Debates of Nov. 29th, 2021

An Act to Provide Further Support in Response to COVID-19

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I do want to remind the member for Battle River—Crowfoot that he had an opportunity to ask his question and he should be respectful when he is getting the answer. If he has any other questions and comments, then he can ask them the next time around.

The hon. member for Thérèse-De Blainville.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, one question is being asked over and over about a problem that could have a constructive solution. Bill C-2 is all about such proposed measures as the reinstatement of the Canada recovery benefit and a weekly $300 benefit for workers not eligible for EI who find themselves in a lockdown.

How can we explain the different approach to the self-employed in the cultural sector, which, while not under lockdown, is practically dying because it is having so much trouble rebounding? These workers are not eligible for EI. Why have they been outright forgotten in Bill C-2?

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the member on her election to the House in this 44th Parliament.

We have been quite nimble, as I mentioned in my speech. Absolutely we provided supports for individual Canadians and for small businesses, but also at the discretion of the regional recovery fund, which we instilled across the country to continue to provide that support for sectors that may not have fit in one way or another, to continue to have that hands-on approach to ensure that industries like the agriculture industry were able to sustain themselves as the country recovered economically.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, as we have heard many times, a lot of seniors, including my father, receive the guaranteed income supplement and that is how they make ends meet. A lot of low-income seniors also got CERB because they lost their supplementary income. Now that member's government is clawing back their guaranteed income supplement.

Could the member inform the House what her government plans to do to ensure that those seniors have their full guaranteed income supplement and are able to make ends meet?

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Madam Speaker, the question of seniors is a very important one in the House and across our country. Our seniors committed their whole lives to ensuring we would do well, that our country would not only sustain itself but would also thrive. The onus is on us to provide that support.

Over the past year not only did we provide individual payments to seniors to help them see through COVID-19 and the impacts that it brought to their lives, but we also increased OAS and GIS. We not only did that financially, but we also committed to creating those long-term care standards that seniors deserve in their most vulnerable years of life. I know that work is going to continue. I look forward to working with the members opposite to ensure that happens.

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

Madam Speaker, one of the areas of focus in Bill C-2 is, of course, the tourism sector. I wonder if the member has any insights as to whether there will be more. This will not be enough to support key tourist destinations. Part of the problem is that we need to think of all the ways in which COVID continues to impact tourism, particularly on inconsistent rules about whether people need certain tests to re-enter Canada from the United States. I do not know if the member has any thoughts on that.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am not sure if I can give a brief answer to this question. It is something that is very close to my heart. However, Bill C-2 does commit to continue to provide support. I really respect our restaurant owners and all the hoteliers in the tourism industry, understanding just how gendered that impact is within the tourism industry, and how much more support we need to provide.

I look forward to continuing to work with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands in ensuring that all of our tourism within Canada is thriving. I would love to see more Canadians going out and about to different parts of the country.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate all of my colleagues for winning their election in this 44th Parliament and making sure that we come here to discuss Canada's issues in Parliament. I am looking forward to that and more debate in the House of Commons.

First, as it is the first time I have risen in the House since the election, I would like to thank the constituents of Calgary Centre for giving me the honour of coming back here to represent their interests in the House of Commons, in the debates that we are going to have here, and make sure that we have better legislation for Canadians going forward. I also want to thank my campaign team and my wife, in particular, who has always been my biggest supporter.

Today, we are talking about Bill C-2 and how we can try to make it better. This is about government spending, and it is one of the main things the government does. I also want to talk about inflation, especially monetary inflation, the cost-of-living increases and, of course, asset inflation.

I will start with the fiscal situation and federal government debt.

When I ran for Parliament in 2019, I decided to become a candidate because I thought Canada was overspending. We were spending our children's money, and going deeper into debt to pay for today's programming at the expense of tomorrow's taxpayers. In 2019, Canada's debt was $721 billion. Where is it now? It is $1.234 trillion.

I will note that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Edmonton West.

We have $1.234 trillion in debt, which is $500 billion more in debt than we had two years ago. The government has based this on what it wants to continue, a debt-to-GDP ratio of around 53%, which is up from 30% only a few years ago. That is a ridiculous increase, and the government plans to leave it there in its spending plans for the foreseeable future. It is as if arriving at a 53% debt-to-GDP ratio is the goal, and we just keep adding debt so the debt ratio of our country is kept high, and it is very high. This is a government that believes it does not have to make choices about where it spends taxpayers' dollars or borrows funds from future generations.

Interest rates are low, because the debt issued is held by the Bank of Canada. Interestingly, in a technocrat approach to access leverage, a Canadian Crown corporation buys the debt that it issues to the government to pay for its spending. It is a nice balance-sheet trick where the entity that is setting the market rate for issuing government debt actually participates in the market as a buyer to ensure that the debt is bought at that market rate. The end result of this is that the Bank of Canada, a funded subsidiary of the Government of Canada whose debts are guaranteed by the taxpayers of Canada, has grown its balance sheet from $105 billion in 2020 to over $500 billion today. Of course, it has the bonds on its balance sheet guaranteed by the taxpayers of Canada as well, but let us remember that it bought these bonds, some from bond sellers in the open market, at a rate that it set at very low.

I will give a little background to understand this concept. Low interest rates, or “coupons” as they are sometimes called, equate to higher bond prices. The correlation is automatic. When the government is buying bonds from market participants at a low market rate that it set, it is overpaying for the bond. Eventually, rates will reset higher. Higher rates equal lower prices for the bonds on the Bank of Canada's balance sheet. What does that mean? It means that the adjustment to reducing the quantitative easing experiment in which the government is participating is going to be very expensive. We are buying high and we will need to sell lower. How much lower? Well, with an increase of $400 billion on its balance sheet, normalization will require a loss of billions of dollars of value for the Bank of Canada per year until $400 billion of Government of Canada debt has been sold into the market. This quantitative easing, a way for central bankers to keep public spending ratcheting higher, in any iteration, in any country, has never shown a path out. We are experimenting here without any concept of the outcome.

Remember that Canada's debt total is $1.234 trillion. About 40% of that is now held by the Bank of Canada, so we, the people of Canada, have become the de facto only buyer of Canada's debt. We must add those billions in impacted losses onto Canada's fiscal deficits going forward, because they are not included in any of the fiscal plans at this time. These are the plans continuing to have a debt-to-GDP ratio above 50% for the foreseeable future. Even after the recession of 2008-09, that ratio was only 30%.

Canada is on a train to a cliff, and the conductor is not looking ahead. There is no magic money tree.

Canadians will recall the last time in our recent history when government spending grew out of control, which was from the Trudeau government deficits in the 1970s and 1980s.

With rising interest rates, payments on our national debt became the government's largest expense line item. Taxpayers were paying bondholders from around the world excessive amounts of interest. Those tens of billions of dollars per year that taxpayers contributed could not be allocated to programs like improvements in our health care system.

The final outcome of this period was the Chrétien Liberal government cutting federal funding to health care in 1996. At the time, it was Canada's second-largest budget line item after interest payments on debt. Is this foreshadowing?

Canadians still have health care, although the federal government's share has fallen from the conventional 50% to 22%. The rest has been thrust onto the backs of the provinces unilaterally. The provinces' finances have suffered ever since.

Let us think about the Liberal government's promises on spending in provincial government jurisdiction, on borrowed money. What happens to these services when the bill becomes due?

Debt ratio metrics are only relevant when we are comparing to other countries. As far as balance sheets of governments go, the measure is irrelevant. Corporations have debt-to-value ratios because it is a measure of how they can leverage their operations with cheaper tax-assisted financing and therefore earn a higher return for their owners. That notion does not exist for governments, and no government should ever embrace the notion that a country accumulates debt it will never pay back.

It is an excuse to have future generations of Canadians pay for today's expenses, as if our children will not have their own bills to pay with their own taxes. They will be paying for decades for services we delivered today.

Let us remember that a country's debt profile is not just the federal government's debt, we need to include provincial government debt, which has skyrocketed during COVID because of the provinces' needs to increase health care funding during a health crisis. It also includes corporate debt, which has increased remarkably, and household debt.

In total, Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio rose by 80% in 2020, by far the largest increase in the world. The closest runner-up in this ratcheting metric was Japan at a 50% increase. The U.S. saw a 45% increase, the U.K. saw a 35% increase, China saw a 30% increase and Australia only saw a 12% increase. Comparably, Canada stands alone in its profligacy.

Monetary inflation leads to asset inflation, which is most exemplified by the housing market. Mortgage debt increased by $100 billion. Canadian households are personally in debt for $2.5 trillion, or $64,000 per capita. Mortgage debt has increased by 22%. Single-family home prices have increased by a similar amount of 23% over the past year.

Canada now stands at the top of the most overvalued housing markets in the world. Whereas in the U.S. the increase in real disposable income slightly exceeds real home prices, in Canada housing prices have increased at a rate almost double the increase in real disposable income.

This is trouble we need to address here at this level so we understand what the future looks like for Canada's finances. We need to examine this bill closely in an actual team Canada approach.

In that respect, I am looking forward to this bill's review at the House of Commons Standing on Finance, where all members of the House of Commons will be able to provide input to ensure the bill meets the needs and expectations of Canadians.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Madam Speaker, I have been here for two years, and I have found the member to be quite articulate in his points. However, one thing that concerned me in his speech, and he talked a lot about debt and deficits, was he made almost no mention of the fact that we have just gone through a global pandemic and the fact that the government has had to intervene to make sure that Canadian businesses and individuals were supported.

It was not just Canada but across the globalized economy, countries have been intervening. Would the member suggest we not have intervened? Let us bring this back to Bill C-2, because that is what we are here to talk about right now. Does the member support this legislation? Does he think this is needed, notwithstanding his treatise on debt and deficit spending?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to see my colleague back in the House of Commons for his debate. I hope we can continue to have this debate in the House of Commons.

There are some issues around Bill C-2 that we need to address. I would like to address them in committee, so we could get to the details on them. We do need to provide some support for some Canadians going forward to make sure we come out of this transition. We need to do so very effectively. We have overspent in many ways.

We could talk about the money that has gone out in fraudulent payments. We could talk about organized crime and its participation in the targeted programs that were delivered during COVID. We need to make sure we look at this. We also need to acknowledge the provinces and how much they have had to increase their spending to deal with the actual on-the-ground expenses of health care.

Those are things that I hope we could address very clearly in committee.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, I had the privilege of attending university with the member more years ago than I care to admit. I want to welcome him back to the House. I always appreciate his thoughtful speeches.

My question concerns something that I think is most important to Canadians when we talk about the economy, and that is jobs. For Canadians, that is their economy. It is how they get their revenue, it is how they afford their expenditures. My questions are directed towards that.

First, does my hon. colleague think that the Bank of Canada should be looking at amending its mandate, which is coming up soon, to include a full employment strategy? Second, does he not agree that, if businesses are having a hard time finding employees right now, this is a market signal that perhaps employers in those industries need to increase their wages and working conditions in order to attract more people to those jobs, in line with classic economic theory?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, there are a lot of things in that question that I want to address here, one of which we call in economic theory the “Gini coefficient”. What has happened during this pandemic is an outflow of funds has gone into the richest Canadians' pockets. We could take a look at the increase in price of houses in Canada, and it has gone up by 24%. If we look at the increase in the stock market since COVID started, and it has gone up by 62%.

What percentage of Canadians actually participate in owning these assets? It is about the top quarter. The top quarter of Canadians have gotten excessively rich in this process. The bottom 75%, shall we say, a ballpark figure, have not done that well. The assets they have to pay for have gone up in price, and as a result there is less income equality happening in Canada. We need to address that. That has been part of the failure of COVID spending, and what we need to address in making sure we get this programming correct going forward.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Madam Speaker, the narrative of the Conservative Party in particular has been to blame the Government of Canada for all inflation ills.

However, putting that aside for the time being, I would be interested in the member's comments on the mismatch between supply and demand. There is a buildup of demand over the course of the pandemic because people had no place to go, no place to spend, and then there is now a huge demand for goods and services. That has been interrupted by supply chain problems. I would be interested in the member's thoughts as that affects inflation.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, there had been an interruption in supply and demand during the brief three-month period where there was an actual total lockdown. The adjustment to that period occurred.

We are now looking at an adjustment to continue going forward and making sure that supply and demand continues to be met. We are talking about ratcheting prices here for everyday Canadians. This is something that is going to be reflected in their cost of living. It is exactly what we are driving at here.

If their cost of living continues to increase, where does that actually spiral? It actually spirals into more inflation. It is not deflation, as the government's financial team seemed to think it was not so long ago. It is inflationary, as my party has said. The outcome of monetary policy, of course, is always going to be inflation. Loose monetary policy leads to inflation. We have escalating prices.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, as this is my first speech in the 44th Parliament, I beg the House's indulgence to allow me a few minutes to thank some folks. First of all, I want to thank the good people of Edmonton West or, as I call it, “Edmonton West Edmonton Mall”, for sending me to this place for the third time. Each time I have been elected has been as special as the first, so I thank them very much. I am very honoured to be representing them here in Ottawa.

I want to thank my fantastic family for their support, especially my beautiful wife Sasha, who has been putting up with me for 24 years now. I realize some of my colleagues have been putting up with me for six years. If they think that is bad, she has been putting up with me for four times as long, so I want to thank her for that. She has endured nine moves across the country with me from Victoria to Newfoundland, back again, and then back to the Prairies. She helped me raise, mostly on her own, two boys and several dogs.

She has worked two nomination campaigns with me, three elections and multiple elections for other people since I started the political process when I was very young. No one can do what we do in the House without the support of their spouses, and I am certainly an example of that. Sasha, my wife, is no different from all the other spouses who are the real force behind all of us here working. I thank Sasha very much. I love her and she is beautiful. I promised her before there would be a lot more champagne after this election, and I will ensure that happens.

I also want to thank my two sons, Jensen and Parker, who have done campaigns with me since they were in grade one and two. One is now in law school and the other is in the workforce. They door-knocked for me this time, and in 2019 and 2015 as well. I thank them very much.

I want to thank all the volunteers who have helped me out through the campaign. There are too many to mention, but they know who they are. I will point out just one gentleman: Dennis, my financial agent. Dennis has a goal of keeping me out of jail while he does the books for Elections Canada, and so far so good. I thank Dennis.

I also want to thank my constituency staff. We all know we are just the figureheads and the ornaments on the car for the staff who do all the real work in our constituency offices. I want to thank Oula, who has been with me since day one. Before me, she worked with the honourable Laurie Hawn and with Peter Goldring before that. I want to thank Linda, Brandon, Sante, Ory and Surj who have joined me here in Ottawa. They make me look partially good, so I thank them for that.

We are finally back in the House and discussing Bill C-2. There are 14 or 15 people glued to their TVs or to CPAC, wondering if this is Bill C-2 what was C-1? What was the biggest thing on the government's agenda before this? Was it addressing the out-of-control inflation? Was it addressing COVID or perhaps a new variant? Was there a C-1 talking about the supply chain crisis, or perhaps talking about Abbotsford and having more resilient infrastructure? Was it about the out-of-control debt that we have, at a trillion dollars? Perhaps it was about reconciliation.

If people thought the government's priority would be one of these things, then they thought wrong because the government's priority in C-1 was to force the House back into a hybrid Parliament. In fact, there are probably more Liberals mailing it in by Zoom than are physically in the building debating today, which is a shame.

The Liberals said they had to do this for safety reasons, yet on Monday of last week when we all got together for the first time back here, it was almost a party on the floor. We had government members giving each other high fives and hugging each other. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister were close talking, as Seinfeld would call it. There was no social distancing, yet that was safe. However, is it safe for working in person in the House during a debate? It is not so much. It is safe to go to Glasgow and yuk it up with 20,000 people, and sometimes 1,000 people maskless in a reception, but not safe enough to be here serving Canadians in person.

We know that this is not about safety. We know it is about hiding, covering up and a lack of accountability to Canadians. We saw it in the previous Parliament, when we were in the Zoom hybrid setting. We saw it when Wayne Easter famously turned off the power when things were getting hot for the Liberal side in committee.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands is rising on a point of order.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member has, by his own admission, only been speaking to Bill C-1. He spent at least two or three minutes speaking to Bill C-1. Perhaps we could discuss the bill before us, which is Bill C-2, and not bills that have already been voted on.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I appreciate the hon. member's intervention. I want to remind members that there is a bit of latitude during debates in the House. I want to also remind members that they are to speak to the bill before the House. They may be trying to link some of the bills, but I would make mention that the hon. member should ensure he is speaking to the bill that is before the House.

There is another point of order by the hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, just to correct the record for all members, it was not Bill C-1. It was Government Business No. 1. I want people to be correct when speaking in the House for the benefit of their constituents.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I appreciate the additional clarification from the hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. I will remind all members that when they are debating in the House, they need to debate the bill before the House.

I am sure the hon. member for Edmonton West will bring his debate around to Bill C-2.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is linked. Perhaps the member opposite could stop interfering. That gentleman has been here long enough and knows the rules of the House. I beg him to stop interfering and just allow me to give my speech, like an adult.

As I mentioned, this is about blocking accountability. We saw it at the operations committee, where ministers could not log on. Even after a year of having a hybrid Parliament, the ministers could not log on. Bureaucrats, who were there to defend the government or the estimates, were not able to sign in. We had meetings cut short because of the lack of resources. Let us be clear that it has nothing to do with safety. It is about reducing accountability.

I had asked a question on Friday about Bill C-2, and whether the new spending in four parts had gone through the Treasury Board approval process. The members opposite were not sure, but they assured me that they would probably follow the rules. I asked because new spending is required to go through the Treasury Board approval process. In parts of this bill, the Liberals might be able to say that it is a tax issue and therefore it does not have to. They may get away with that, but not all parts of it are. There is some new spending that has to go through the Treasury Board approval process. This is why I am worried. I did not get a straight answer.

If we look back at the previous Parliament and the wage subsidy of $110 billion, famously a lot of it went to very profitable companies. We asked the president of the Treasury Board at the time, who is now the health minister, if the wage subsidy went through the Treasury Board approval process. It was $110 billion.

Does anyone have an answer or a guess? Of course it did not.

What did we end up with? Let us look at some of the people who received some of that $110 billion of taxpayers' money. Rogers cable, a government-protected duopoly that received $26 billion for a buyout of Shaw, received government handouts. Lululemon, which at the time had increased its market capitalization by $9 billion, still got taxpayers' money. Air Canada famously got taxpayers' money through the wage subsidy and used it to help pay executive bonuses. Bell Canada, which I think is the largest of the telecoms, is another protected duopoly in a lot of markets. It received money. Telus is another one worth billions with huge profits. It increased its dividend. I know this because I am a shareholder. It was able to increase dividends at the same time as it received taxpayers' money. Nutrien is another one and, of course, what would a trip to the Liberal trough be without SNC-Lavalin and Irving also receiving money?

That is the issue. Has the new spending in Bill C-2 gone through the Treasury Board approval process properly, so that we know the taxpayers' money is getting to the businesses and people who are truly in need?

Bill C-2 is a bit of a “forward/backward” budget. The famous Allan Fotheringham, also known as Dr. Foth, used to call our old Progressive Conservative party the forward/backward party. That is similar to Bill C-2. At the same time as we have a labour crisis, we have the government offering incentives for companies to hire, but also incentives for people to stay home. We are subsidizing one and the other.

We see again that the government wants to put more money into the recovery sickness benefit and the caregiver benefit, both of which had billions set aside for them in the economic update. The government underspent by about 90%, so the money was not needed, yet here we are with $500 million and $300 million being put back in. We want to see more oversight. It is not that we do not support Bill C-2, but that we want to see proper oversight and a proper plan.

The other part of the bill talks about helping at-need industries, such as hotels and restaurants. I proudly grew up working in the hotel and restaurant industry, and did so for 35 years. When I talk to hotel and restaurant owners and workers, they are not asking for another handout, please. They want bums in beds. They want bums in seats. They want people travelling again. They want to see a plan. Hotels with mortgages of $50-, $60- or $70 million are not going to last forever on subsidies. Small restaurant owners are not going to last forever with subsidies. We need a plan to get the economy going. We need a plan to get people travelling again.

We need to address the issue of the difficulty of travellers coming into Canada with PCR testing. A three-day visit is not enough.

What we are looking for is not only a plan for the current government to get people working again, but also a plan to address our concerns with respect to its accountability and its oversight of this pandemic.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the brief comments the member made regarding Bill C-2. I know he spent quite a bit of time talking about and being very critical of other government subsidies, as though he did not vote in favour of them. All of the subsidies and supports that were given to Canadians, with the exception of those that came at the end of June through the last budget, were passed with the unanimous consent of the House. The member is very critical of those supports, yet he voted in favour of every one of them. Perhaps he could explain to us why he voted in favour of them if he is so critical of them.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will remind my hon. colleague from Kingston and the Islands that those votes were done on division. We also recognized at the time that urgent action was needed. Did the government provide urgent action? One of the problems was that it rolled out CERB, and the wage subsidy came later. It was so poorly put together, and there was no oversight. The government shovelled money out to its friends in big business, but ignored the small businesses. It made small businesses pay out salaries first, then claim the money back later, down the road. It was a flawed system. We had to support these people in any way possible. Obviously, the government was not going to do it, so we had to step in and help in any way we could.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a strange time in my riding, because I have never seen so many “help wanted” signs. However, those jobs are not being filled. We had recovery benefits almost a month ago, but we have not seen the corresponding return of workers to where the jobs are. That shows me there is a disconnect in how the federal government is approaching this.

Obviously, the skill sets these jobs demand are not being met by the current workforce. With the ending of these benefits, especially the Canada worker lockdown benefit, there will be very vulnerable people who are going to be without any kinds of benefits or job prospects at a time when inflation is going through the roof. Therefore, I would like to ask my colleague this. Does he see Bill C-2 as a missed opportunity, when we could have invested a lot of money in retraining to make sure these workers have the skills that many industries in my riding and across this country are now very much looking for?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-2 is very much a missed opportunity. It does not provide the proper targeting we believe is necessary. There will be people in need who fall through the cracks.

One of the issues we have been talking about for a year and a half now is with respect to the companies that opened just before COVID happened. It is by no fault of their own. Perhaps they started building a month before the lockdown happened and required two or three months before they could open their business. We asked repeatedly in the House for help for restaurants, hotels and other businesses. Every time, a Liberal minister stood up and said that it was under consideration, or that the government was monitoring it, which was my favourite. As if a person could pay bills by the government “monitoring it”.

This bill could have been so much better. I hope the government will take this opportunity to get it to committee to improve it for Canadians.