Debates of Dec. 14th, 2021

Economic and Fiscal Update 2021

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are here for all Canadians and all Quebeckers.

It was a serious mistake to not say anything about the labour shortage in the Speech from the Throne. There is a crisis in Quebec and throughout the country. We proposed policies to address the labour shortage, speed up the process for foreign workers and provide training in partnership with the provinces.

In my speech, I talked about Beauce Atlas, a company in Beauce that is dealing with a labour shortage. It is now the victim of another crisis because of the Buy America policy in the United States. No action has been taken with respect to steel or aluminum and we are now seeing the effect of tariffs on our businesses. Competition is fierce for our businesses in Quebec and across the country.

Only the Conservatives will be there for Quebec businesses, Quebec families and Quebec seniors. We are here for the well-being of all our citizens.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Canada is faced with an affordable housing crisis. There is no question that those trying to get into the market and own a home for the first time are having a real tough go of it. We need to address that. One of the ways the NDP proposes to address that is through financialization, not treating housing as though it is a stock market.

Beyond that, there is a whole spectrum of people experiencing the housing crisis, those who are unhoused and there are those who are homeless. Right now, outside the Confederation Building, there is a homeless man on the street, in the snow, in the dead of winter in Ottawa. There are those who cannot afford to pay rent. I am not talking about high-cost rent for fancy apartments, just regular apartments, and they cannot even afford that. What needs to be done is to address the whole spectrum of housing needs, not to mention the incredible need for indigenous peoples, who are 11 times more likely to use a shelter. Across the country, 235,000 Canadians use a shelter each year.

Will the Conservatives and the Liberals support the NDP's proposal to build 500,000 units of real affordable housing, including co-operative housing, so that people can get housed and get off the streets and have stability and, finally, make sure we actually have a “for indigenous, by indigenous” urban, rural and northern indigenous housing strategy?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. member that there is no question there is a housing crisis in Canada right now, particularly an affordable housing crisis, a first-time homebuyer crisis, a crisis of homelessness and opioid addictions. I agree with her. The only party that does not seem to acknowledge that fully is the Liberal government that has completely ignored the issue in a major way in the fall economic statement.

I would also invite the member and all Canadians to look at the great program Conservatives ran on in the election. We talked about the million new homes in our plan. We are more ambitious than just building 500,000 units. We had a plan to dedicate 15% of federal properties to accelerate the building of homes, including affordable homes. We were going to tie federal infrastructure investments to density. We had a “for indigenous, by indigenous” policy in our platform.

I am very proud that we were the only party to really represent the crisis that is being faced at all levels right now in terms of people at the margins, first-time homebuyers and many seniors. As I said, half of Canadians 30 and younger are giving up on home ownership and the government is giving up on them. Canada's Conservatives will never give up on home ownership for Canadian families.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, at the risk of repeating myself, there was an election at the end of the summer.

There was certainly no need for that election.

We wondered why the election was called, what purpose it served, what were the priorities, what should be asked and what should be changed. Today, we are right back where we started: The Liberals have a minority government. Again, the people did not have enough confidence in the Liberals to give them a majority. In Quebec, we kept the same breakdown and the same number of seats for each party.

Instead of calling a pointless election, we could have carried on working and sitting. We could have followed through on support measures. We could have followed through on everything that was in the previous budget, the one tabled in April 2021. We could not do any of that because of the election. Then we were subjected to what I would call an insipid throne speech. What was the next logical step? What vision did the throne speech have to offer? In the wake of a so-called necessary election, there was nothing new under the sun.

Today we got the economic and fiscal update. We were expecting it because it was promised in the last budget. We were told there would be one in the fall. Quite frankly, the economic and fiscal update was a bit lightweight compared to what we are used to, both in the number of pages and the measures and vision within it. I suppose that was to be expected given the unnecessary election and the vacuous throne speech.

Two months after the election the Liberals called, the government has run out of steam. It is exhausted. It has no ideas, no new proposals. This is ridiculous, unprecedented and discouraging.

Five days ago, all the provinces got together for the Council of the Federation. United, they asked Ottawa to deal with the health care problem. They want a meeting. It is urgent; it is a priority. This is not a frivolous ask, anything but. As the Parliamentary Budget Officer's analyses remind us year after year, when it comes to spending and the budget, the problem is with the provinces. That is true. Why is it true? The reason is that Ottawa has not been paying its fair share for a long time. Ottawa is not spending enough money on health care.

The Conference Board of Canada, the Council of the Federation, the Parliamentary Budget Officer and all the provinces are saying that, the way things are going, the provinces are heading towards a tax wall, while Ottawa's fiscal situation will be exceptional, despite the extraordinary expenses incurred during the pandemic. Health care spending is increasing, and Ottawa's transfers are not keeping pace.

The provinces repeated all of this five days ago. What was Ottawa's response? The government is basically telling them to take a hike. Why do I say that? It is because, based on the projected numbers and budgets, there is no increase relative to what is being requested. Until 2027, there is no increase. The government is on the warpath, and the provinces are being challenged. They need health care funding, but they will get nothing.

The document is about 50 pages long, not including the annexes. Two or three pages are devoted to the speech, and about two and a half pages are used to explain why the provinces will not get a penny more for health care. The Liberal logic is that extraordinary spending was needed during the pandemic, so they feel they have done enough. Since the provinces have benefited, they will not get a penny for health care until 2027. The government's logic is to say that it paid the wage subsidy and indirectly helped the provinces because the people who received the wage subsidy pay taxes to the province. I want to believe that this was necessary and important spending, but it does nothing to address the fundamental problem. The federal government needs to pay its fair share of health care spending. Nothing has been resolved, and war has been declared on the provinces. This is unacceptable and we strongly condemn it.

Furthermore, there are few measures in the update, although there are some that we applaud, in particular the measures for working seniors who receive the guaranteed income supplement.

My colleague and I have been raising this issue since the summer. We wrote to our respective counterparts on the government side during and after the election and as recently as this week. The government said that it would solve the problem. We proposed solutions, such as including the CERB as employment income when calculating the GIS, or recalculating the amount for the current year for those who were not supposed to receive the CERB or who received too much money and now have to pay it back. To resolve this situation, Service Canada and the CRA really should sit down together and talk.

The government listened to our suggestions and responded that technical considerations ruled them out. In the economic update, the proposed solution is altogether different from what we suggested. We are disappointed because we had some good solutions. That said, we do not have the inside track, and since we do not have access to the inner workings of government, we may be unaware of certain considerations because we do not know what they are. For example, there may be some software that cannot process this information, even though it seems quite straightforward.

Throughout the pandemic, the government responded in the same way to all the measures we suggested. That said, the government is nonetheless proposing a solution, which is a payment to make up for the loss of income, as seniors will no longer receive the CERB after one year. It is a big, rather odd band-aid approach to solving the problem, but it might work. The stumbling block here is the time frame.

As my colleague from Shefford knows, seniors in these situations are facing serious challenges. We hear horror stories in our ridings. Some seniors are having to leave their homes, sell their furniture and move. They sometimes have to stop taking medications and go to the hospital, where their medications are covered. They cannot afford medication because of the drop in their income. These are actual, real-life situations.

The government has proposed to solve the problem by sending them a payment, but not until next May. This situation has been going on since the summer, so that would mean that seniors will have been struggling with this issue for nearly a year. What will happen to them? We are very concerned about this. We will certainly do everything we can to get this payment out quicker, because there is a serious need. This wait is neither reasonable nor acceptable.

We also spoke out about the fact that the government created two classes of seniors, which is unacceptable. Seniors do not like it. We are calling on the government to fix this by increasing old age security by $110 a month for all seniors. It is a simple, concrete and effective measure that would support seniors whose income is not adjusted to inflation, which is currently hitting record highs.

There was not a single word about this, however. There are still two classes of seniors, and the government did not propose a single meaningful measure to combat inflation, aside from child care, which does not exactly make up for the increase in grocery bills. We are still very worried about seniors. We appreciate that a solution was proposed to the problem with the GIS and the CERB, but it comes too late and is flawed.

As I said, the budget was pretty slim. Our in camera meeting began at 11:45, and I would say we had covered pretty much everything by 1 p.m. Members of our party had to stay in camera until 4 p.m. Thank goodness people had some good jokes to tell to help pass the time.

It was our understanding that one element of this budget, as detailed in annex 3, would be in the notice of ways and means we would be voting on. During questions and answers in camera, we were told that the notice of ways and means contained nothing else. That is what I told reporters. By the time I returned to the House, the notice of ways and means had been tabled. It was 92 pages long and included the digital services taxation issue. I was surprised to see that, and I will get back to that in a minute.

That is a good thing, but the fact remains that annex 3 of the economic update includes a measure to tax residences, dwellings, condos and homes of foreign owners who do not occupy them. This is a token measure to slow housing inflation, curb speculation and make housing a little more affordable. The idea is to create an incentive so that non-residents and non-Canadians find it less appealing to buy housing in Canada that they do not intend to occupy and therefore contribute less to the economy.

We agree with that principle. Yes, we have to be careful, and, yes, all the housing units have to help people. The Bloc Québécois has major reservations, however, because this is a property tax. I am sure the federal government's reasons for collecting a property tax are noble, but the tax would supposedly be temporary. What has history taught us? Every time the federal government pokes its nose into a new tax field, no matter how small or temporary, there is no going back. The government has kept increasing this form of taxation every time.

Among the various forms of taxation that exist, such as consumption taxes, income tax, corporate taxes and many others, there was one tax field that was not yet occupied by the federal government, to my knowledge: property tax. This is essentially managed by municipalities, under provincial legislation. For instance, Quebec gives municipalities the power to levy property taxes.

Ottawa had been staying out of it, until now. However, according to annex 3 and the budget, Ottawa wants a cut. We have serious concerns, because this leviathan always tends to have an unquenchable thirst for tax dollars. We will certainly have to revisit this. I would remind the House that the principle is interesting, but seeing Ottawa interfere in this area of taxation is really worrisome for us in the Bloc Québécois.

During the election campaign, we kept hearing the same complaint from small and medium-sized businesses day after day. My colleague from Bécancour—Nicolet—Saurel could attest to that more than anyone here. I am talking about the labour shortage. We thought that with an economic and fiscal update in the last week before the break, the Liberals would take the bull by the horns and come up with some solutions.

During the election campaign, the Bloc was the political party that proposed the most solutions, in particular to address productivity, to make it easier for seniors to return to part-time work by putting fiscal measures in place, and to accelerate the whole immigration process, for both temporary and permanent workers.

I could go on like this, talking about innovation and increasing productivity, and so on.

Other than that one line that says that the government is investing in immigration to try to speed up the process, everything else in the document just says that the government will propose something in the coming year. However, today was not the time for the government to say that it would come up with something in the next year; it was the time for the government to say what action it would be taking. Our party has put forward a number of solutions, and the update was an opportunity for them to be put into practice. That did not happen and we are speaking out about it. We are very disappointed.

As I was saying, this feels like a government that is exhausted and out of breath, that no longer has any ideas and proposes nothing, barely two months after it was elected. That is worrisome.

Another thing that concerns us is the issue of inflation. The document contains private sector forecasts. For this year, they say they expect a rate of 7.6%, which is higher than what we are seeing now. Prices could continue to rise if these forecasts are accurate. Now, on the bright side, the rate will come back down as early as next year and the problem will resolve itself in subsequent years, which was our read on the problem.

We would have expected the government to be more focused on this issue. We need only consider low-income households or, as I was saying earlier, seniors whose income is not indexed to the cost of living.

In rereading my notes, I see that many small measures were announced, such as an increase in the tax credit for teachers and ECEs purchasing supplies for children, up from 15% to 25%. That is fine, but the government could have brought in better measures.

There is one thing I would like to address. In April, the budget that we had been waiting for for two years was finally tabled. That budget contained a lot of announcements about money and measures, and it was thick and wide-ranging. The government pushed it through. It contained some worthwhile measures, notably those pertaining to support measures, the recovery and the green recovery. We said that we would pass it.

After the budget came Bill C-30, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 19, 2021 and other measures, which incorporated a small part of the budget. We adopted that one as well, figuring that we would wait to see what came after the budget.

Nothing came after the budget, however, because the government called an election. The Liberals campaigned on measures that were in the budget that we had adopted, but today's update, which was presented after the election campaign, does not incorporate those measures. They are gone, which means they were nothing more than election promises that were only useful on the campaign trail.

The budget presented last spring contained 52 legislative measures and 100 pages of tax measures. Most of them did not end up in Bill C-30 and are not in today's update either. With this update, the government is therefore telling us that everything it announced in its last budget was only there to get the Liberals re-elected and to win a majority. It did not win that majority, however, because we wanted to keep it a minority. It is trying again with this budget.

That is the message being sent. It is very worrisome. The government seems to have no vision. I cannot get over it. This is my third election, and it is the first time that I have seen Parliament's return delayed, since we had to wait two months to come back. The ministers were late getting appointed. The Speech from the Throne was short, and there was not much in it. It was also boring, especially in the way it was read. I will refrain from being too critical about that, but it is true that the person who read it has to be held responsible.

The update is the logical next step in all this, having been tabled by a government that acts because it is forced to, but that is tired and breaking down. It needs a bit more pep.

If the government is out of ideas, the Bloc Québécois has plenty. It has energy too. The government needs to listen to us because we are going to propose some legislation to bring in.

Let us start with resolving the issue of health. Polls show that it is the top priority. We do not want conditions imposed on the provinces, we want transfers. That is what the provinces are calling for. The government needs to fix this because it is urgent, and so is the situation with seniors.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Joliette for his speeches this morning and this afternoon.

I am sure all members of the House think a robust health care system is a good thing, but I think we also need to consider a sustainable plan to increase funding for things like the health care system.

Does the member support reducing interprovincial trade barriers to generate the necessary revenue and ensure sustainable investments in health?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will start with the end of my colleague's remarks. Interprovincial barriers are subject to negotiations among the provinces and fall under their jurisdiction. The Bloc Québécois wants to respect their areas of jurisdiction, but Ottawa is always insinuating itself into areas under provincial jurisdiction or, as in today's economic update, areas under municipal jurisdiction.

We would like the federal government to respect its obligations properly in areas such as borders and health care funding.

Sustainable health care funding requires adequate funding. The Bloc Québécois understands what the provinces need and supports the Parliamentary Budget Officer's studies, which state that, if we want sustainable health care systems, we need equity, and that can be achieved only if Ottawa transfers the money unconditionally. That is very important.

Not every member in the House is in favour of a sustainable health care system. The Minister of Finance certainly is not, because her update does not include any increased funding for the health care system. We are still at 3%, which is below the rate at which costs are increasing, while what the provinces and everyone else want is to make up the shortfall and get to 35% funding, plus an annual escalator of 6% to maintain the increase. That is what is necessary, and that is what is needed.

With this economic update, the Minister of Finance and this government are now declaring war on the provinces. We have chosen our camp, and it is the camp of the people and health care funding, not the government's camp.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Joliette for his comments.

Knowing we have had incidents of climate-fuelled weather events across the country, and in Quebec as well, over recent years, my question specifically concerns climate adaptation. Noting that in this fiscal update there is only one mention of climate adaptation, and it is for a strategy to be developed by the end of next year, I am wondering if the member would comment on the need for the federal government to be doing more in climate adaptation.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague from Kitchener Centre. This update offers absolutely nothing for the environment. Last spring's budget did include some measures, and we even expected to move on from the pandemic and into the recovery by greening our economy to achieve net-zero emissions, which would mean a major environmental shift. The Bloc Québécois has all kinds of ideas for this, such as a green finance plan to get the private sector involved and encourage it to finance this shift.

In the end, once we rose for the summer, we saw announcements across Canada all summer for all sorts of projects that often had nothing to do with the environment. We certainly did not see the green economic shift we had hoped for. This update is a continuation of the government's intentions: if a slogan works on the campaign trail, the government is all for it; if not, it cannot be bothered.

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

Madam Speaker, I know the issue of self-employed workers in the arts and culture sector is one that the Bloc Québécois talked about at length during the debate on Bill C-2. We in the NDP talked a lot about seniors and the guaranteed income supplement.

We heard a little bit about those two issues in the economic update, but it was very vague. We did not get much in the way of details.

I am a little concerned that what the government has in mind may not be an adequate solution for seniors who have already had their guaranteed income supplement taken away.

I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on the vague program announced for arts and culture workers. Is he confident that the Liberal government will do a good job of implementing such a program?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona, with whom I have the pleasure of working on the Standing Committee on Finance. I have seen how hard-working and brilliant this member is, as we have sat intensively over the past week. He is motivated to serve the public, he does it for the right reasons and he is very talented. I salute him.

My colleague raises some good points. A solution with respect to the GIS and the problem with CERB is being proposed here. Based on the answers we got from officials in the briefing, it seems to address the problem, although it is different from the solutions we had considered. However, the time frame is still a major concern. Officials told us that the payment would be sent in May, but we see that as an unacceptable delay. We will obviously keep an eye on this.

There is nothing in the update about self-employed workers in the cultural sector. What was announced is another measure in response to what we asked for more than a year ago. The Bloc Québécois is reassured by what the Minister of Canadian Heritage said at committee. We obviously look forward to seeing this targeted program, which will be presented by the government and the Minister of Canadian Heritage. It was a core condition for our support of Bill C-2, which deals with the extension of wage subsidies.

Even though the minister made links to Bill C‑2 in her speech, the update is not Bill C‑2. The two should not be confused.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Joliette. It is always a pleasure working with him.

My colleague stated that Ottawa has declared war on the provinces with respect to health. Ottawa has also declared open war on seniors' groups, which are fiercely standing up for seniors in financial straits. Their situation was already precarious before the pandemic. The pandemic did not fix anything.

I would like to know what my colleague thinks of this tendency to give one-time assistance to seniors. For example, they were sent a cheque only once during the pandemic. It solved nothing. Then a cheque was sent to seniors 75 and older just before the election campaign. It was an election ploy, and seniors were insulted. In 2021, officials are incapable of finding a solution for seniors or workers in the cultural sector. I attended a meeting of the finance committee on Friday, and we were told that it was too complicated. There is something wrong.

We are still in a crisis, so the priorities the government should be looking to invest in are health care and seniors. Seniors have been hit hard by the pandemic, having essentially gotten two blows to the face, one on each cheek. I would like to ask my colleague what he thinks about the fact that a government in 2021 is so bad at listening.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question and her comments. She is clearly committed to the people the Bloc Québécois defends, and seniors in particular. I was very touched by what my colleague, the member for Shefford, said.

I would say to her that the government is doing things piecemeal. It gave a little, hoping to do the bare minimum and still save face.

With respect to the working-life income replacement rate in retirement and the increase to account for the impact of year-over-year inflation on seniors' purchasing power, it is clear that things are getting worse.

We want a long-term solution, and we will be here to keep an eye on this file. I am out of time so I will stop there.

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

Madam Speaker, Canadians are currently grappling with extremely serious economic challenges. They are paying more for food and housing, and they are having trouble finding work. At the same time, some employers are having trouble finding workers. Canada is at a crossroads.

We want to figure out how to bring about a just post-pandemic economic recovery. We also have important questions about the climate crisis. We want to figure out how to bring about a just transition for the climate and for workers. What we need right now is leadership.

The economic update was an opportunity to showcase the government's leadership, but what we got was a defence of the status quo. This is not an innocent status quo; it is a status quo that works very well for the wealthiest but makes the lives of ordinary working people more difficult.

We wanted the government to propose solutions, but there are none to be found in the economic update.

The NDP believes that when it comes to the big economic issues, it is very important that the basis of our analysis be the most financially vulnerable people, or the workers who have a little bit of money but are wondering if it is enough to pay all the bills, considering the pressures of inflation.

We are at a crossroads in this country, just as we are in the world. Depending on the day, the Liberals will tell us that we are out of the pandemic, the economy is back to normal and everything is good, or, when it suits their purpose, they will tell us what most people already know to be true, which is that we are not out of the pandemic. Some things are better, but many things are still very bad.

People are still looking to find their way, whether it is collectively, at the level of their country, province, city or community, or individually. They are looking to find how they will fit into what will become the new economy as we come out of the pandemic. To be sure, this is because of some of the pressures we are still facing around supply chains and other things that have been caused by the pandemic, but it is also an economy that was already going to change because of climate change.

We have seen so much evidence. I look to my colleagues from B.C. who are seated around me. They know all too well the real cost of climate change, and the economic consequences and real financial cost of not dealing with climate change.

Here we are, at that crossroads, trying to figure out what this recovery from the pandemic is going to look like, and how to transition into a sustainable economy that can mitigate, as much as possible, the impact of climate change.

New Democrats believe that, in all of this pain and all of these challenges, is an opportunity to build the infrastructure and the framework for a more just economy and a better Canada. We need an economy that recognizes it is wrong to have an economy in which, and we just heard this from the Parliamentary Budget Officer last week, 25% of all the wealth produced in this country goes to just 1% of the population and where 40% of all the people in this country are asked to share just 1%. That was not always the case. That is getting worse and worse.

When we see the government defending a status quo that is creating those kinds of outcomes, Canadians have to know it is not just defending 25% of the wealth going to 1%. It is defending the trend line that continues to see more of that wealth going to fewer people. While Canada's economic pie has been growing, the proportion that goes to the 1% at the top has been growing much faster, leaving less for the rest of us.

As we come out of the pandemic to the extent that we have, which is not anywhere near as far as the government sometimes likes to pretend, and as we venture into this uncertain future with so many more extreme weather events as a result of climate change, we need to make sure we are getting the principles right that will ensure that everybody gets to partake in a prosperous future, not just the people who already own all of the important assets.

The word there is “capitalism”. We have had less and less regulation of the market and less and less fair taxation, which has allowed the people who own assets to continue to own more and more. Unless there is a way to rein that in, eventually we will get to a point where what is shared among the rest of us is not enough for most of us.

That is why I am very proud to be the finance critic for a party that is talking about a pandemic excess profits tax. The tax recognizes that while many businesses have suffered through the pandemic, some have done extraordinarily well compared with their pre-pandemic performance, and it would make sense to ask them to pay a bit more on that extra they have made to help with some of the things we need to get the rest of the way out of the pandemic and to build a just future.

That is why I am proud to be the finance critic for a party that ran on imposing a 1% wealth tax on fortunes of over $20 million. That is not a lot of people, but it is a lot of money that could do a lot of good. It is money that would go to people who benefit from the investments that we all make in public infrastructure. It is right and good that, when they receive such a disproportionate amount of the benefit, they pay proportionally more to create infrastructure and to do things that protect people at the bottom.

There has been a lot of talk in this place about inflation over the last three and a half weeks. The fact of the matter is that the money that went to the financially vulnerable is not what is driving inflation. It was not the CERB payments and it was not the wage subsidy payments. People bought groceries. They paid bills. They fixed their cars. The people who were on the wage subsidy got 75% of what they were used to making. I do not know how it would cause inflation when people have a 25% decrease in their salaries. Let us not pretend that the help that went to people who needed it was the cause of the inflation here. That matters because those folks are still hurting and they still need help. It is why it was wrong of the government to cut the CRB with just two days' notice.

It is also why it is wrong for the Liberals to be dragging their heels on promises such as a Canada disability benefit. That is something that they promised a while ago now, and is something people living with disabilities who are not able to work need in order to be able to live life with dignity.

It is why the government should be doing the same for seniors on the guaranteed income supplement. We have talked a bit about the clawbacks, but I want to talk about the fact that even when it is not being clawed back, the guaranteed income supplement does not provide enough for a person to live at the poverty line. It is still below the poverty line. That is all part and parcel of working toward a time in Canada when we can have a livable basic income for everyone who needs it. We got close with the CERB. It was an interesting time.

That is why it is such an important moment. We could say that these were just temporary things: we are out of the worst of it now, and we are going to drop all these people like bricks again and get back to the status quo that led us to the point where 1% of people own 25% of the wealth. It could also be an opportunity to say that we learned how to do things differently and that it was an important moment in our history and, notwithstanding some of the very real problems with the way programs were delivered, the principle is an important lesson for our future.

Today, the Liberals could have taken some real action on one of the structural things driving inflation in Canada right now, which is in the housing market. Anyone knows. Whether it is somebody trying to get into the housing market or parents who are contemplating the futures of their children, everyone is worried about the housing market, and we know that a record number of mortgages now in Canada are actually held by investors.

There are things the government could seriously consider, such as a moratorium on allowing real estate investment trusts to acquire more property while the market is so hot. The government could create an acquisition fund so that non-profits in the business of creating social housing and other forms of affordable housing can compete with some of these investors in the market to snap up buildings and land as they become available. Those are some of the things it could do now to help bring down the temperature in the housing market and create some hope for Canadians for the future so that even if they cannot afford a home tomorrow, they know we are on a trajectory that will allow them or their children to afford a home in five to 10 years. There is nothing in the statement that talks about that. There is a little bit of poking around the edges, but we are in a difficult time that calls for real leadership and real measures.

When we talk about affordability, what is one of the biggest cost pressures for Canada's seniors? It is the price of prescription drugs. The Liberals promised an answer to that as long ago as 1997. The temptation is to get tired of talking about it because we talk about it so much and nothing happens. However, that would be a victory for the Liberals, who have cynically promised it so often, and it would be a victory for the pharmaceutical industry, which would like nothing more than for the NDP to shut up about pharmacare so that it can get on with making money without having to worry that one day we are going to do right by Canadians, organize our purchasing and make sure that everyone is covered and they actually save money. I hope I get to see the day when we do that with dental care as well.

When we talk about what to do to create employment and fight inflation, there are opportunities when it comes to the climate challenge as well. We ought to be out there helping people retrofit their homes to make them more efficient and transition the way they heat their homes so they get off fossil fuels. If we do this in the right way, particularly for lower-income households, they could realize savings in their monthly budgets. That is an investment we absolutely have to make if we will ever have a hope of realizing our emission reduction targets. It could provide some tangible financial relief to households that are struggling right now. What better time to do it than now? However, we do not see anything on this.

This is also about committing to a large-scale, ambitious retrofit project and a real nation-building project that is not about building a pipeline but about building the other critical things we need, like a western power grid that would allow for solar and wind energy produced in Alberta and Saskatchewan to work collaboratively with the hydro energy we have on both ends of our western region. That could create a lot of jobs. An ambitious retrofit program, together with that, could create a work forecast that would allow employers in the trades to plan well into the future while working with the government to train a whole generation of tradespeople who are working on environmentally sustainable infrastructure and helping us reduce our emissions. They could have good, well-paying jobs that are building the future economy of Canada. What better time to do that than now? However, there is hardly a mention of the climate crisis in this economic statement.

One would think it has not happened. There is much-needed money for our brothers and sisters in British Columbia who are hurting after the severe weather events there, but that is just a response to what has happened. As we heard earlier in the House, the only proactive thing the government talks about is coming up with another plan. I do not know how many times we will have to hear about the next great plan the Liberals will come up with to finally start reducing emissions while we are an embarrassment in the OECD with the highest emissions increases. Stop it with the plans. Pick something and do it. This has been researched to death.

When we talk about inflation we are also talking about supply chains. In particular, we are talking about the exposure of supply chains not only to things like the pandemic, which we saw, but also to the climate crisis. We saw that in B.C. One of the inflationary pressures in Canada right now is the Port of Vancouver, which was decimated by the extreme weather events there.

One solution that the government might adopt, when we talk about supply chains and trying to reduce the extent to which Canadians are exposed to that kind of international pressure, is to actually talk about things that we want to make here. We heard we had a hard time getting personal protective equipment and other essential medical goods during the pandemic. There were a lot of Canadian companies lining up to say they could do that work here. They would have loved nothing more than to train Canadians to do that work in their facilities.

They said they could could scale up, but all they needed was for the government to choose to invest in them instead of giving more money to the multinational companies that have been offshoring their manufacturing for decades. They wanted the government to invest in them, in Canadian success stories, because they knew they could do it. However, that was not the path the government chose. There is nothing in here talking about how we could reshore some important manufacturing.

I just went to Washington. They are contemplating things there, and Canada is going to be collateral damage in its efforts to reshore. We are at a disadvantage in a place like Washington because we cannot talk about our automotive strategy. We cannot talk about what we are going to do to ensure that future generations of Canadians get to work in a high-paying, highly unionized sector, which is incidentally not a coincidence, in Canada because we do not have a plan. Instead, we keep reacting to what other people are doing. That means the U.S. is going to continue to drive the agenda, and we are going to have to continue jumping up and down to get its attention to try to be at the table.

What would be helpful would be to be able to say, “This is Canada's plan.” There is a lot of talk these days about producing batteries for electric vehicles. If Canada is going to get serious about that, we are going to need partners. China is knocking on the door. Germany is knocking on the door. The U.S. should be knocking on the door.

I would love for the government to be able to show them a national automotive plan for Canada that is working and continuing our long-term partnership with the United States, as well as one that would see Canada partnering with China or Germany. That would allow us to say, “This is our preferred option, to continue the well-integrated automotive sector we have, so don't cut us out.” I believe that would have been a far more effective argument in Washington, but we refused to plan.

I am from Winnipeg, where the aerospace industry is important, just as it is important in the province of Quebec and other areas. We do not have a national plan for that. We saw our government scramble in the pandemic, not knowing really what to do. Aside from the wage subsidy, which the Liberals were unfortunately not open to taking advice on how to close the loopholes so it ended up being abused in a number of ways, there was no sense of urgency that it was important that Canada maintain passenger air service, even though we are one of the largest countries in the world, with the most distance to travel.

We even need it for this place to work, and for people to be represented in the House of Commons, so each part of the country requires a well-functioning passenger air service. That is a fundamental strategic asset for Canada, yet the government had no plan and continues to have no plan. There are the one-offs of doling out money here and there, but there is no cohesive strategy for how such a integral sector will be maintained and how its benefits will be maximized.

Those are just some of our reflections on this side of the House about the fall economic statement. As I think members can tell, the real problem with it is that it is not unlike the Speech from the Throne. We had this election because the government said that we were at a pivotal point in our history, there were big decisions to be made that would go above and beyond what we were already doing in the House of Commons, and it had to get a mandate, which is meh.

That is what we got out of that $600-million election that nobody, except for the Prime Minister, wanted. We saw it in the Speech from the Throne, and we have now seen it in this so-called fiscal update. It is just not good enough for the moment we find ourselves in, when more Canadians are struggling to get by while people at the top are taking a larger share of the economic pie. It is not good enough when Canada is a laggard in reducing its emissions and our housing market is getting out of control. The government has no real proposals about what to do about it all.

Let us look at other countries. New Zealand, for instance, has brought in a policy stating that people who already own a home will need a larger down payment if they purchase a second home, and so on and so forth. This is to discourage people who are in the financial position from snapping up properties and ensure more people are able to acquire a family home.

That is just one example of a government that is clearly serious about doing something and is being creative. We see some creative work at the municipal level in the city of Vancouver by the mayor, who is a former NDP MP. He is doing some interesting work in trying to figure out how to enable more density on residential lots, and not so developers can take all that money. They will get some of it.

The guys at the top always seem to be worried they will not make any money. There is a lot of money to be made while one pays one's fair share. We are not talking about them not making any money, we are talking about them making a fair amount of money and ensuring they are reinvesting in the communities and the infrastructure that allows them to make that money in the first place. It is about ensuring that the people who live in the communities around their developments are able to live in dignity even if they cannot buy the premium apartment on the top floor. That is what we are talking about.

I think most Canadians can get behind that vision for Canada, but it is not one that will happen spontaneously on its own. It is one that will take some leadership. It is one that will take good public administration and good public policy instead of the kind of chaotic mess we have seen over the last number of weeks with a government that can hardly get its own legislation through the House.

We are here to try to hold the government to account. We are here until we are the government, which I hope happens soon, to try to help its members be their best selves. It can make a big difference in the lives of a lot of Canadians. We see that with the guaranteed income supplement. We have an announcement today that is the result of a lot of public pressure. It was not a negotiated solution. We know that because it is not the solution we proposed.

However, it is some kind of solution, but we have yet to see the details. We are hoping it is going to actually help and it is going to help quickly, but we need more. I wish the Liberals would stop hanging on to it for the big reveal. Some people are living in their cars, waiting for that reveal, when they would much rather be in a home.

Let us get past the suspense and the buildup and let us get to the project of getting those people back in a home, as they were just four months ago before the government decided callously to claw back their GIS benefit.

That is why this is a very dissatisfying economic statement. For Canadians listening, if they do not take anything else away from this speech, there are people in this place who are thinking about real actions the government could take. We are not all just here to blow steam. We are also here to do a real job and to try to find the policies that will find their way to them and make a concrete difference in their lives. We are here to continue to apply that pressure and ensure those things really happen instead of passing by in a sound clip on the news and then people thinking the issue is settled.

We are here to remind the government these issues are not settled. They will not be settled until there is real action. That is what we are here to push for, and we will keep pushing. We will keep pushing for some of these concrete things to be in the Liberals' budget. They missed the opportunity on the Speech from the Throne and they missed it in the fall economic statement. Let us be damn sure to have some of it in the budget.

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

Madam Speaker, I certainly heard a couple of things from the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance that my hon. colleague seems to have not heard. One is the fact that we have returned 106% of the jobs pre-pandemic. Our government has been there to help grow the economy.

The member certainly talked about Canadians needing support. Omicron is something we are watching. We know countries around the world are taking this seriously. There are small businesses in my riding that are mom and pop type of tourism-related businesses that the member just voted against.

Could the member explain why he and his party would have voted against the measure that would support small businesses and the individuals who he said he supported and wanted our government to support more?

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

Madam Speaker, I would talk about the folks in my riding who also work in the tourism industry, an industry that is 85% women, who are independent travel agents who work out of their basement or home office. There is nothing in there for them. The government should not pretend. It should not pretend, because we have heard this again and again.

The fact is we support getting help in the way the government says it wants to help certain businesses. It is not that we do not want the help to be there for them, but this divide and conquer strategy of the Liberals hives off certain groups and delivers help to them while abandoning other groups like independent travel agents and like a lot of people who are working in the arts and culture sector. They are still waiting on some kind of program, but all the government had to do was include them in the Canada worker lockdown benefit without the requirement for a lockdown.

There are ways the government could be delivering help to a lot more people who really need it. Bill C-2 is about the basic structure of Canada's recovery, and it is a complete failure from that point of view. The government should stop pretending that we are somehow against helping the few people it wants to help, when we are clearly making a statement about the nature of the recovery and all the other people who need help but for whom the government is not there.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Madam Speaker, it is a real privilege to rise in the House. I thank my colleague for the passion he is displaying on the floor of the House.

I am sure he shares, along with me and several of us on this side of the House, the concern for the rising cost of living and the impact this is having on young families and seniors. The dream of owning a home, for the young couples and families who want to get started and have that, seems to be getting further out of reach. Our seniors are not making enough to even keep up with the rising costs of living on a regular basis, let alone the inflationary pressures such as increased gas prices and increased costs for heating their homes and getting groceries.

Does the hon. member share those concerns and would he like to add any comments on that?

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

Madam Speaker, I certainly do share those concerns, and it is part of why the NDP has been such a loud and consistent advocate for seniors who have seen their GIS clawed back. That is why we have been talking for a while about trying to get the guaranteed income supplement level up to the poverty line so our most vulnerable seniors are not legislated into a life of poverty.

When it comes to housing, I mentioned in my remarks some of the initiatives we have been contemplating. I would be curious to hear some concrete measures from the Conservatives that might help. They are good on the critique right now, but on the solutions we have not heard a lot that would make a big difference, including on inflation. There is a lot of talk about the impact of inflation, and we share their concern about that.

The Conservative finance critic is very adamant that we need to not talk about things like a dual employment mandate, like they have in the States, or have more interesting mandate ideas like they have in New Zealand, which asked its central bank to consider housing prices in the way it sets monetary policy.

Instead, he was very focused on the 2% inflation target, which is what is going to cause the rise in interest rates that his leader was just talking about earlier today. Those interest rates in the current economy, given how stretched Canadians already are, will also cause a real crisis for those who were able to buy into what is a really hot market. They are not going to be able to sustain their home if we see massive interest rate hikes, which is what it means to doggedly pursue a 2% inflation target.

There are some big discussions we need to have here. Conservatives have been big on the critical side lately, but I think they really need to get their act together on proposing some solutions, because that is where the dialogue on that side of the House is falling apart.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Madam Speaker, I applaud my colleague's advocacy and his strong desire to make concrete proposals to help the citizens we represent. I thank him very much for his passion.

As everyone knows, even before the pandemic, every province and Quebec already had health care funding problems. The pandemic has only exacerbated the situation. The Bloc Québécois has long been behind Quebec, but it is also behind the provinces. We unanimously demand an immediate and unconditional increase in health transfers. The federal government has no place trying to show us how to care for our people and run our hospitals. We need the money to do it.

What are my colleague's thoughts on that?

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.

One of the reasons I first ran to become a member of Parliament in 2015 was that I thought the Harper government's position of keeping the annual health transfer escalator at just 3% was unacceptable. At the time, the current Prime Minister also said it was unacceptable. Once he became Prime Minister, however, he decided to adopt the Harper government's policies as his own.

Health transfers need to be increased. The NDP has been calling for that for a long time.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, the member referenced the fact that the government needs to have some sort of retrofit housing program, one that has energy efficiency, and he was disappointed we did not have that.

Let me alleviate his disappointment. We have a program. There are 700,000 applicants expected for grants. It is all about making homes more energy efficient. It is good for the economy; it is good for the environment and it is good for our housing stock. It is helping many people who would not have the finances to buy a home.

I wonder if the member would at the very least acknowledge that his dream of having something of this nature is actually a reality, that it is a good thing and that he will support it, much like he should be supporting Bill C-2, but that is another issue.

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

Madam Speaker, I am happy to acknowledge that it is a real talking point of the Liberal Party, as was the national housing strategy, which continues to be a dream of the NDP. However, we found that when the time came to deliver the money and actually get the work done, the government was not able to deliver.

I had also asked for an ambitious program, and by that I mean one that gets the work done. When I start hearing in my community that people are amazed at how many homes are getting done in their neighbourhoods and that people are upgrading their homes and changing the way they heat them, then we will have arrived, not just when we are hearing in the House of Commons that 700,000 applicants are expected in a country with 40 million people. I noticed the member used the term “applicants”, and there are a lot of weasel words in this place, so I wonder how many of those “applicants” are going to see a successful delivery of the program. I will believe it when I see it.

I recognize that the Liberals are talking that way, just as they have talked about pharmacare for decades now. When people in my communities start telling me how happy they are that they, their friends and their relatives are able to retrofit their homes, that is when I will know we have arrived.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

It being 6:22 p.m., pursuant to order made on Monday, December 6, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6:22 p.m.)