Debates of Sept. 29th, 2020

COVID-19 Response Measures Act

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her question, and I apologize but I will answer in English as I do not speak French yet. I am working on it.

I would agree 100 per cent with my colleague's comments. This is a massive change to the Labour Code. In many ways we are concerned about a conflict with provincial jurisdictions, employers, boards of trade and chambers of commerce. None of these people was engaged. None of these was consulted. This was put before us to pass in a very short time frame, under a bunch of pressure at the 11th hour.

I would 100 per cent agree that there are some really deep concerns when we talk about the WE scandal. One of the comments I have consistently made is I am afraid that all we are seeing is the tip of the iceberg. When we spend hundreds of billions of dollars in a short time frame, how many other WE scandals are under the surface?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate in this debate as well as to make some comments about the general economic circumstances that frame our discussion of the bill. It is fair to acknowledge that the government's response to this pandemic has been a bit chaotic. We have seen constantly shifting programmatic responses as well as advice from the government. There has been a general lack of consistency on many fronts, but at least there has always been firm certitude that the approach of the day is the right approach, until it changes.

It has been well established that if we had had border measures in place, if we had the right advice on masking earlier on, if we had quickly adopted rapid testing tools that had actually been in place for a long time in other countries, if we had learned from Czech Republic, South Korea or Taiwan and other places, and if we had tracing technology ready to go, then there would not have been that economic shutdown. There would not have been a need for an economic shutdown if a public health plan had been in place. This was all evidently quite avoidable if we see what other countries were able to do to respond more rapidly and avoid the same kind of economic disruption.

The economic devastation that we have experienced is the result of the failure of our health minister to respond early to this public health crisis. We still do not have the rapid testing that we need to ensure early warning and rapid response. We saw how, in the early days, the Minister of Health was saying the risk was low, closing the borders would be counterproductive and so forth. That is why we are here: because of the failure of the government to plan and respond effectively in the early days when it would have made the biggest difference.

Now we are teetering on a second wave. We are into a second wave in some parts of the country while we are desperately trying to avoid a second wave in others, and we still do not really have the public health tools in place. In my province, in Quebec and other provinces, we are not allowed to enter a diagnosis in the government's much celebrated, according to the Liberals, tracing app.

Because of a failure to plan for and respond to the public health challenges we face, we face an economic shutdown. Therefore Canadians legitimately expected financial support to be available to them during a time when they were not able to leave their homes to go to work. That is why some new benefit programs were legitimately created.

Having to stay at home, not working, and therefore receiving benefits was clearly not the first choice of Canadians. Canadians are not at all excited about seeing the government using freshly printed money to pay them to sit at home. The Canadians I know believe the supports should be available if they are not able to work, but people would much prefer to go back to work and in general would prefer for things to get back to normal as soon as possible.

Regardless of the nature of the programs that are in place, people cannot have anything near an acceptable standard of living unless most of the population is engaged in productive work. The health of our economy is dependent on the extent to which we are producing useful things. No economy was ever built by printing and distributing paper money. That much should be fairly obvious.

Fiscal control is not an end in and of itself, but it is a necessary means to the material and social flourishing of society. If we run massive deficits endlessly by constantly printing new paper money, the money gradually becomes less valuable. Money is not intrinsically valuable. It is simply a proxy measure of the value of goods and services that are produced in the economy. If we reduce the level of production, we cannot simply make up for it by printing more money.

The leader of the NDP is so proud of the extra $400 a month that he negotiated as part of the benefit package, but strikingly he seems unconcerned with how out of control spending risks reducing the effective value of that money over time.

Our economy can survive some level of deficit spending as well as supports that are timely, targeted and temporary. Even in those cases, the money has to be paid back. A timely, measured, targeted and temporary response is one thing, but the government's deficit is approaching $400 billion, which is larger than the entire federal budget was when the Liberals took office. The deficit is well over half the size of the entire debt run up in the preceding 150 years of Canadian history. We went through two world wars, the Great Depression, financial crises and even the tenure of the last Prime Minister Trudeau and the first four years of this government, and we are running up more than half as much debt in a single year as we did in the entire preceding period.

In the lexicon of this brave new world, anyone who thinks we should spend even a dime less is accused of peddling austerity, but for these Liberals, austerity is a word that has entirely lost its meaning.

There are many people who understand what austerity truly is. There are people around the world who are starving as a direct result of the humanitarian crisis caused by COVID-19. There are people around the world who have lived through the experience of a national debt crisis in which their money became worthless and their government could not bail them out. There are people in this country who are struggling to pay their heating bill because of the government's carbon tax. There are people who worry that jobs in their sector will never come back, whether that is in oil and gas, manufacturing or other primary and secondary industries that are no longer in vogue across the way. These people understand and are starting to worry about what true austerity would look like in their lives.

Yet, the government pressed ahead with pay raises for elected officials, because to do otherwise would be austerity. It will not rein in profligate spending at the CBC or pull back on corporate welfare handouts to wealthy, connected corporations, because to do so would be austerity. Any review, any efficiency, any constraint whatsoever is considered austerity. Any time people have to pay more to the government, no problem. Any time we suggest that government members should spend less on themselves or their friends, that is called austerity. This is a farce. This is a redefinition of words to mean the opposite of what they actually mean.

I submit that the Liberals generally have no concept of real austerity, because the Prime Minister has not known anything but exorbitant, inherited wealth, and he has tried to transfer as much of the benefits of government to his friends, having three times been caught breaking key ethical rules. What the Prime Minister needs to understand is that austerity for people is when one has to choose between buying food and paying one's heating bill, not when one has to choose between a WE vacation, a French villa and a private island.

If we do not get a handle on public spending soon, we will face real austerity. These deficit levels are completely unsustainable. As it is, they will lead to higher taxes, lower social spending or both in the future, regardless of who is in power, if the situation continues to get worse. We need to sound the alarm on this out-of-control spending, because if we continue at this rate for much longer, we will not be able to afford these types of benefits whether we like it or not. Spending money we do not have, debasing our currency and rendering the government incapable of supporting people in the long run is neither prudent nor compassionate.

Needless to say, the Conservatives are unimpressed by the circumstances that bring us to this debate. The government shut down Parliament for six weeks and is now trying to limit debate on this bill to a mere day. What we see across the board is that the federal government is creating problems and then claiming to be uniquely qualified to offer solutions.

By proroguing Parliament, the Liberals created a problem, the problem being that benefits were going to run out if legislation was not passed at an unprecedented pace. Their programming motion is presented as a solution to a problem that they themselves created. However, it is bigger than that. The need for these benefits is a problem that was created by the government through a failure to have a plan in place to manage the pandemic, a failure to close the border in time, a failure to implement rapid testing and a failure to learn the lessons of other countries.

When we challenge government members on their spending, they come back to us and ask, “How would you solve the problem? What would you cut? What would you spend less on?” The Conservative answer to this is quite simple: We would not have created the problem in the first place. Even at this late stage, we would ensure rapid approval of rapid testing technology, build benefit programs that provide the greatest possible incentive for people to return to work and quickly approve new development and resource projects, providing a public-dollar-free, private sector stimulus to help workers in our natural resource sectors get back to work. Natural resource workers are not looking for a “just transition” out of their jobs into unemployment. What they want is their jobs back.

Benefit programs can be very generous for people who are out of work as long as we are taking all the necessary steps to ensure that there are as few people out of work as possible. That is why Conservatives have led in putting forward constructive alternatives, in advancing the idea of a back-to-work bonus, in pushing the government to have a private sector stimulus of our natural resource economy and encouraging it to take up the public health measures that will allow people to work in safety.

I am pleased to report that hope is on the horizon. The member for Durham will soon be ready to emerge from isolation. He understands that there is an alternative to the profligate spending that we are seeing from the government and that this alternative does not mean cutting off people in need. We can reduce government spending by reducing people's need for government; by supporting economic growth, a stronger public health response and measures that allow people to return to work in all sectors, including our natural resource sectors; and by creating the wealth that allows all of us to prosper together.

[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, the member says that the newly crowned leader of the Conservative Party is going to come back and inspire us on how we can grow the economy. Let me remind the member that his new leader was a minister in the Harper regime. In nine years they generated about a million jobs, and it took us just over four years to generate well over a million jobs.

The Liberal Party and the government understand the importance of the economy. That is one of the reasons we brought in programs like the wage subsidy. It was to protect jobs and make sure that we were in a better position.

Would the member not agree that programs like the wage subsidy are one of the reasons we will be able to continue to grow our economy? These are the types of programs we have been spending money on, whether it is the wage subsidy, the CERB or others. There is probably a list of 24 or more good, healthy programs supporting Canadians.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member across the way spoke about the record of the Harper government. The Harper government led Canada through the great global recession. Canada had the best job growth, the best GDP growth and the lowest deficit in the G7. We ran surpluses in the years preceding the global downturn, whereas the government ran massive deficits in the years preceding the current situation. Now we have not only the largest deficit in Canadian history, but a deficit that exceeds half of the debt that was accumulated in the time up to that period.

We will take no lessons from the members across the way whatsoever. Canada had the best job growth during the global recession. Now we are struggling for jobs and struggling to provide opportunities, and the government thinks that more borrowing is the way out of it. It is not. We need a strategy to grow our economy that gets people back to work.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his impassioned speech.

He is very knowledgeable about international relations, and I agree with him that the government should have shut down the borders when all of this started. The Bloc Québécois had called for the borders to be closed from the beginning of the crisis, but the Liberal government took weeks to do so. Unfortunately, it was too late.

The borders are closed now, and that is a good thing, but it has created other problems. The closure has sadly created obstacles for family reunification, and I know that some of the member's colleagues are passionate advocates for this issue.

Does he agree that, if it wanted to, the Liberal government could allow hundreds or thousands of people to see their loved ones safely?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is a great point by my colleague from the Bloc. The Conservatives have been raising this in question period. There is an inconsistency it seems: Some Canadians in very difficult situations, people who may have serious health challenges and want to have their partners and family members with them, have not been given approval to do so, yet other people seem to have been able to get exceptions in very different circumstances.

I think the member is right to suggest that there have been inconsistencies and problems in the government's response. That is why we have been continually calling on the government to do better.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, listening to the member always gives us a great opportunity to hear a crisp articulation of the Conservative world view.

There is certainly room for criticism of the government's response to the pandemic, but I think it is a fiction to pretend that somehow a Conservative government could have stopped the virus from coming into Canada. When we look around the world, this is indeed a global pandemic. There have been severe economic consequences right across the global.

What I would like to hear, which I have not heard today, is the real answer from the Conservatives on what plan they have for income support for Canadians. Given the situation we find ourselves in now, no matter how we got here, what is their plan, going forward, to support Canadians who would like to work but cannot go back to work because the jobs do not exist and who still need to put a roof over their heads?

The member gave a great lecture on the consequences of public debt. Perhaps he would like to opine on the consequences of millions of individual bankruptcies in Canada and the economic effect that would have.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I think the point is that we do not have to choose. We can have programs that support people when they are unemployed. However, the ability to deliver good, strong supports for people who are unemployed is contingent on the fact that we have enough people who are employed, are able to work and can pay into those programs, and are therefore able to grow our economy.

There has to be something to redistribute money, in other words. My colleagues in the NDP are enthusiastic about redistribution. I say that if we are redistributing money that is merely printed and not wealth that is created, we are not actually helping people in the long run or even in the medium term.

I will quibble with his point that inevitably the pandemic was going to be at the same proportion. I agree it is a global pandemic that has affected every country to some extent, but it has affected some countries considerably less because they took measures early on that the government was unwilling to take. There are still—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Unfortunately I wanted a brief question and a brief answer, and I tried to allow the same amount of time for both. I know this is a very passionate subject.

Resuming debate.

The hon. member for Manicouagan.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, I wish to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the member for Repentigny.

I am pleased to rise in the House this evening to speak on behalf of my constituents in Manicouagan. I wanted to say that because, as we all know, every time I speak in the House, I do the same thing: I think of the people of the North Shore, for they are my motivation, the reason for all my speeches in the House as the member for Manicouagan.

We should always bear in mind the fact that we are in this place to represent tens of thousands of people. In a sens, it is as though they speak through us, and so I speak on behalf of my people in this place in the hopes of securing our well-being. At the risk of sometimes seeming naive, I believe we can accomplish this by striving to live up to an ideal that I think is expected of us. I try to live up to that. What I do as an MP, I do on behalf of my constituents. I act on behalf of my people and what I do, I do for them, the Quebeckers, the people of the North Shore, the Innu and the Naskapi.

My plan is to address two aspects of Bill C-2: the underlying principle, or what it intends; and our responsibility as elected representatives. Social justice, the redistribution of wealth and de jure and de facto equality are all principles the Bloc Québécois holds especially dear. We want some degree of security for all of our people—children, workers and seniors—during these tough and uncertain times.

The duty to care for oneself and others was and seems to be the underlying principle of the Canada recovery sickness benefit, the Canada recovery caregiving benefit and the Canada recovery benefit, which picks up where the Canada emergency response benefit left off with a more flexible employment insurance regime.

The Bloc Québécois is an opposition party that makes proposals, and back in April, we were already calling for an enhanced CERB that would meet people's needs and include an incentive to work designed to support our economy. We had to strike a balance between the needs of workers and those of employers. We needed to take into account the present and the future.

Although the Bloc Québécois would have like to have seen this change to the measure five months ago, we are satisfied that now, as we enter the second wave, the government heard and understood our proposal to help workers, who can now earn more, and business owners, who can now get the human resources they need. This just goes to show that the opposition is essential, as is the necessary democratic dialectic.

This brings me to the second topic I wanted to discuss, which is the responsibility of elected officials. I believe that it was unacceptable for the government to prorogue Parliament, because a crisis is inherently urgent. At a time when there were dire needs, when the public was asked to pitch in, to make sacrifices, to set an example and to demonstrate a sense of duty, the government shut down Parliament and disappeared. Why? Why were they hiding? What were they concealing? Why did they vanish? Did they just want people to forget?

Shutting down Parliament is not pitching in. It is not making sacrifices. It is not stepping up and demonstrating a sense of duty. It is not self-sacrifice. On the contrary, it came across as an act partly—if not fully—driven by selfishness, by blind partisanship, in an attempt to make people forget what certainly appears to be nepotism.

Shutting down Parliament for several weeks in the midst of a pandemic, in the middle of an emergency, as we were coming up with ideas, is not what the public could and should have expected from its elected officials, especially when prorogation need not have lasted more than a few hours.

Just as it did with the emergency wage subsidy, the government served itself instead of serving others. Now, when we have so little time and people are still coming up with ideas, proroguing and imposing gag orders is not what people can and should expect of us. That is the sign of an arrogant and complacent government that is trying to give the impression that Canadians are its primary concern, when in reality its main concern is its own interest and getting people to forget about the WE scandal, which is still ongoing.

In closing, the Bloc Québécois is in favour of the measures set out in this bill that will support our own, the people of Manicouagan. However, we must consider not only the substance of the bill, or its meaning, but also its form. When that form involves a gag order, that has meaning as well.

The government failed in its duty by depriving elected representatives, voters, the people of Quebec, of democracy, all for what I wish were good reasons. If I were a Liberal MP, which, with all due respect, seems like science-fiction or even personal dystopia, and I had to go through the exercise that I spoke about at the beginning of my speech, namely thinking about what motivates me and the reason behind all of my speeches, I would do my job based on that motivation, which for me is the people of the North Shore. If I were a Liberal MP, I would realize how problematic my inconsistency was.

[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, as a Liberal member of Parliament, I am very proud of what we have been able to accomplish as a government over the last eight months. The member talked a lot about the prorogation. What we are talking about is that, instead of coming in on a Monday, we came in on a Wednesday. However, what the member does not talk about are the days we sat in the chamber in July and August. We would have to go back in history over 30 years before seeing that sort of coming together of parliamentarians on the floor of the House of Commons. There were hundreds of questions over the summer, possibly even thousands of questions, that were asked of ministers, giving opposition and government members the opportunity to provide direct input into the legislation we have right now.

I appreciate the fact that the Bloc will support the legislation, because through this legislation we recognize there is a way for the federal government, working with the provincial governments, to help all Canadians. I see that as a good thing. Does the member not agree?

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his comments. I may not have the 20 years of experience that he was talking about today during the debates—I am just starting my second term—but I would point out that the House was not sitting this summer. We were meeting in COVID committee. Although I have less experience in Parliament, I believe we need to correct this, because that was not Parliament. Soon we will begin to have regular sittings.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, one thing that stood out in my colleague's speech was when she mentioned the equality of chances. One of the main drivers of the economy in western Canada is the natural resources sector. Due to the government's policies, it is not able to equally participate in creating jobs in the economy because of the lack of investment in the sector.

Does the member have any instances similar to this in her riding in any industry, not necessarily in the resource sector?

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for the question. This allows me to address something that is very important to the Bloc Québécois and me.

I think we are due for a certain reckoning when it comes to some sectors of our economy. I am from a mining and forestry region where there is a heavy industry and good jobs that are being threatened by various industries, including the Chinese aluminum industry, and sometimes even by the United States.

It is an industry that we are proud of, but we know that we must turn to something else. I was saying earlier that we have to consider the present, but also the future. We must never forget that. The future, in my opinion and that of the Bloc Québécois, is green. We need to transition. We need new jobs. We have no choice. The planet needs this shift. It is what needs to happen. The thing we are missing is new jobs. We need R and D for the resources we have in order to create good jobs for our people.

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

Madam Speaker, first I want to thank my colleague for talking about all Canadians coming back better. I appreciate the enthusiasm.

My friend Karen, a constituent of mine, lost her business due to the pandemic, like millions of Canadians. She closed her doors to protect public health. She also was hoping we would have an opportunity to reimagine our future as a country and get retrained so that she could fill a labour market gap in our country and be a health care assistant. Instead, the government prorogued Parliament and delayed CERB, which she is desperately waiting for, like many Canadians. She is scared, like a lot of people are. By delaying it, she was not able to access EI programs that could have had her starting in September.

Maybe my colleague can speak about the importance of training and investing in people so that we can reimagine how we move forward, and so that Karen can get the training to start a new career.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, my response will be brief.

As a teacher, I know the importance of training and I believe in training. However, this is a Quebec jurisdiction. If there is funding I would like it to be transferred to Quebec so that it may do what needs to be done in the area of education.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, as others have said, the reality we have been dealing with for the past six months has plunged workers in Quebec and Canada into a climate of unparalleled uncertainty.

Week in and week out, our constituents have been calling us and reaching out to us for answers to their questions. The government has loosened the purse strings to support people during this difficult time, and that is great. Now the plan is to transition CERB recipients to special recovery benefits outlined in Bill C-4. The bill includes three benefits and measures to make EI more flexible.

As an aside regarding EI, it is important to remember that, over the past 25 years, successive governments have robbed the EI fund of $59 billion to balance their budgets. Those governments, Conservative and Liberal alike, used their discretion to redirect those billions towards other budget priorities of the day.

With the EI fund having been plundered, COVID-19 certainly required a robust, costly measure that would have to be implemented quickly. That was the CERB. In terms of public finances, one can imagine that the support scenario might have played out differently if the EI fund had not been plundered so badly. Many women and young people have suffered because of this.

The CERB was good, but it had what I would call some design flaws. It helped a lot of families, and with all the uncertainty and the second wave, the Canada recovery benefit is very welcome, especially as it puts a renewed focus on the employment insurance system and more specifically the stabilizing role it plays for the economy. That is the role this system must play.

We were elected by people who are close to us in our ridings. We have responsibilities to them. Even though, as an opposition party, we did not introduce Bill C-4, it is still our duty to point out to the government the inconsistencies in some of the measures or some of the rules. It is also our duty to act with kindness and integrity in the hope that we will be heard. That is how we give a voice to our constituents, regardless of their political stripe. However, are our voices heard when they are conveyed by elected members?

I want to share with this assembly a specific case that is certainly not unique in Canada: the parents of critically ill children benefit EI program. That program came into effect in 2017 with a remarkably compassionate objective.

In the summer of 2019, an evaluation was done. The evaluation noted that there were just over 15,000 recipients, 80% of whom were women earning around $40,000 a year. The conclusions and recommendations section of the evaluation stated, and I quote:

...the Parents of Critically Ill Children benefit was effective overall in meeting its policy objectives. The benefit:

-was effective in easing financial pressures on parents in order to allow them more time to provide care to their...child;

-provided adequate temporary income support;

-helped keep claimants attached to the labour force; and

-contributed to positive social impacts....

These objectives seem quite similar to the objectives of maternity benefits, in that they allow parents to take care of children. Unlike maternity benefits, these special EI benefits for parents of critically ill children were not factored in when calculating eligibility for the CERB, even though the objectives are very similar.

I bring this up because my office has been devoting considerable time and effort to the case of Ms. Beaulieu, from Repentigny, since April. We have written letters, held Zoom meetings and made phone calls to two departments, including calls to the ministers themselves, a deputy minister and regional assistants. Ms. Beaulieu is one of the people who was left out of the CERB. Her four-year-old son has a critical illness. Ms. Beaulieu will likely never be able to hold a full-time job again.

Because of COVID-19, she lost her part-time job, the first job she had been able to hold in two years. As a result of the design flaw in the CERB that I mentioned earlier, parents of critically ill children do not qualify for the special benefits. This woman's eligible earnings fell less than $3,000 short of the threshold to qualify for the CERB.

The report indicated that, from 2013 to 2017, the period that was assessed, 15,300 people were eligible to receive the benefit. That is only 15,300 people in four years. When someone is taking care of a sick young child and then COVID-19 suddenly strikes and they lose their income, what are they supposed to do? The options are nothing short of heartbreaking.

How is it possible that no adjustments have been made to these measures after five months of lobbying? How is it that the government took advantage of this new bill to make changes to EI, but it did not listen to these people? Very few people are applying for this benefit, and they can easily be identified based on the seriousness of the child's health status or medical condition.

The government was quick to offer the CERB to other segments of the population. Why did it not listen to this legitimate request on behalf of caregivers of critically ill children? There were simple solutions; they only needed to be deemed eligible. If the government is going to review the terms of the EI program at all, why not do it properly? I just summarized a situation for which solutions could easily have been found.

I have another example. A few weeks before the pandemic eroded our parliamentary democracy, the House voted by a wide margin in favour of a motion moved by the Bloc Québécois to increase EI sickness benefits to a maximum of 50 weeks. This would also have been a great opportunity to align EI with a majority decision from the House. What does this failure to act say to the elected members of the House who voted overwhelmingly in favour of this motion and whose views on the changes were not considered? It is pretty disappointing that the government is refusing to listen.

We know full well what the deployment of programs like the CERB represents. Nothing is perfect, but our job is to work on improving what is introduced. The changes that should have been made to the CERB were delayed or non-existent. In the case of Ms. Beaulieu, we presented a solid argument. We did so diligently and respectfully in the appropriate forums. Eligibility for the special benefits for parents of critically ill children was never considered. To date, no official answer has been provided on this issue. One minister's staffer even refused to let me contact a deputy minister who was designated as the lead on this issue. Obstacle after obstacle was thrown up.

Ms. Beaulieu would have to wait. Two departments spent months passing the buck back and forth and telling us what we already knew. All we could do was watch as time ran out on the CERB program, without any benefits for critically ill children. Still today, because we continue to fight, we are told that an analysis is under way that will look into the rationale for treating earnings from these benefits the same as maternity benefits. From what I understand of the analysis, this has nothing to do with the issue; it is about determining whether Ms. Beaulieu is eligible. However, that is not what we want. We want this for everyone affected by this matter.

We support the new recovery benefits proposed in Bill C-4, but what are we supposed to think of the past six months and the approach that was taken? How should we interpret the complacency and lack of consideration for such a serious case? The government gave itself extraordinary powers through Bill C-13. Today I will not mention the files that have been overlooked for the past few months, but on the flip side, I do have to criticize the political reasons behind the Liberals' decision to prorogue Parliament for five weeks. Opportunities have been missed, as this bill would have been put through its paces.

To the MPs who watched time run out without doing anything or even responding to the communications from various ridings regarding cases like the one I talked about today, I have just one word to describe how people perceived it. That word is indifference.

[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, listening to some of the Conservative speakers, we often hear them say that we have gone too far in some of the support programs we have provided. We hear members of the New Democrats and, at times, even members from the Bloc say there is still more that we could do.

The reality is we went from having no program to creating the CERB program, with the support of a first-class public service. It is a program that has provided support for just under nine million Canadians, and the minister herself has indicated that it is not perfect. We are looking for changes. Now we are bringing it through this legislation, picking up where we can continue to support Canadians.

My comment, as opposed to a question, is if the member has those ideas, I would encourage her to continue to advocate as members of the Liberal caucus have done. When we consult with our constituents, and when we have thoughts and ideas in terms of how we believe the system could be improved, we advocate for those changes.

I appreciate the fact that she has brought those matters to the floor this evening.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comment.

I would like to remind him about a question I asked a little earlier during the previous debate. Essentially, we were here to make changes to the employment insurance system. I talked about how hard my office staff has been working. We have never stopped, and we are still working on that woman's case. Before making changes, we should have had time to discuss them, but Motion No. 7 was passed on May 26. This motion moved by the government and seconded by the NDP effectively eliminated both the House and democracy. We could not introduce bills, we could not move motions, we could not talk, we could not debate.

[An hon. member]

The Bloc did not ask any questions.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, there was nowhere for me to do that.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is interesting. We have heard an awful lot from the government about how the government is there as a team. It is working hard as a team, and it wants to include the whole team.

However, what we heard from the last member who spoke was that the team was not talking to her or to her party. We know that on the Conservative side, the present government has not talked to us about the issues of employment. We heard in the member's speech today about the issues of a number of people who are unemployed and the challenges they have.

I would be interested to hear from the member on the issue of those who are self-employed. I am wondering if the member would comment on how she sees the issue. It is great to have the conversation now, when we should have had it before this motion was brought forward. I would like to hear where the member stands on the issues of self-employment and how to get self-employed people back to work.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for talking about another group of workers that is unfortunately slipping through the cracks. With respect to self-employed workers, I mentioned a case having to do with benefits for sick children. The net is full of holes. We know nothing in this world is perfect. We know that an effort was made and that the CERB was useful to individuals and families. However, if we got a chance to talk about holes in the net, we just might be able to close them up. We were denied that opportunity this spring and again with prorogation. We keep hearing about how this is a crisis, an emergency. I think the parliamentary secretary pointed out that no Parliament sits during the summer. However, when there is an emergency, Parliament can sit in the summer. We could have sat this summer and closed up all the holes in the net.

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Madam Speaker, we are very much in a second wave of this pandemic. When we look at what people are going through right now, it is fair to say that there is a lot of fear. There is a lot of worry, and there is a lot of uncertainty in people's lives. In this second wave, when people are afraid, worried and uncertain, they need to know that help will be there if they need it. We see the number of cases rising in major cities in Ontario and in Quebec.

Now people are deeply concerned because the numbers are going up. People are scared that their places of work will be closed again. In this precarious situation, when everyone fears for the future, it is essential to provide the help that people need.

It is essential, in the context of a second wave, that people can count on support.

The first act of the Liberal government after proroguing Parliament for nearly two months was going to be cutting the help that families receive. That is what the Liberals told us in the summer. They prorogued Parliament and, while people are afraid and the second wave is upon us, they were going to cut the help that families need to get by.

Instead of $2,000 a month, which is not a luxurious amount, but just enough to get by, the Liberal government was going to cut that by $400 to $1,600 a month. The Liberals were going to force those families who were just getting by to get by with $400 less, despite the fact that we knew before the pandemic that families were just a couple of hundred dollars away from not being able to make ends meet. It was cruel what the Liberal government was going to do.

On one hand, the Liberals were presenting a throne speech with all sorts of promises and words to make life better for people, but those words rang very hollow. They were empty words. The first action of the government was going to be to cut the help that people need, so we fought back.

We fought back and made it very clear for Canadians, who are right now afraid of the future, who are worried about the second wave, that there is no way that we would allow the government to cut the help that families receive. We fought back and we won for Canadians. This was a victory for Canadians. This was a victory to say that we believe in investing in people and we believe that support should be there for families. If there is a situation where jobs have to be put on pause or if there is another shutdown, people need to know that they can count on support.

I was talking to my colleague from Vancouver Island and he was sharing a story of a woman in her 50s who has been a massage therapist for most of her life. She had a successful career, but as a result of COVID-19, she had to shut down. Even after the shutdown, a lot of people are nervous, as we know, about going back to some of the things that they used to do, so she was not seeing a pickup in her business again. She could not go back to work, so she lost everything.

On top of that, the Liberal government timed the throne speech to land just as CERB was ending. There was no time to give that woman any sense of security that there would be help for her. Right now, she is not sure how she is going to pay her rent. She is going to go to her line of credit to see if she can scrounge up enough money to pay rent, and she is waiting every day to find out what is going to happen. She asks if she will get help, but she does not know. I want her to know that we are going to pass this legislation tonight, and she will get that help.

Many people cannot work because of COVID-19. Their job and even their entire sector have ceased to exist. It is in no way the workers' fault.

They are scared. They don't know what they are going to do. They do not know how they are going to make ends meet.

This Liberal government planned the Speech from the Throne just when the CERB was ending. That was not right. I want people who need the CERB to know that we will fight for them. This evening, we will be voting in favour of a bill to continue helping people.

However, that is not the only thing that people worried about. As we all know, there are so many Canadians faced with the impossible choice of going into work sick and risking infecting their colleagues, or staying at home without pay not knowing how to pay their bills at the end of the month. That is an impossible choice made even more impossible by a pandemic. How does it make any sense that a worker be faced with this impossible choice when facing a global pandemic?

Back in May, we fought and obtained a commitment from the Liberal government to bring in paid sick leave for workers. Months later, there was no action. We made another clear demand. We said that if the Liberals wanted our support, they had to bring in paid sick leave for workers in legislation. There should never be any worker making that impossible choice. Any worker who is worried about being infected by COVID-19, who is potentially vulnerable or susceptible to COVID-19, should be able to stay at home and not risk infecting their co-workers and still be able to pay their bills. That is what we did. We fought and we won another massive victory for Canadians and for workers. We want them to know they will never have to make that impossible choice again.

We were able to obtain something that is the first of its kind. This is a historic moment. For the first time in the history of our country, there will be a federal paid sick leave for workers.

We are extremely proud of the work we have done. I want to thank my entire team. Together, we fought for Canadians. For the first time in our country's history, we have obtained paid sick leave. This is incredible. It means that workers do not have to make an impossible choice between going to work sick and staying home not knowing how to make ends meet.

We are there for them, we fought for them and we won for them.

These are two massive victories. We are very excited and honoured that we were able to fight for Canadians and win for Canadians. For New Democrats, it is not enough to put in place a paid sick leave during a pandemic. We believe that this is the first brick in the foundation for a permanent paid sick leave for all Canadians now and forever. That should be a part of our social safety net, not just in a pandemic, but all the time. No worker should live in fear that they cannot take time off from work if they are sick. That is our vision.

We know that there will be a lot of folks talking about how we are going to pay for these programs. It is a fair question. We need to be able to pay for these important investments in people. I am worried because as the deficit increases, we will hear more and more from Conservatives who will say we should cut the help to people in the middle of a pandemic. There will be some Liberals who are going to listen to the words of Conservatives and say that maybe we should cut the help. In fact, that is what the Liberals were about to do. They were convinced by the Conservatives there was too much help given to people and were going to cut that help. What other explanation is there for cutting the help in the middle of a second wave as the Liberals were planning to do but for the fact the New Democrats fought back and stopped them.

The Liberals are falling prey to this ideology, this belief of the Conservatives that when times are tough, let us put the burden, the weight and the pain on working people. That is what Conservatives do.

In some cases, I guess the Liberals listen to that because we are seeing a lot of talk about the deficit. It is important and scary to see a massive deficit, but the way forward is not to put the pain on the woman who lost her entire career in massage therapy on Vancouver Island, the solution is not to put the pain on working-class Canadians who have lost their jobs or on small businesses that are on the brink. Who should pay for this pandemic? The ultra wealthy who made record profits during this pandemic. We are not going to hear this from the Conservatives. We are not going to hear this from the Liberals. They talk about taxing extreme wealth inequality and I challenge anyone on the Liberal bench to explain what that even means. How can the government tax inequality? I know what it can tax. It can tax the ultra rich. It can tax those who make profits in Canada but hide all that profit and pay no taxes in Canada. That is what it can do.

What we are proposing is this. Those who have profited off this pandemic, the ultra rich who have made record profits during this pandemic, the ultra rich who have made billions of dollars in profits, should be the ones who pay for the recovery. If a company makes a profit in Canada, that company should pay taxes in Canada. The reality is there are far too many companies. One is not more than enough, there are so many companies that make a profit here in our country but pay virtually no tax in our country. That is who we should go after. There are companies that make record profits from Canadians in Canada, take that money and put it in an offshore tax haven, hiding it and not paying their fair share. That happens again and again. Recently we saw that the CRA had even taken a company to court for hundreds of millions of dollars of taxes it did not pay. The judge found it had certainly made profits in Canada, that it had taken all those profits and put them into a bank out of Canada and it was legal to do so. That needs to end. We need to stop that. We need to be very clear that the pain of, the cost of and the recovery from this pandemic should not fall on Canadians, on workers or the people who have felt the pain, but on those who have profited. That is what the New Democrats are going to do. We are going to fight to make sure the wealthiest pay their fair share.

While we are dealing with the crisis of COVID–19, it is immediate and we are feeling it right now. People are feeling the pain, they are worried and afraid, so I want them to know that we see them, hear them, know that they are going through difficult times right now and we are going to be there for them. From the beginning of this pandemic, we have fought every step of the way to make sure Canadians were at the centre of everything we did. Whether it was the CERB, the wage subsidy, students, people living with disabilities or seniors, every step of the way we fought for them and I want them to know they can count on us to continue to fight for them.

We know there is not only one crisis we are up against. We are not just facing a COVID–19 crisis. There are so many other crises we are up against. We know the climate crisis is still raging. In my home province of British Columbia and riding of Burnaby South, just a couple of weeks ago the air quality was so bad in the Lower Mainland it was one of the worst air quality ratings of all major cities in the world. While in the classrooms people were being advised to open the windows to let the fresh air in, at the same time they were being told close the windows to prevent the incoming fumes from the forest fires and climate fires. We know the climate crisis is impacting us right now. It is an emergency and we have to do everything we can to fight that crisis as well. That means making the right investments so we create jobs in communities that help us reduce our emissions and make a better quality of life. One example is if we invested in retrofits and building affordable housing, we could create local jobs, make life more affordable and fight the climate crisis. That is what a just recovery would look like.

We also know we are up against a crisis of systemic racism. Just recently, there was an example of an indigenous woman in Quebec, a heart-rending story, who pleaded for help with her dying breath. It was recorded and put on Facebook. She asked for somebody to please help her.

She asked that someone come for her.

She was dying in a hospital bed and the video recorded hospital staff mocking her and insulting her as she was lying and dying. I have said before that systemic racism kills people. It strips people of their dignity and it kills them. This woman died and while she was sick was subjected to racial taunts and systemic discrimination.

I have said again and again that it is not enough to just talk about these things. That woman's life was precious. She did not deserve to die that way. We have to end systemic racism in all its forms, whether it is in health care, in our criminal justice system or in our judicial system. We have to stop talking about it and actually get to the work of ending systemic racism. Enough is enough.

We know we are still faced with an opioid crisis that is taking the lives of so many Canadians. We have to stop our approach to this crisis as a criminal justice problem, as a problem that we can arrest our way out of and, instead, look at it for what it really is: a health care crisis that is going to require compassion and care to save lives.

We know that the impact of COVID-19 disproportionately affected women, so we need a she-covery. We need to be very thoughtful and purposeful with our investments to acknowledge that if women were impacted disproportionately, then we need to have a clear path to remedying that problem. One of the solutions that all of the experts are calling for is massive investment in child care. Therefore, if women, parents in general, but specifically women, choose to go back to work, they do not have to be faced with the impossible reality of not being able to find affordable child care or losing their careers. That should not be a choice that anyone has to make, particularly for women. If we believe in a society where everyone has the right to work and participate, we need to invest in child care.

I will end on this last note.

There is always talk about what should be done about the many crises we are facing, including the climate crisis and the systemic racism crisis, but we have to act. We do not have time to wait before taking action; we have to do it now. Words are no longer enough, and now is the time to act. We have solutions, and we can do something, so I demand that the government take concrete action to address these crises.

We must ask ourselves what the price of inaction is. Unless we take action, inequalities will certainly continue, and the gap between the average person and the very wealthy will only widen. That is why action is needed.

The reality is we need to act. Some people will say we should just let it be and not act. Inaction is a choice. If we do not act, if we do not fight the inequality in a meaningful way, if we do not make the wealthiest pay their fair share, inaction will result in the wealthiest getting even wealthier and everyone else falling behind, and that simply is not a choice New Democrats are going to let happen.

We are going to make sure that this crisis does not create more wealth inequality. We are going to ensure that this crisis does not make life worse for women or working-class people. We are going to fight for them because we know the cost of inaction is too grave. We will fight to make sure we have a more just, resilient and fairer economy, one that works for everyone, one in which everybody has the opportunity to live their best life.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to rise to the challenge the leader of the New Democratic Party gave us when he asked what we are doing regarding Canada's wealthiest. The Prime Minister addressed that point in a question and answer earlier today, where he illustrated that one of the first actions we took after the 2015 election was to reduce the taxes of Canada's middle class and at the same time increase the taxes for Canada's wealthiest.

I remind the leader of the New Democratic Party today that the NDP voted against that particular tax decrease. In fairness, he was not the leader back then. It was Tom Mulcair, and those were the days in which they had a tough time even acknowledging the need for a deficit. I appreciate the fact that the NDP is supporting the bill. It was a very bold move for New Democrats to come forward and say that they wanted to see this legislation.

Would the leader of the NDP not agree it is absolutely critical that the government invest in people in order to minimize the negative impacts of the second wave?