Debates of Dec. 9th, 2021

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #15

Supplementary Estimates (B), 2021-2022

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I declare the motion carried.

(Bill read the third time and passed)

Message from the Senate

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I have the honour to inform the House that messages have been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed the following bills to which the concurrence of the House is desired: Bill S-214, An Act to establish International Mother Language Day, Bill S-216, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (use of resources of a registered charity), and Bill S-223, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (trafficking in human organs).

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

Regional Economic Development

[Lianne Rood, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on November 30, I asked the minister why the Liberal government was always leaving rural Canadians behind, and I did not receive an answer to that question. In fact, what I did receive was a bunch of talking points on what the government hopes to accomplish with broadband by 2030. While I certainly will not downplay the importance of a well-formulated plan for rural broadband, what the government is offering is not that. There are many questions that deserve an answer, such as why 2030 was chosen as the target year. If rural Canadians are important to the government, then why not set a target for 2025, which is what the Conservatives proposed?

That is not all. I also wonder why the government is only targeting 5010 megabytes per second, a speed that certainly is not fast when compared with urban centres, which can have speeds of a gigabyte available. What about the cost of broadband in rural areas?

Constituents are calling my office about this all the time. They are very frustrated because they are paying upwards of $1,000 a month for their cell phone bills because there is no high-speed Internet available. People are trying to work from home and take their time to do school from home, and they just cannot stream into the video options without using cellular data.

I want to know what the government's plan is to deal with affordability and stability. There is no accountability for service providers, which take the federal funding for projects bringing broadband to rural areas and then delay the last mile. Why is there no accountability to get that last mile finished? Given the government's record on managing other affordability crises, I am really skeptical of any grand promises of help from the government.

Rural Canadians have little choice than to wait and rely on action from the government when they are consistently faced with a downward spiral for their livelihoods. Allow me to name a few priorities for the minister that go beyond broadband, priorities that would also make a difference in the lives of rural Canadians from coast to coast to coast. Our migration from urban areas is driving the need for housing support and infrastructure. With municipalities unable to run a deficit, they often struggle to meet demands for such resources without assistance from provincial or federal governments.

Where does the minister stand on committing funding to partnerships with municipalities in need? It should come as no surprise that small businesses are a concern to rural Canada because they are the backbone of our economy. In rural Canada, a shortage of labour hurts the small community businesses that provide goods and services to towns. If it hurts small towns, it hurts our agriculture sector and our natural resource sector. It is a domino effect that will also affect revenue from exports.

Without fixing this problem quickly, it will compound. We need to be taking measures to encourage work in rural Canada to help our economy thrive. What is the minister doing to address the labour shortage to help get people into these vacant jobs?

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Rural Economic Development]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the comments made by the member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex regarding rural economic development.

It is somewhat ironic that this matter is being raised by the Conservatives, who delayed Internet expansion for a decade.

The current crisis has highlighted the need for all Canadians to have access to fast and reliable Internet, no matter where they live. Canadians living in rural and remote communities identify a lack of high-speed Internet as the number one issue for them reaching their full economic potential.

Since 2015, improving connectivity has been the top priority for our government. In fact, our government has invested 10 times more than all previous governments combined, including the Conservatives. We have a plan to connect every Canadian across the country. I will tell the member how we are delivering on that plan.

Since 2015, our government has invested a total of $7.2 billion for improved broadband access. When I was elected in 2015, that was the first file the rural caucus worked on, and we had several meetings about community access issues.

Taken together, those investments will ensure that 98% of Canadians are connected to high-speed Internet by 2026 and 100% by 2030. Our government committed to bridging the digital divide from the start. Projects are under way to connect nearly 900,000 households. I had the opportunity to travel all over Canada and Quebec to make joint announcements with Ontario and Quebec.

The connect to innovate program launched in 2016 is an example of what we are doing. The program's funding is directed primarily at creating new basic infrastructure in rural and remote communities across Canada. Building that infrastructure is the modern equivalent of building roads to rural and remote areas, and it will connect these communities to the global economy. We recognized the vital importance of good connection and moved the Canadian connectivity file forward for our businesses, for education, for health care at home and for everything else.

The connect to innovate program will bring new or improved high-speed Internet access to more than 975 rural and remote communities, more than triple the 300 communities initially targeted, which includes 190 indigenous communities.

The universal broadband fund is the government's latest effort to support the expansion of high-speed Internet access across the country. This $2.75‑billion program to improve Internet access is the largest broadband investment in Canadian history.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of connecting communities. That is why we acted quickly through the universal broadband fund. We heard all kinds of stories during the pandemic about people using the Internet to break their isolation. That demonstrated that the Internet is now a necessity.

[Lianne Rood, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his response. However, I must emphasize the importance of these concerns. Something the Liberal government needs to understand is that we are all Canadians regardless of geography and where we live, and we are all deserving of equal representation.

Here are a few concerns directly from my riding. A professor at Western University has written in to say he cannot offer his students the same services he did before the pandemic because of a lack of reliable Internet. Parents calling me are at their wits' end, frustrated that their children cannot receive a proper education or access online school because of poor Internet quality.

It is unacceptable that rural Canadians cannot connect to high-speed Internet and that the voices of rural Canadians have not been heard by the Liberal government. I will continue to raise the concerns of rural Canadians and fight for their issues until we get solutions.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have heard the Conservatives say that they are listening to rural communities across Canada, even in the riding of my colleague across the way. I am rather pleased to hear that the member is protecting or trying to define the need for high-speed Internet.

Our government developed the rural economic development strategy with the goal of supporting the economic recovery. For education, as I said earlier, we focused on the resilience of rural regions across Canada, not just in one riding.

Climate Change

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the chance to speak tonight with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources and to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change on the topic of the climate crisis and fossil fuel subsidies.

In my community, no matter what neighbourhood I am in, the sentiment is the same: What is the point of anything else if we are not ensuring we have a safe climate future for our kids, nieces, nephews and grandkids, recognizing this is our last chance to ensure that we do so?

We are already seeing these impacts every day across the country. Recently there was the mudslides and flooding from B.C. to the east coast. This is a reminder that we must listen to scientists, indigenous leaders and young people who are calling for parliamentarians to act immediately, which will require bold and transformational action to reduce emissions by what scientists tell us is required to keep the possibility of 1.5°C alive, our fair share being 60% by 2030.

How are we doing on this? A couple of weeks ago, the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development released a scathing report, in which he wrote, “We can't continue to go from failure to failure; we need action and results, not just more targets and plans.”

As of now, Canada's emissions have continued to increase since 2015, as of the most recent inventory, and we are the worst performer of any G7 country. One obvious reason is that we continue, in the midst of a climate emergency, to subsidize fossil fuels to the tune of approximately $17 billion domestically in 2020, including over $5 billion for the building of the Trans Mountain pipeline.

The report pointed to one example with a clear opportunity to improve the onshore program of a so-called emissions reduction fund. Launched in November 2020, part of Canada's COVID-19 emergency response plan, the government saw the onshore program as a way to help the energy sector deal with lower oil prices during the pandemic. It was designed to support emission reduction efforts by providing financial support to struggling companies in this sector. This is the important part. It offered up to $675 million to oil and gas companies to maintain employment and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with a particular focus on methane.

To date, the government has funded 40 projects via this $675-million fund without verifiable emissions reductions, two-thirds of which actually led to increased oil and gas production. The good news is that we have only spent $134 million of the $675 million to date. Now we have an opportunity to use these funds for real climate action, for significant emissions reductions, by creating good jobs, for example, in retrofitting buildings, retraining workers in oil and gas and supporting their transition in a just economy.

Could the parliamentary secretary share what the government intends to do to ensure that the remaining $541 million actually reduces emissions?

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources and to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for Kitchener Centre on his election to Parliament. I had a chance to meet with him at the all-party climate caucus meeting, and I am looking forward to working with him on these important issues about climate change and the environment.

It is important to remember that the emissions reduction fund was launched in response to the COVID crisis as a way to help workers and communities. It came at a time of record low, and at times negative, energy prices, and our government needed to help workers and communities that were reeling over these events. Canadians expected us to do that, and that is what we did, but we also had a policy objective to ensure that the industry continued to act on methane reduction.

I will note that, to date, this program is anticipated to reduce 4.6 megatons of greenhouse gas emissions, and those reductions are being tracked carefully. This is like taking one million cars off the road today, providing immediate environmental and health benefits for Canadians.

I would also like to draw the member opposite's attention to correspondence that we received from the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation. Both organizations recognize the fund's success in reducing methane emissions and suggesting improvements. The Pembina Institute said, “During the pandemic, the emissions reduction fund has been one of the few programs around the world that addresses the economic impacts of the ongoing health crisis, while creating jobs and contributing meaningfully to reducing emissions in the oil and gas sector. This program has helped to drive Canadian leadership in methane abatement technology that will be in greater demand as the rest of the world increasingly acts on methane, and it will continue to do so if renewed.”

The letter from the David Suzuki Foundation noted, “when your department announced the results from intakes one and two, we were pleased to see that 97% of the emissions reductions came from projects that eliminated intentional routine venting and flaring of methane, outcomes that go beyond 2023 methane regulations and that were achieved for less than $20 per tonne of CO2. This is a notable achievement.”

Those are two important statements about this program. We are carefully considering the commissioner's report, and will consider a broad range of perspectives. We are carefully considering all of the pieces that go into this, and I would urge members to consider a broader context and to take into account our bold actions to meet these ambitious climate targets. Take, for instance, our recent commitment to place a cap on emissions from the oil and gas sector. This is something no other oil-producing nation has done, at least so far, and there is more.

Consider that we have one of the highest prices on carbon in the world. Our government is also in the process of phasing out unabated coal-fired electricity by 2030, and we have signalled to the auto industry and Canadians that starting in 2035 all light-duty vehicles sold must be zero emitting.

These are big steps, and there are others, such as the upcoming clean fuel standard. That is why we are continuing to work to take these necessary steps.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will just speak briefly.

In the report from the commissioner, to be really clear, in terms of the reductions, we need to be mindful of the concept of additionality, meaning would these reductions have happened without the incremental funding?

In section 4.34, the commissioner was clear: “In the absence of an additionality analysis, there was no guarantee that it was designed to result in emission reductions beyond those that already would have happened”.

More important than quibbling on what happened before is talking about what can happen now. We still have $541 million left, so my question is the same. Can the parliamentary secretary speak to what the government intends to do as it looks to restructure this existing fund to work toward getting meaningful additional net new emission reductions?

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I mentioned some of the initiatives we are working on, but there are many initiatives on energy efficiency in homes and buildings, and on hydrogen and nature-based solutions. The bottom line is that we know it will take nothing less than an all-out effort to confront this crisis, and that is how we are approaching this challenge.

I urge the member opposite to consider the broad range of measures in our climate plan. I will refer the member back to the fact that Canada maintains a higher price on pollution than even California, and is set to pass the E.U. next year. We are set to move forward on a cap on emissions for our oil and gas sector, and we have made significant investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy.

We know there is a lot of work to do, and that is exactly what we are doing.

The Economy

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is my first late show, and I am happy to have the opportunity to speak again on housing. At question period, I asked whether the government believed that the supply issue was serious and whether the lack of supply and supply inflation were causing the housing crisis.

I come from a region that is very much like all the other regions across Canada seeing such a dire position on housing, and this comes down to our lack of supply. Where did our numbers come from? When we compare ourselves with other G7 nations, we are dead last in supply per capita, even though we are the country with the second-most amount of land on the planet. That means all of those countries, even the U.K., an island, have way more supply per capita than Canada does, a nation with an incredible amount of land.

When it comes to what is happening, we have all seen it and have been talking about it all day. We have people who right now, because of the lack of supply, are having trouble deciding whether they can afford rent or groceries. We have individuals who have become homeless by no choice of their own. My region has seen double the homeless population at a time when we do not need that because we have so many other problems. We also have many people who cannot find affordable housing.

When I talk to home builders in my region, those who are building homes, they say it is harder now than at any other time in their existence to build a home, and they are not finding support from the local government. We are now seeing it take up to two or three years before we even get subdivisions started in the ground. We have seen the conditions in Toronto, where from start to finish an apartment building now takes a decade. We have seen the conditions created when people want to put plans together and go into certain neighbourhoods. We get Nimbyism, or “not in my backyard”, because people are saying it is not something they desire. We are finding that it takes longer and longer in this country to build a home.

Let us look at how many homes we need. To meet the average number of houses in the rest of the G7 countries, we need, right now, 1.8 million homes. We have been hearing all week from the government about the programming that is going into building homes. However, as confirmed by the Minister of Immigration this week in the House, the government only built 100,000 homes over six years, spending $29 billion. That is not enough.

To build 1.8 million homes, we need to ensure that we are unleashing the innovation that comes from our home builders and that we are working with the provinces and municipalities to free up the red tape that is holding back our Canadian workers, our skilled trades and our municipalities from being able to put up enough homes to house not only the people we have here, but the backlog of immigrants whom we surely will have coming into this country. There is an opportunity to create jobs to make sure we have a lot of trade jobs and others that create paycheques for housing. This opportunity comes from unleashing innovation.

Will the government commit to working on creating supply, with bills that include discussions on all sides with all governments, to fix our housing crisis?

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources and to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Mr. Speaker, I am thrilled that the member opposite would like to speak about the economy. Around the world, governments, including Canada, are taking immediate action to address the omicron variant. Earlier this week, Canada announced strong action at our borders and in regard to testing and entry. This is another reminder that all Canadians who can, should get their vaccines as soon as possible. There is no more important economic policy for Canada today than finishing the fight against COVID.

Today's renewed COVID fears are also a reminder of why the measures in Bill C-2, which provides targeted personal income and business supports, are so urgent and essential. Over the last 20 months, Canadians have faced tough times. Various health and safety precautions have caused financial and emotional distress for many people, not to mention those who have also had to care for or who have lost loved ones at the same time.

Across the country, many businesses have had to close, some temporarily and others permanently. The majority have experienced reduced revenues, even when they were open. This has translated into many people losing their jobs or having their hours reduced. That is why when the crisis hit, the government rapidly rolled out a full range of effective, broad-based programs under the economic response plan with much needed support for individuals, businesses and communities to see Canadians through our country's greatest economic shock since the Great Depression.

In terms of its scale, Canada's economic response, including budget 2021 investments, was one of the largest and most expeditious among G7 countries. It helped engineer a near-term economic turnaround at a faster than anticipated pace compared with some industrialized countries. This support has worked. Many businesses are now safely reopening. Employment has recovered to pre-recession levels and of the three million jobs that were lost at the peak of the crisis, all have now been recouped, faster than any other recession. Canada's economic recovery is well on track and the pandemic economy is fading from view.

As our government looks to secure a more prosperous future for Canadians, it is helpful to look back and consider the key measures that have helped us to get to where we are today. These include the Canada emergency response benefit, the Canada emergency wage subsidy, the Canada emergency rent subsidy and lockdown support and the Canada emergency business account. Federal support also includes significant financing for the provinces and territories through its top-ups to the Canadian health transfer, as well as through the safe restart agreement, the safe return to class fund and the essential workers support fund. All told, more than $8 out of every $10 spent to fight COVID-19 and support Canadians has come from the federal government.

In budget 2021, the government promised that if additional flexibility was required, based on public health considerations later in the year, it would continue to do whatever it takes to be there for Canadians. That is why in October, we announced the Canada worker lockdown benefit. We are working to ensure continued support to Canadians throughout this pandemic.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that we still are battling through COVID, but we now have different problems than we did prior to COVID. They require an immediate response from the government to tackle housing and supply issues, and to work with all members of government across all agencies. As stated, we have people now not able to afford their homes. We have people now who are finding themselves homeless.

The action we need now to swing hammers includes working with all levels of government, ensuring that we put enough resources in and that we start doing the work needed now; not just talking about it. We need less conversation and more action, ensuring that we have those homes built so that Canadians can then find a home for an affordable price.

Can the minister confirm that the government will look at supply in order to fix this problem?

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in the initial part, I talked about how we had announced in October the Canada worker lockdown benefit. This was to ensure that workers continue to have support and no one is left behind. This benefit would provide $300 a week in income support to eligible workers should they be unable to work due to a regional lockdown until May 7, 2022, with retroactive application to October 24, 2021, if required. It would continue to offer support to those who still need it in case the pandemic requires further public health lockdowns in any part of the country, including workers who are both eligible and ineligible for employment insurance. The benefit would apply in any region of the country that is so designated by the government for the duration of the lockdown. This measure would be activated quickly to support affected workers in the event of a new lockdown in their region of work.

We are there to support Canadians. We have been and we will continue to be.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted.

Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 8:08 p.m.)