aware of this, because I made this case to you a couple of weeks ago and you came back to the House and identified the unique circumstances. I thought that now that the House is sitting, I would expand on the remarks I made that day.

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to present to you my argument that in this special case it is within your authority and duty as Speaker to rule on the matter raised in committee of the whole. As you yourself noted on July 8:

...the situation is somewhat particular in that the question of privilege was raised in the committee of the whole and the procedure for dealing with it is quite different than it is in the House.

What complicates this matter even further is that the work of the committee of the whole today and the work scheduled this summer are strictly governed by an order of the House that limits these proceedings and dictates that the committee must now rise.

The situation is more than particularly complicated. The House order adopted on May 26 would appear to run counter to some of the more important tenets of our parliamentary democracy, such as Parliament's authority to defend members' privileges or take action to keep the executive accountable. Although the Liberals, with the support of the NDP, provided us with these occasions to talk in committee of the whole, they effectively prevented members from taking any action.

Mr. Speaker, that is the point of my submission to you today and why I believe you should intervene on this question of privilege that arose in committee of the whole on July 8.

Page 156 of the third edition of House of Commons Procedure and Practice explains the procedure when a member rises on a question of privilege in committee of the whole:

...the Chair will hear the question of privilege. As in a standing, special, or legislative committee, the role of the Chair is to decide whether the matter raised does in fact relate to privilege. If the matter raised by the Member touches on privilege and relates to events in the Committee of the Whole, the Chair will entertain a motion that the events be reported to the House.

The terms of the May 26 order do not provide for a motion to be moved. Therefore, the matter of my question of privilege cannot be reported to the House.

Pages 152 and 153 of the third edition of House of Commons Procedure and Practice note:

Speakers have consistently ruled that, except in the most extreme situations, they will hear questions of privilege arising from committee proceedings only upon presentation of a report from the committee which deals directly with the matter and not as a question of privilege raised by an individual Member.

The extreme situation noted in that passage was from 1992, when Speaker Fraser found a prima facie case of privilege with respect to threats made to a witness who had appeared before a subcommittee, without waiting for a report. The ruling, found at page 14631 of the Debates, from December, 4, 1992, points out that there are occasions on which it is not appropriate to wait for a report from the committee before dealing with a serious breach of privilege. In that case, Mr. Speaker Fraser was faced with the fact that it might well be a period of several months before the subcommittee could meet to deal with the matter.

In this case, the problem is more substantive than just a simple matter of delay. It would appear that the committee of the whole established by the government is unable to take any action except to rise, as you explained to us on July 8, Mr. Speaker.

With respect to the content of my question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring your attention to a matter that was raised on November 3, 1978, by the member for Northumberland—Durham. The member charged that he had been deliberately misled by a former solicitor general. The member had written a letter in 1973 to the solicitor general, who assured him that as a matter of policy the RCMP did not intercept the private mail of Canadians. On November 1, 1978, during testimony before the McDonald Commission, the former commissioner of the RCMP stated that the RCMP did indeed intercept mail on a very restricted basis. The Speaker ruled on December 6, 1978, and found that this did constitute a prima facie case of privilege.

The issue I raised on July 8 is similar in that a senior officer of the House, the Ethics Commissioner, presented evidence that directly contradicts the evidence the Prime Minister gave the committee in response to my question about the co-operation that his office will or will not be providing to the Ethics Commissioner. The Prime Minister said, in reference to the SNC-Lavalin scandal, that he took unprecedented steps so that the Ethics Commissioner could, “fully investigate the matter at hand.”

On July 8, I referenced three points that the Ethics Commissioner made in the “Trudeau II Report”. They directly contradicted the Prime Minister.

First, the commissioner said:

Because of my inability to access all Cabinet confidences related to the matter I must, however, report that I was unable to fully discharge the investigatory duties conferred upon me by the Act.

Second, he noted:

Because of the decisions to deny our Office further access to Cabinet confidences, witnesses were constrained in their ability to provide all evidence. I was, therefore, prevented from looking over the entire body of evidence to determine its relevance to my examination. Decisions that affect my jurisdiction under the Act, by setting parameters on my ability to receive evidence, should be made transparently and democratically by Parliament, not by the very same public office holders who are subject to the regime I administer.

Third, he said:

During this examination, nine witnesses informed our Office that they had information they believed to be relevant, but that could not be disclosed because, according to them, this information would reveal a confidence of the Queen's Privy Council and would fall outside the scope of Order in Council 2019-0105.

This is very important, because as we are currently witnessing, the Prime Minister is in a very similar situation. He is assuring members of the House and Canadians that he will co-operate fully, as he said he did in the previous investigation, which we now know to be false.

On February 1, 2002, the Speaker Milliken ruled on a matter regarding the former minister of national defence. At the time, the previous member for Portage—Lisgar alleged that the former minister of national defence deliberately misled the House as to when he knew that prisoners taken by Canadian JTF 2 troops in Afghanistan had been handed over to the Americans. In support of that allegation, he cited the minister's responses in question period on two successive days. The Speaker considered the matter and found that there was a prima facie question of privilege. He said, “The authorities are consistent about the need for clarity in our proceedings and about the need to ensure the integrity of the information provided by the government to the House.” The authorities to which Speaker Milliken was referring include, but are not limited to, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, which states on page 115, “Misleading a Minister or a Member has also been considered a form of obstruction and thus a prima facie breach of privilege.”

The Speaker in 2002 accepted the minister's assertion that he had no intention to mislead the House and made the following statement: “Nevertheless this remains a very difficult situation.” The Speaker went on to say:

On the basis of the arguments presented by hon. members and in view of the gravity of the matter, I have concluded that the situation before us where the House is left with two versions of events is one that merits further consideration by an appropriate committee, if only to clear the air. I therefore invite the hon. member for Portage—Lisgar to move his motion.

Of course, the House is presented with two versions of events. We have the Prime Minister's version, where he claims he fully co-operated, and we have the report from the Ethics Commissioner, which directly contradicts that claim.

On February 25, 2014, the former House leader of the official opposition raised a question of privilege regarding statements made in the House by the former member for Mississauga—Streetsville. He said the hon. member for Mississauga—Streetsville had deliberately misled the House during debate on Bill C-23, the Fair Elections Act, when the member stated that he had witnessed evidence of voter fraud first-hand. The former House leader further argued that the matter was not resolved by the statements made by the member for Mississauga—Streetsville on February 24 and 25, when he admitted that, contrary to his original claim, he had not actually witnessed what he had originally claimed to have witnessed. In his view, this was not a simple case of someone misspeaking. He argued, rather, that in this case the member deliberately chose to take something he knew not to be true and present it as eyewitness evidence, something so egregious that it constituted contempt.

On March 3, 2014, the Speaker delivered his ruling, citing what Speaker Milliken was faced with in February 2002, when the then minister of national defence, Art Eggleton, provided contradictory information to the House. In a ruling on a question of privilege raised about the contradiction, Speaker Milliken stated on February 1, 2002, at page 8581 of the Debates, “I am prepared, as I must be, to accept the minister's assertion that he had no intention to mislead the House.”

The Speaker went on to conclude:

In keeping with that precedent, I am prepared to accord the same courtesy to the member for Mississauga—Streetsville.

At the same time, the fact remains that the House continues to be seized of completely contradictory statements. This is a difficult position in which to leave members, who must be able to depend on the integrity of the information with which they are provided to perform their parliamentary duties.

Accordingly, in keeping with the precedent cited earlier in which Speaker Milliken indicated that the matter merited “...further consideration by an appropriate committee, if only to clear the air”, I am prepared in this case for the same reason to allow the matter to be put to the House.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, in deciding these matters, Speakers take into consideration three principles. The first is that the statement was misleading.

This was clearly the case. The Prime Minister gave us a version of events that was obviously not true.

Second, the member knew at the time of the statement that it was incorrect. There is no doubt that the Prime Minister must have known that it was incorrect. The title of the report was the Trudeau II Report, because it was the second time he was found guilty of ethics violations. He also knows it be false, because in the previous Parliament, I questioned him regularly on his obstruction of that investigation.

Third, the member making the statement intended to mislead the House.

I believe this matter has met all three of these principles, Mr. Speaker.

Getting back to your comment in committee on July 8 about this matter being complicated, I refer you to Joseph Maingot's second edition of Parliamentary Procedures in Canada, page 227:

In the final analysis, in areas of doubt, the Speaker asks simply: Does the act complained of appear at first sight to be a breach of privilege...or, to put it shortly, has the Member an arguable point? If the Speaker feels any doubt on the question, he should...leave it to the House.

In a ruling of October 24, 1966, at page 9005 of the Debates, the Speaker said:

In considering this matter I ask myself: What is the duty of the Speaker in cases of doubt? If we take into consideration that at the moment the Speaker is not asked to render a decision as to whether or not the article of complaint constitutes a breach of privilege...considering also that the Speaker is the guardian of the rules, rights and privileges of the House and of its members and that he cannot deprive them of such privileges when there is uncertainty in his mind.... I think at this preliminary stage of the proceedings, the doubt which I have in my mind should be interpreted to the benefit of the member.

Mr. Speaker, you have clearly indicated that this is uncharted territory. There are likely very few scenarios that could guide you specifically as to the proper course of action, because this has not happened before in our parliamentary system. I believe, therefore, you should leave it to the House to decide, and if you do find that there is a prima facie question of privilege, I am prepared to move the appropriate motion.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I believe the hon. member for Winnipeg North has a point of order or wishes to speak to this.

[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]

Mr. Speaker, we would like to be able to review the comments and the concern put on the record by the leader of the official opposition, and we will report back to the House as soon as we can.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I want to thank everyone for their input. I will take it under advisement and return to the House with a ruling as quickly as possible.

An Act Respecting Further COVID-19 Measures

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Pursuant to order made earlier today, the House will now proceed to the consideration of Bill C-20, an act respecting further COVID-19 measures.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

moved that Bill C-20, An Act respecting further COVID-19 measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour today to introduce in the House Bill C-20, an act respecting further COVID-19 measures.

COVID-19 has been a profound shock to our economy and has profoundly changed the way we go about our daily lives. Canadians have come together to flatten the curve, and economies are now gradually and safely reopening. It is a crisis that has called for quick, decisive leadership to stabilize the economy, to protect jobs, to ensure that workers and families can put food on the table and to prevent long-term damage to our economy. Our government has worked tirelessly to answer this call.

Protecting Canadian jobs has been a priority for us since the beginning of the pandemic. Our government recognizes the importance of protecting the link between workers and their employers. Businesses thrive when owners and employees work as a team. We know that for businesses to stay ready to bounce back, it is vitally important that they maintain that link with the employees they have trained, employees who have earned the trust of customers and whom have been working with for years.

We launched the Canada emergency wage subsidy to give businesses, non-profits and charitable organizations support so that they could keep and rehire workers. To date, this program has helped around three million workers keep their jobs. That means millions of families have had paycheques to rely on throughout this.

This program has been available to employers of all sizes across Canada and across sectors. It is here to make sure that even as this crisis causes unprecedented uncertainty, employers have the certainty that they can pay their workers.

The CEWS has been an important part of our economic response plan and is providing support to a broad base of businesses. It has had a significant impact: In May, one in four private sector employees was covered by the wage subsidy.

This pandemic is unprecedented in nature, and the situation continues to evolve. We are ensuring that our programs are also evolving.

Today, we are introducing a bill that will make the wage subsidy more effective, flexible and responsive. These changes will give businesses a longer runway to recovery, expand program eligibility to include a larger number of workplaces, provide more targeted support to the hardest-hit businesses and, by so doing, protect a greater number of Canadian jobs.

In the spring we began consulting with businesses and labour representatives on what adjustments we could make to the program, so that we could help more Canadians get hired back and help businesses grow. During the consultations we heard from many employers that the CEWS was invaluable in keeping workers on the payroll and helping to bring workers back. However, employers understand, like all Canadians do, that our economic recovery will be gradual.

Many people we spoke with shared the view that the subsidy should be extended past the initial 12-week extension. They also shared many ideas on how the adjustment to CEWS could support businesses and employees as the economy restarts and businesses recover and grow. One thing they were worried about was the current program design's cliff effect, which is that even if a business picked up slowly, once it grew past the 30% revenue decline threshold it would not have the support it was relying on in order to pay workers.

No business should feel it has to choose reopening, growing and hiring or getting the support it needs.

Many of the people we have talked to have also said that businesses want the government to dial back the wage subsidy as revenue goes up to ensure stable support during recovery.

Canadians know that recovery will be a gradual process because we want to do it safely. We do not think businesses should be penalized for doing the right thing and taking the necessary precautions to protect their community.

Whether it is a restaurant that is not at full capacity so that it can keep a safe distance between diners, or a front-line non-profit organization that is making sure all of its workers have proper PPE and training before going back on the job, or a store that has adjusted its hours to make sure it is properly cleaned, we see organizations working hard to figure out how to operate safely as we all adjust to living with COVID-19.

Other Canadians told us that the current 30% revenue decline test kept many of Canada's affected businesses from getting this much-needed support. They brought up the idea of tiered support to help businesses that are struggling as they face the challenges of this pandemic, but have not seen a full 30% reduction in revenue.

Overall, businesses have a strong sense that the road to recovery will be gradual and uncertain. Employers want to know that they will have support past this summer in order to stay strong through the challenges we face.

Information gleaned on the ground about how well our programs are working and how we can make them even more useful is priceless. Given what we have learned, we are proposing changes to the wage subsidy that will encourage employers to resume operations and keep hiring Canadians as the economy opens up. Our bill will make those changes happen.

With Bill C-20 we are proposing to extend the CEWS until November 21, 2020, with the intent of providing further support through the CEWS until December 19, 2020.

This bill would also broaden eligibility, making this subsidy available to more employers and protecting more workers. The changes in this bill would also promote growth as the economy continues to recover from the shock of this pandemic.

Effective July 5, 2020, the CEWS would consist of two parts: a base subsidy available to all eligible employers experiencing a decline in revenues, with the subsidy amount varying depending on the scale of revenue decline, and a top-up subsidy of up to an additional 25% for employers most adversely affected by the COVID-19 crisis.

The maximum base subsidy rate would be provided to employers experiencing a revenue drop of 50% or more, with the rate gradually declining for employers experiencing a revenue drop between 49% and zero. This would extend access to the CEWS to a broader range of employers. Organizations that have been struggling but have had revenue declines of less than 30% would be able to access the wage subsidy for the first time. This would open the program to a whole new range of employers, providing the base subsidy rate support to active employees and helping protect more of the jobs Canadians rely on.

For employers who have been deeply affected, those who experienced a revenue drop of more than 50% over three months on average, we are offering a top-up subsidy for their workers of up to 25% of their pay. This measure will be particularly helpful for employees working in industries that are recovering more slowly. As I said, our plan consists in building a bridge to a safer place for Canadians during this emergency situation.

Lastly, we want to make sure this program provides no barriers to growth. By removing the 30% revenue decline threshold, employers already on the program will not have to worry that they will lose support they are still relying on as they grow. We will still be there to provide support as they work to recover and restore growth.

We know this new CEWS will be a welcome change, and that a lot of businesses have made plans based on the existing design for the next two periods of the CEWS from July 5 to August 29. We are creating a safe harbour where they can be confident they will still qualify, at a minimum, for the same level of support for those CEWS periods as under the previous design.

Thanks to this new more effective design, the emergency wage subsidy will help even more employers who are all at various stages of reopening. If they experienced a greater decline in revenue, they will receive a higher subsidy.

The gradual reduction in assistance given to businesses that are successfully reopening will ensure that they get stable and predictable support as their activities resume. These changes will make businesses more competitive and will help increase the number of employees returning to work thanks to the emergency wage subsidy.

This proposed design of the CEWS would ensure the program continues to address the immediate needs of businesses while also positioning them for a strong recovery.

Our government believes in the resilience of Canadians and the ability of our businesses to find innovative ways to keep going and to grow back stronger, but these are extraordinary times and businesses continue to need support to do this.

Our plan is to help Canadians stay strong throughout this storm. It will protect Canadians' health and ensure that we have the best tools and systems to monitor the virus. It will provide the financial support that Canadians with disabilities need. It will also help mothers and fathers feed their families, make it possible for youth to follow their dreams and ensure that no one is left behind.

It is also about keeping our communities strong, giving needed support to the shops and restaurants that define our neighbourhoods and making sure the outreach centres and community organizations that support our most vulnerable can keep being there for people.

COVID-19 has affected all aspects of Canadians' quality of life, from their health to their livelihoods. We created programs to support students, seniors, families and workers so they would not have to make impossible choices between paying their bills and keeping food on the table. It is now critically important that we pursue inclusive growth and continue to support our most vulnerable. That is why I am working on incorporating quality of life measurements into decision-making, including in the economic response plan.

In addition to the support provided by the Canada emergency wage subsidy, more than eight million Canadians have received the Canada emergency response benefit, which has helped them pay for groceries, rent and prescription medications. We have also provided financial support to millions of vulnerable Canadians through existing programs, such as the goods and services tax credit, the Canada child benefit, old age security and the guaranteed income supplement.

Canadians with disabilities are facing increased costs, too, and need support. This legislation would help an estimated 1.7 million Canadians living with disabilities qualify for a special payment of up to $600 so they can have access to the support they need.

We are also working to make sure businesses can get the liquidity support they need. From the Canada emergency business account and the business credit availability program to the large employer emergency financing facility, we are providing tailored support to workers and employers of every size across this country to make sure that no matter where people work, their employers have access to support.

We are making sure that no business is left behind. We have allocated $962 million to the regional relief and recovery fund, administered by the six regional development agencies across Canada, in order to support the affected companies that are essential to the regional and local economy, including in rural communities. These companies create good local jobs, and they support our families and the communities they serve.

We are also investing in indigenous businesses, providing almost $307 million in funding to help small and medium-sized indigenous businesses, and $133 million to support indigenous business through the recovery, including micro-businesses that are not eligible for other support programs.

We have also provided support for women entrepreneurs who are facing hardship during the pandemic, through $15 million in new funding from the women entrepreneurship strategy.

Canadians' collective actions have helped control the virus here at home. Canadians want to go back to work, but they need the confidence they can do it safely. Across Canada, economies are reopening and we are seeing our streets come back to life, but it is a bit different than before, and that is a good thing. We need to make sure we are staying safe.

COVID-19 has not disappeared. We need to take action to protect ourselves and our neighbours against another out-of-control outbreak. All employers are required to strictly follow the latest public health guidelines in order to protect their patrons, their workers and their communities.

We must always remember that our collective economic success is fundamentally linked to our public health outcomes. The $19-billion Safe Restart Agreement our government reached with provinces and territories last week is helping Canadians stay safe and healthy and ensuring we are more resilient to possible future waves. This funding will enhance capacity for testing, contact tracing and data management.

Through this funding, we will be able to secure reliable sources of personal protective equipment, which will help protect our front-line workers and health care workers. It will also enable the provinces and territories to provide temporary income support, so that workers who are not entitled to paid sick leave can get 10 days of paid sick leave related to COVID-19.

The funding will help in many other ways, including by making sure there are enough safe child care spaces available so that parents can go back to work.

Our government will not stop working to help Canadians face the challenges of COVID-19. We stand ready to take additional actions, as needed, to stabilize the economy, protect Canadians and position them for a strong restart as we emerge from the crisis. By recognizing and addressing the challenges employers are facing and providing the support they need to restart, the enhancement to the Canada emergency wage subsidy proposed in Bill C-20 is another important step in our work to support the resilience of Canadians and help them bridge through to better times.

It is on all of us, as hon. members in the House, to make sure we remain focused on the ongoing crisis at hand and put the immediate needs of Canadians first. Canadians have demonstrated their ability to put old habits aside and come together for the greater good. I encourage the members of this House to do the same so that Canadians can get the support they deserve without further delay.

I urge all hon. members of the House to support the speedy passage of Bill C-20 so that we can protect jobs in this country and get Canadians back to work.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, the issue with the emergency wage subsidy is one that has come up many times. Through the work of the opposition party and the government listening to advocacy from the CFIB and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, we have seen improvements in the wage subsidy, but there is a gap in the current announcement.

I want to read the minister an email from one of the franchises in Barrie—Innisfil. A constituent wrote to me yesterday and said:

[W]e believe that the government needs to make these changes retroactive to Period 4 (June 7th to July 4th). We were down 27.5% in May and 21% in June and yet we get no support from the CEWS for those 4 weeks? We received the CEWS in Periods 1-3 and it looks like we will receive some form of support on the sliding scale until December. But June is a missed period for us, as I am sure it will be for many other employers who were starting to recover their lost sales and fell off the 30% revenue decline cliff. [The Prime Minister and the finance minister] both pledged changes to the CEWS on May 15th that would deal with this cliff effect. We believed them and it took 2 months for it to happen. In our opinion the right thing for the government to do is to make these changes retroactive to June 7th not July 5th.

What is the minister's response to that?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for demonstrating that we have all been working together to make sure we make the wage subsidy a tool that works for businesses. During these consultations, we went across the country and worked with members and even senators to better understand how this program could work better for employers and also to make sure workers were protected and could go back to their jobs.

As we held these consultations with the business and labour representatives to ensure that any changes to the CEWS would be responsive to their needs, during these consultations we heard that the CEWS was invaluable in keeping workers on the payroll and helping to bring workers back. Many ideas were shared on how the design of the CEWS could be made better and more responsive.

We heard that the 30% revenue test was too strict and could discourage growth. We heard that the most affected sectors needed more support. We heard that employers continued to require support and the extension to August 29 would not be enough for some employers to get back on their feet.

The decision was made to further extend until December and make sure that there are different periods that would help the different businesses to have access to the now new proposed changes, and we hope members will support that.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate my esteemed colleague on her speech and thank her for it. I also want to thank the government for introducing this bill, which helps businesses that truly need it. It is true that the economic recovery will need a major boost, but employees also have to want to go back to work. Right now, many workers who are sought after by businesses are feeling quite comfortable collecting the CERB.

Why did the government not think that this would be a good time to provide return-to-work incentives by amending the CERB in order to help with the economic recovery?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for demonstrating that we considered how the CERB and the wage subsidy can work together so that our efforts help more workers get back to work.

That is why we are proposing a new approach that will encourage business owners and employers to go get workers. The CERB will continue until the end of August, and we know that many families still need support because they do not yet have all the tools they need to go back to work.

We are therefore going to make that transition and ensure that the two programs can work together so that, as of the end of August, we can focus more energy on the wage subsidy.

Once again, I thank my hon. colleague for pointing that out.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, we have heard a very compelling speech by the hon. member. However, it should be noted in the House that COVID does not simply impact those infected by it. Many people who are living on disability continue to get left out. I look to my riding of Hamilton Centre, where the disability tax credit program as proposed by the Liberals is still going to leave out the vast majority of the people in my province who are struggling to get by.

My question for the hon. member is this. How does she feel about the fact that the Prime Minister was prepared to place a $900-million bailout for his friends at WE, while people on disability continue to have to wait for support?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his concern and question. I would say that today is really an important day, as we are bringing into the legislation a benefit of up to $600 for people living with disabilities. We know they need more support. That is why we are moving this legislation today, to make sure we provide that necessary support. I am hopeful that all members of the House will support the proposed legislation.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on her speech and point out that today's bill will really address several of the needs I have seen in my riding.

People with disabilities and parents of young adults with disabilities were very disappointed when the House could not come up with legislation that would help them.

I would like the minister to tell us why making that payment available was problematic and how those issues were resolved.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for everything she has done since the crisis began.

We know MPs have made an important contribution by listening to what is going on in their communities. That is exactly why we are introducing this bill to support people with disabilities. We know they need more support.

Given what we learned during recent cross-Canada consultations about how we can best support vulnerable people, we know today's measure will enable us to support people with disabilities.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, I appreciated hearing from my colleague from Barrie—Innisfil about an issue with one of his businesses. I wonder if the Minister of Middle Class Prosperity is familiar with the deeming rule, which was part of the original Canada emergency wage subsidy program, where, if people qualify for a month but then go above the qualifying amount the next month, they still get the funding for that additional month. It is called the “deeming rule” and it was applied.

Perhaps the member could discuss that further with us today. I would like to know if it will apply going forward, with the changes to CEWS, and whether those who have not realized this deeming rule was in effect can go back and apply for it, having missed that opportunity previously.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to re-emphasize the fact that what we have done with this government is act rapidly. When we proposed the first part of the CEWS legislation, we knew we were helping businesses and we were able to support over three million workers across the country. However, we also understood, by doing consultations, that we needed to fix it and adjust the CEWS to make sure we would respond to the needs of businesses across the country. That is what we are doing with the proposed legislation.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, when the government first rolled out programming in response to the COVID-19 shutdown, the programming was filled with the old classic rule that no good deed goes unpunished. The government created an income support program for workers, but ripped it away the second those same workers earned more than $1,000, punishing their good deeds of working hard and earning money. It created a wage subsidy, but then tore it away as soon as a business was able to recover more than 70% of its pre-COVID revenue, again punishing a business for the crime of recuperating revenue and rebuilding the economy.

We warned early on that these anti-work, anti-earnings disincentives would penalize the very people who were working hard to put our economy back on its feet in the post-closure period. The government ignored our concerns and delayed. In the meantime, countless workers and business owners have faced the impossible dilemma of whether or not they should go back to earning what they did before the pandemic began.

Members could judge these people, who are out in the world facing that dilemma, but before they do, I ask them to think of, for example, a waitress whose employer may go bankrupt because of the enormous revenue loss that he has experienced during the shutdown. If she goes back and begins earning $1,200, and he then goes under, she will lose her job and she will have lost her CERB. In other words, she will have no income at all, and the government will have imposed this penalty upon her for having worked too hard, having exerted too much effort to rebuild her finances and support her employer and her community.

Up until now, the same went for businesses that committed the offence of regaining lost revenues. If they were down less than 30% , that is to say that they had recovered more than 70% of their pre-COVID revenue, they would lose the wage subsidy. For many of them, the extra revenue was worth less than the wage subsidy. In which case, the perfectly rational and, in many cases, necessary decision for them was to suppress their revenues in order to qualify for the very assistance that would keep them alive and allow them to employ their workers.

Finally, the government has come forward with a proposal to address that disincentive of the wage subsidy. Unfortunately, what we see in this proposal is a cobweb of complexity. I will break down just how complex it will be and how bewildering it will become for the business owners who are trying to make sense of it all.

First, we see there are now effectively four periods that remain until the subsidy is phased out altogether. In each of those four periods, the rate of subsidy is different than it is in the others. Then there are the three scenarios that apply to those four periods. The first scenario is for businesses that have lost less than 50% of their revenue, in which case they are entitled to the base subsidy. Then there is the second scenario for businesses that are down more than 50%, in which case they are eligible for both the base subsidy and the top-up. Then there is the third scenario for businesses with employees who are furloughed or “on leave”, in which case there is yet another different rate of compensation paid through the subsidy. Do not even get me started on businesses that have both furloughed and non-furloughed employees.

If we just take the basic permutations and combinations that I have mentioned, over the next four months, businesses could face 15, 20 or 30 different rates of wage subsidy. They will somehow understand these with the help of very expensive accountants and consultants as they try to go forward and make business decisions. This complexity will no doubt impose massive new costs, unpredictability and uncertainty on the very people who are struggling just to open their doors. They are already facing a whole series of public safety rules imposed by their municipalities, rules that are themselves hard to follow, burdensome and costly to implement. Now they will have to plow through an already complicated system of taxation in order to make sense of an even more complicated system of subsidies.

In numerous conversations with the minister, we put forward proposals that could have made this simple. Why could the government, for example, not have expanded the Canada emergency business account to lend businesses their prior month's revenue loss, and then forgive repayment on 75% of whatever they spent on wages out of that amount? That could be the wage subsidy with no complexity, and it would not be a disincentive. It would be scaled to revenue loss, easy to administer and available at someone's local bank.

Of course that was not the option that the government chose. No, instead it had to come up with the most complicated system possible. The only two sectors that will experience any benefit from that complexity are the accountants and tax lawyers, who will be paid to implement and make sense of it all. Although I suspect many of them will have to hire Ph.D.s in astrophysics in order to make sense of some of the finer details of this particular proposal.

Simpler proposals are better, and simplification should always be the goal of government policy so we know exactly what we are trying to accomplish, and the beneficiaries know how to accomplish it. Therefore, we as Conservatives call on the government to look for ways to simplify the implementation of this.

We also call on the government to signal to the Canada Revenue Agency to be as reasonable as possible in its enforcement and in the subsequent cases of accidental and incidental errors that are inevitably going to be the result of small businesses tripping over many of the tripwires found in this complex proposal.

All that being said, at the very least we can give the government some credit for belatedly realizing the necessity to remove the penalties on businesses that are recovering their revenues while trying to employ their workers.

Now let us turn our attention to those very same workers. Under the current Canada emergency response benefit, workers who earn $999 can keep the $2,000 CERB, but if they earn $1,001, they lose that same benefit. In other words, they are taking one step forward in order to be pushed two steps back. No one would make the decision to earn $1,000 in order to lose $2,000. The effective tax rate on such a person would be 200%. That is a major and unacceptable penalty for work. It is also a problem with an obvious solution.

I see here the member for Haldimand—Norfolk, who was once the employment minister and helped to bring in a solution to the same problem under the employment insurance program. She, in the previous Harper government, helped to bring in the working while on a claim system, which allowed people on EI to go out and get a job and lose only 50 cents of their EI for every dollar they earned. That means that they would always be 50 cents better off for each of those dollars earned. That should be the basic principle of our tax-and-transfer system. People should always be better off when they work more, earn more or take on one more shift.

Our party has very meticulously assembled a proposal for the government that would solve this anti-work problem and give our working-class people the rewards they deserve for going back to their jobs and taking on as many shifts as they possibly can. Our proposal is simple and it is this. For those earning less than $1,000, nothing would change. They would still get their $2,000 CERB. However, for those earning more than $1,000, any dollar earned over $1,000 would result in losing only 50 cents of their CERB.

Of course, all of this could be reconciled at tax time. The government already has records of people's earning because employers submit the payroll remittances. The government knows exactly what people earn and when they earn it. It would be very easy to use the highly sophisticated CRA software, which could automatically calculate all of this, and people's final amounts could be reconciled at tax time on their returns.

Therefore, we put forward this proposal, which would allow all workers to be better off when they go out into the workforce and get themselves another dollar. It would mean that people would only lose their CERB gradually as they earn between $1,000 and $6,000, so that every day in every way workers who contribute to their employer, get businesses back on their feet, serve local customers, pay taxes and contribute to the economy are rewarded for doing so.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has said that our proposal would be affordable and that it would be a minor cost. I frankly believe that when the behavioural changes that would result from it are taken into account, the government will be net better off as a result of rewarding rather than punishing work.

This is, of course, a problem that most left-wing governments have. They do not believe that there is any limit to the amount of taxation they can impose upon people. They do not understand the impact that incentives have on human and economic behaviour. That is why we see ever larger tax rates, which punish people for exerting themselves and for contributing to their employers, and which take away from risk-takers, entrepreneurs and working-class people.

We on this side of the House believe in restoring the value of work and rewarding exertion, because work is the only thing that generates the product of our nation. We know that no matter what government program we create, we cannot replace the prodigious output of our 20 million Canadian workers and the 1.2 million businesses that employ them. No government program can ever do that. The only way to recharge our economy and to replenish our wealth from the enormous costs we have incurred and the debts we have mounted is to get our workers and our businesses firing on all cylinders once again.

Beyond just fixing the problems and the penalties in these programs, we also need to unleash the power of free enterprise across our economy. There are parts of the economy that the government began shutting down years before COVID-19. One example of that is the energy sector. The government imposed a shutdown on the energy sector by blocking three pipelines and a major northern Alberta mine well before the COVID-19 pandemic ever appeared. It can now begin to reverse those anti-development policies.

It can, for example, look at the inventory of $20 billion of resource projects that await federal approval, and it can expedite decisions on them now so that billions of dollars of privately funded economic activity can begin without any cost to Canadian taxpayers. This includes a massive $14-billion pipeline and an LNG plant in the Saguenay region of Quebec. It includes smaller pipeline projects and mines right across the country. These projects have already been delayed too long. If the government really wanted a stimulus, a free-market, privately funded stimulus that would reduce debt rather than adding to it, now would be the time to expedite those exact same projects.

Now would be the time to begin to draw the lines of a future energy corridor connecting east coast refineries with western petroleum, opening the door to the sale and transmission of electricity from the prodigious hydro dams of Quebec to energy-starved communities in provinces across the country.

Now would be the time to to put an end to the insanity of selling our energy, not just oil and gas but also hydroelectricity, at massive discounts to our American neighbours to the south while we pay premiums for that same energy here in our very own country.

Now would be the time to go through our tax system, page by page, and start tearing out all of the penalties we impose on businesses that produce wealth and the workers who generate it.

Now would be the time to eliminate the enormous delays that are involved in building anything in the country. It takes three times longer to get a warehouse approved for construction in Canada than it does in the United States of America.

That is just one example of why so much capital has left our country for our southern neighbours and for many other economies around the world.

As a country, we went into this crisis weak. We had 0.3% unemployment, higher unemployment in fact than all other G7 countries, except for France and Italy, whose socialist policies our government was working hard to emulate. We went in with growth that was roughly half of that in the United States of America, with half our population $200 away from insolvency, and bankruptcies and insolvencies skyrocketing in the latter months of the year 2019.

We went in with a $29-billion deficit, before the very first case of COVID-19 was discovered in the country. We went in with the second highest level of debt in the G7 when we take public and private debt combined. Only Japan has higher combined public-private debt than Canada did in 2018, at 356% of GDP, and now that number has grown further.

We now have a government that is adding $343 billion of debt this year, money it believes literally can be created out of thin air, that we can simply count on the Bank of Canada, through keystrokes, to generate this currency out of nothing. The Bank of Canada has created a half a trillion dollars since March and used that money to buy bonds, mostly government bonds. In other words, our governments across the country are currently being financed by fake currency that is literally pulled out of thin air. The Prime Minister thinks that can go on forever, as though he invented the idea of turning on the printing presses to pay for a government.

We know that for thousands of years emperors, kings and others have tried to pay their bills by creating currency from nothing. Whether they clipped coins so that the gold in them could go a little further, whether they took drachmas and wrote “2” where there once was “1”, whether they more recently cranked up the printing presses and pumped out cash until inflation was skyrocketing, the result, in the long run, is always the same: When you create money from nothing, that money begins to be worth nothing.

We are not there yet, but we must plan for the day when, eventually, there are too many dollars chasing too few goods. When that happens, the value of the dollar will decline. This will be wonderful news for the very rich of course, because their assets will inflate in value and they will become richer still. However, it will be terrible news for the wage-earning blue-collar people of the country whose wages will be devalued, who will be earning less money for every hour they put in.

That brings us back to my very first point, that we in this country should always reward and never punish work, that we should unbridle the power of the labourer and the entrepreneur to join hands in the production of wealth, to finance the lifestyle and the economy that our country deserves to pay for our national programs, our national defence, our social safety net and for a quality of life that we in a country like Canada have become accustomed to and that we should only exceed in the days ahead.

I appreciate the opportunity to address this issue. We stand ready to work with the Liberals to improve these policies, to correct their faulty ways and to make our country better yet.

[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, it was tough listening to the member opposite. I think of the Fraser Institute and the Conservative Party coming together.

On the one hand, the member talked about why the government needed to do more for businesses, why it needed to do more for individuals. The greatest expenditure of the government today is related to supporting Canadians from coast to coast to coast, in part doing it through programs like the CERB, which the member referenced, and by supporting businesses through wage subsidies. All of that will no doubt cost a considerable amount of money, as the member knows full well. Then the member concluded his comments with regard to fear of the debt.

Does the member support the government spending the money to support Canadians through programs like the CERB and supporting small businesses?