Debates of Feb. 2nd, 2021

Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, a lot of Canadians are suffering right now. We have just seen the government bring in some very strict measures when it comes to people who have to travel abroad and come back, with figures as high as $2,000 to be spent on hotels.

As health critic for the New Democrats, I am very much in favour of strong measures to protect public health. However, I have been contacted by some constituents, some who are working class and of limited means, who have to do essential travel, perhaps for a death in the family or something similar. They find the $2,000 three-day bill to be quite high.

Would my hon. colleague share any thoughts or comments on whether there should be some form of relief for working class or low-income Canadians who might find the payment of a $2,000 hotel bill to be excessive?

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Madam Speaker, I know my colleague to be a very caring member of Parliament in high regard and of long-standing.

This is where we should never have one-size-fits-all policies like this. We have to take into account specific circumstances. I agree that this seems like a huge bill for people who can ill afford it and who may have been put in that situation.

The government is not being consistent across our borders. In my own riding, we have the Peace Arch Park where people are being allowed to come from all across Canada and the United States to meet up with each other, because the Liberal government has not addressed the opening on the Washington state side.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-14 on the economic statement, which is extremely important during COVID-19. The bill seeks to implement certain provisions of the November 30, 2020, economic statement and other measures.

I basically want to talk about three things. First, I will share our party's position on the measures for seniors. Second, I will speak about certain measures that are still letting some businesses fall through the cracks, and third, I will say a few words about the problems that this pandemic has created for women and about my desire to support a more feminist economy.

For the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021, the law already allows for the funding of the various health initiatives set out in the bill. That totals approximately $900 million, including an investment of over $500 million in long-term care. The safe restart agreement between Canada, Quebec and the provinces should absolutely be amended to include long-term care. In the economic statement, the government provided for an investment of up to $1 billion to create an infection prevention and control fund to help Quebec and the provinces protect people living in long-term care facilities.

What exactly is being done about long-term care?

I will quote the November 30 economic statement again:

...the Government of Canada is committing up to $1 billion for [an infection control fund] to help provinces and territories protect people in long-term care and support infection prevention and control. Funding will be contingent on a detailed spending plan, allocated on an equal per capita basis and conditional on provinces and territories demonstrating that investments have been made according to those spending plans.

Need I once again remind the House that Quebec and the provinces have extensive authority over health care pursuant to a number of provisions in the Constitution Act, 1867, including section 92.7, which gives Quebec and the provinces exclusive jurisdiction over the establishment, maintenance and management of hospitals.

Moreover, all provinces have exclusive jurisdiction over the direct delivery of most medical services. Clearly, therefore, Quebec and the provinces, not the federal government, have the experience and expertise to handle long-term care homes. Quebec and the provinces also pay for the vast majority of these services.

In 2014, the Canadian Institute for Health Information estimated that 73% of the costs related to long-term care facilities in Canada were funded by provincial, territorial and municipal systems and organizations in Quebec and the provinces, while 23% of the costs were borne by residents or through their private insurance.

Any funding from the federal government with conditions of any kind is unacceptable to the Bloc Québécois. The federal government has only one role to play in health care, and that is funding. It does have the means to do more.

Ottawa's revenues, at 4.1%, are increasing faster than those of the provinces, at 3.5%, while health care spending in Quebec and the provinces is increasing at an annual rate of 5%. Remember, the federal government's share of health care is shrinking significantly every year.

In 2019 Quebec, the provinces and territories funded 40% of health care spending, while the Canadian government absorbed only 22%, according to Conference Board of Canada data. At the current growth rate, the federal share of health care funding will drop below 20% by 2026. That is unacceptable.

If the federal government is truly concerned about seniors then it needs to accede to the reasonable request made by the united front formed by Quebec and the other provinces and backed by the National Assembly of Quebec. Starting this year, not after the crisis, the government needs to bring its annual contribution to health care funding in Quebec and the provinces to 35% on an ongoing basis. In fact, and this is significant, the Fédération des médecins spécialistes du Québec, or the FMSQ, also supports this request by Mr. Legault.

As for the possibility of bringing in national standards in long-term care facilities, let us not forget that the Canadian Armed Forces' report following their time in Quebec's long-term care facilities was very clear: Despite there being many standards and rules on contamination prevention and control, or on wearing protective equipment, they were not enough to stop the virus.

The big question has more to do with the capacity to adhere to the existing standards and rules and enforcing them. The primary reason these rules were more difficult to follow is just as clear: the labour shortage. Let us properly fund our health care system. It is not just the Bloc Québécois and I calling for that, but major seniors' organizations such as the FADOQ.

The army's report says, and I quote, “According to our observations, the critical need for CHSLDs is an improved level of staff with medical training.” The provinces and Quebec do not need federal standards for long-term care homes. They already have standards.

Quebec and the provinces need the means to properly care for seniors. The successive Liberal and Conservative federal governments need to stop withholding spending.

In addition, the federal government can and must ensure that we have an adequate supply of vaccines. Once seniors in long-term care homes and seniors residences are taken care of, seniors living alone need to get out of isolation. Even though part of the bill amends the Food and Drugs Act, the delays we have seen are increasing stress and frustration levels.

I remind members that since the beginning of the pandemic, seniors have been saying that the $300 cheque that seniors receiving old age security got in July and the $200 cheque sent to seniors receiving the guaranteed income supplement have been woefully inadequate. The government needs to permanently increase old age security benefits by $110 a month, but this is not included in the economic measures.

Second, many people in the riding of Shefford work in the sectors most affected by the pandemic, those associated with tourism in general, such as hotels, restaurants and major cultural events. All these sectors are essential for the economic vitality of the riding. I am thinking of such well-known cultural institutions as the Granby international song festival, the Palace de Granby, the Maison de la culture de Waterloo, the Yvonne L. Bombardier Cultural Centre and the Maison de la culture de Racine, to name but a few.

We have a lot of questions about the terms of the highly affected sectors credit availability program, HASCAP. Why is it that almost two months after announcing this program, the Trudeau government is still unable to provide details on its terms?

Let us remember that, from the beginning of this pandemic, the Bloc Québécois has demonstrated how important it is to develop assistance programs tailored to each industry, since one-size-fits-all programs really do not work. On May 13, 2020, the Bloc Québécois was already unequivocally calling for targeted assistance for seasonal industries, particularly the tourism industry. Some of the programs that had already been rolled out, such as the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program, were poorly designed for these sectors and turned out to be a real disaster.

We then suggested that a real assistance program to cover fixed costs be implemented. In the spring, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Economic Development even came to tell members of the Haute-Yamaska chamber of commerce that those sorts of measures were coming. Several months later, it is clear from talking to tourism operators that the measures announced so far are insufficient. Many concerns remain, particularly for Quebec's sugar shacks, a key symbol of our heritage. They are still wondering whether they will be able to benefit from the Canada emergency wage subsidy.

We must not forget that tourism is a vital industry for the regions of Quebec. More than 400,000 workers benefit from the tourism industry, which generates $15 billion for Quebec's economy. Two-thirds of those businesses are located outside the metropolitan regions of Quebec City and Montreal and employ fewer than 20 workers, making them crucial to keeping our communities alive. Tourism is one of the industries that was hit hardest by the pandemic, and stakeholders are still waiting for the federal government to show some more empathy.

In closing, I want to point out the importance of making an economic she-covery a priority because the pandemic has hit women harder than men. Some programs, like the Canada emergency business account, have been harder for women to access. Groups such as Femmessor told the Standing Committee on the Status of Women about the importance of developing programs that are a better fit for female entrepreneurs. I heard that again earlier this week from a Bank of Montreal representative who wants more programs to do a better job of taking female entrepreneurs' reality into account. Family tax credits are not going to help women. They need programs that will help them leverage their economic power and escape poverty. Helping mothers is good, but enabling them to achieve their goals is even better.

The women who own the store Orange coco la vie en vrac, for example, work incredibly hard but do not seem to qualify for any of the programs.

In conclusion, we are in dire need of measures for seniors, for the cultural tourism industry, for restaurants and for women, all of which have been hit harder than most by the pandemic, along with measures for a greener, fairer economic recovery. Let us make that happen.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to commend my colleague on her very good speech. We appreciate the determination, devotion and passion that fuel her commitment to the well-being of seniors.

The pandemic has exposed the effects of the chronic underfunding of health care. Let us not forget that the Conservatives reduced the escalator from 6% to 3%, which did not cover the cost of the health care systems.

The Premier of Quebec described a meeting with the Prime Minister of Canada and his provincial counterparts as a missed opportunity. The Prime Minister left immediately to announce that the government would increase health transfers in due course. However, we all know that now is the time to tell the provinces and Quebec how much leeway they have to get out of the pandemic.

What does my colleague think of this attitude, and why does she think the Prime Minister of Canada is turning a deaf ear?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Montcalm for the question.

I do not know why. This has been going on for far too long already. That is why, in my speech, I talked about the power to withhold spending.

Since the days of Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien, successive Conservative and Liberal governments have made cuts to health. Now they are trying to teach us a lesson and imposing national standards on us.

I was listening to the Prime Minister's response at noon. He said he would wait until after the pandemic to invest more in health transfers. That is unacceptable. Our health system needs help now. It is on life support.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to work with my hon. colleague from Quebec. We have been working on a number of issues from across the country.

This particular bill would raise the debt cap for Canada. Is she at all concerned about the new levels of debt that the government is taking us to, and does the Bloc Québécois have any plans to help repay that debt?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague. I have been working with him recently on the issue of modern slavery and human trafficking, a subject that we will be revisiting shortly.

To answer his question, I would say that in the early days of the pandemic, the Bloc Québécois was the first to try to hold the Liberal government to account. How many times has my colleague from Joliette risen in the House to demand an economic update?

In order to know where we are going, sometimes we need to know where we stand.

I think the economic statement came late. We needed this update much sooner. Of course, we are concerned about the whole issue of transparency in funding and programs. The Liberals have a habit of not wanting to tell us everything and of making investments that reward their close friends, the emergency wage subsidy being a prime example.

When Liberal members tell me that political parties like the Liberal Party need help as much as businesses in Shefford, I find it deeply insulting.

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

Madam Speaker, we know that pre-pandemic, one in five Canadians was not going to see the dentist regularly, and 6.5 million Canadians had no dental coverage at all. The expectation is that two million more Canadians will lose their benefits because of COVID-19 and the economic impact of it. We spend about $246 billion a year on health care. The NDP plan to cover all families that have incomes of $90,000 or less and ensure they get dental coverage would cost about $1.5 billion, versus the $246 billion we spend on health care.

Does my colleague agree and support that universal health care should cover everything from head to toe, including dental coverage, and does she support the proposal that was tabled today by my colleague from St. John's East?

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to remind my hon. colleague that health care is the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. It is up to them to make their own decisions.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Madam Speaker, $1.1 trillion is a lot of money. That is what the national debt will be at the end of this fiscal year in accordance with this fall economic statement that we are debating today. It becomes very intimidating when we measure that national debt against gross domestic product, the GDP, in analysis of how well the economy can manage the debt. Just a few years ago it stood at 30%, but by the end of this fiscal year, March 31, 2021, in accordance with this fall economic plan it will stand at 55%, uncomfortably close to its 67% level during Canada's debt crisis in the mid-1990s.

We have heard many times from the Liberal side of the House that we can afford it, we have the fiscal room and we have the muscle power to manage this debt. That is true because, when we managed to get that 1995 debt crisis under control, we had a series of good, fiscally responsible governments that managed the economy, including through the Harper years.

Today, the big debt, $1.1 trillion, is going to be affordable only because interest rates are as low as they are. The federal government can borrow money at less than 1%. Money is almost free. Why would the Liberals not borrow as much as they can? However, any economist will tell us that interest rates will not stay low forever. Central banks will respond to inflationary pressures. It has happened throughout human history and that is not going to change.

In a debate in the House a couple of months ago, the member for Carleton, who is the Conservative Party's shadow minister for finance, asked what a 1% hike in interest rates would cost the Canadian treasury. It was a rhetorical question because obviously the math is very simple. One trillion dollars is a one followed by 12 zeroes. If we multiple it by 1%, it is now a one with 10 zeroes, which is $10 billion. That is $10 billion every year if interest rates go up only 1%. That is $10 billion that is not available for the federal government to spend on other important programs, including health transfers and giving Canadians the help that they need. That money is now going to be taken away from Canadians who need help and who have come to rely on these programs. That money is now going to go to international bankers and pension funds and make them richer.

I know that the middle of a worldwide pandemic is not the time to talk about cutting costs. The Conservative Party recognizes that the federal government has a big role to play in a time of crisis: to keep liquidity in the marketplace and confidence in the minds of the public, and to keep the economy going so that people can keep on working, earning paycheques, taking care of their kids, paying for university, and paying the mortgage or rent. We recognize that this is important. The Conservative Party has stood right along with the Liberal government to support these programs that Canadians need so badly to get through this economic crisis.

Where do we go from here? We are happily seeing a light at the end of the COVID tunnel. We are not there yet, but we are optimistic that there is a post-COVID world that we need to plan for. Canadians want to get back to work and they want to see their government get its fiscal house back in order. We need to see a plan that will move us away from a credit-card economy to a paycheque economy. The problem with the current Liberal government is that it does not have a good record of managing the economy.

Many people remember that leading up to the 2015 election the Liberal Party campaigned on a promise of a few small to medium-sized deficits, somewhere around $10 billion to $15 billion per year for three years, but that in the fourth year of the Liberals' mandate they were going to balance the budget. They did not even come close to that. The deficit was multiple times higher than what the Liberals had promised, and by the 2019 election campaign they had given up all pretense of ever wanting to manage to balance the budget. Therefore, Canadians are rightly concerned about the current government's record of poor fiscal management and its ability to manage a post-COVID relaunch of our economy.

There is another aspect of the government's response to the COVID-19 crisis I want to highlight that has frustrated many Canadians. Even though our COVID relief spending is the highest among all our trading partners on a per capita basis, we also have the highest unemployment rate. How could that be? We are spending almost $400 billion more this year than we are taking in, in government revenues, yet millions of Canadians are being left behind.

I have a couple of examples from my riding. I was talking to a husband and wife who are family business operators. They run a dance studio. Business was pretty good until the provincial public health officer shut them down. They were happy the federal government came out with an emergency rent subsidy program, and it looked like they would qualify. Certainly, if one looked at their bank account and balance sheet, they qualified. However, when they filled out the application, they realized because of their corporate structure, and because they could not answer that they were operating at arm's length, they were disqualified. Like tens of thousands of family-owned businesses across the country, they have a dual corporate model, where one company owns the land and the building and the other owns the company that operates within the building. It is required by many bankers to mitigate risk and manage commercial operations. I can hardly imagine the government had intended for that to happen.

The operators of a hotel chain here in British Columbia are another example. They qualified for the rent subsidy, but had to share the subsidy across a whole group of properties. They complained to me, saying that if each of them were an individually owned hotel property they each would have individually qualified. Because they had to share the rent subsidy across the whole family, the rent subsidy became almost meaningless. They said to me that it looked like the Liberal government was taking the “M” out of SME, small and medium-sized enterprises. Medium-sized enterprises like theirs do not qualify.

As my colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo said, the government is a day late and a dollar short, and a lot of Canadians are suffering on account of that.

Bill C-14 has seven parts. My party is going to support most of it, but we have trouble with part 7, which is about future spending. We wonder why the federal government feels it needs to have a total debt ceiling of $1.8 trillion, when all it really needs is $1.1 trillion to get through this fiscal year. Does it not trust Parliament to do the right thing at the right time? The government should come back when it needs more money and we will respond, as we have in the past and throughout this crisis. We will look at the legislation and question it and the proposed programs, because we are the opposition and that is what we do.

I submit that the emergency programs Canadians are now relying on are very much better because of the work we and other opposition parties have done. Canadians want transparency. They want to know bills are being debated in Parliament and that the government does not have unfettered power to do as it wishes. When it needs more money, it should come back and ask for it, and prove to us that its spending plans will actually help the Canadians who need it most.

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

Madam Speaker, I am not sure what world the member is living in when he says this government has a poor record of managing the economy. Before the pandemic, we had the lowest unemployment rate since we started recording it in the sixties. We had one of the fastest-growing economies in the G7.

Yes, it is true our unemployment rate is two points higher than the U.S. and the U.K., for example, but their death rates per population are three times higher than in Canada, because this government took the position that we needed to invest in and protect Canadians. It is one thing to say the economy is not in a good position, but it does not mean it is right because he is saying it.

The reality is we had one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. We had the lowest unemployment rate in over 40 or 50 years, and we are investing in Canadians now so we can get back to that on the other side of this.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would remind Canadians that the Liberals ran an election platform in 2015 of balancing the budget in year four, which would be 2019. By the time we got to the end of that mandate, they were nowhere near that. They had given up any pretense at all of ever aspiring to balance the budget. Yes, the economy was strong during their first four years. That is the heritage of the good fiscal management leading up to their being elected in 2015.

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

Madam Speaker, I asked a question earlier of a Conservative colleague of the member who is speaking right now. I talked about the nine million Canadians who have had to go to predatory alternative lenders who are charging between 30% and 50% annually in interest, despite the Bank of Canada's base rate of less than 1%. The response from the member was that we needed to create better paying jobs. I cannot agree more that we need to make sure there are more jobs with a better living wage for Canadians and that we are tackling inequality.

Do the Conservatives believe that we should be putting in federal legislation to safeguard and protect vulnerable Canadians from these predatory lenders? I would actually call them vultures. Legislation would ensure they are protected and are not paying these abhorrent rates that are completely out of control. Anyone who is in that cycle, which I will refer to as being on a hamster wheel, knows exactly how difficult it is to jump off. It does not matter how good the job is; the government needs to intervene. I hope my colleague will support the call for the federal government to implement legislation and cap these predatory lending rates.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to hear he agrees with the answer my colleague from South Surrey—White Rock gave. I listened to the answer and thought it was very good. We want to get Canadians back to work. We want to get away from a credit card economy and move to a paycheque economy. I am sure all Canadians agree with that. People should not have to go into debt just to stay alive and keep their families operating.

That said, I am sympathetic to anybody who ends up in a debt cycle and I would be interested in carrying on that conversation with my colleague from Courtenay—Alberni.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Madam Speaker, would my colleague do the honourable thing and consider that, with regard to the disastrous impact of the pandemic being linked to the fact that health care has been underfunded for years, his government's cuts from 6% to 3% when it was in power were inappropriate?

The Prime Minister of Canada says that he will deal with health transfers after the pandemic. Does my colleague believe that that is a responsible attitude?

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Madam Speaker, health care is obviously a very important aspect of people's lives, and certainly during a pandemic. I think there is a misconception that the Conservative Party would cut health spending. It would not. We recognize how important it is and we will be there to help Canadians when they need it.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is great to have this opportunity to participate in the debate today. I have listened intently to previous speakers. It is very interesting to hear the Liberals' questions and the different types of points they are trying to make in the debate.

We heard the member for Yukon a little while ago talking about the Harper record going back to the economic meltdown in 2008 and criticizing the Harper government's spending, which was many times less than what we are talking about right now. I was elected in 2006. The hon. member was around during that time as well. He might recall that during that time we could not spend enough to make Liberal members of Parliament happy. Certainly, one of the absolutely critical things we did was to lay out a road map during a very difficult time to get back to balanced budgets. We had a surplus leading up to that point, very different circumstances from what we find ourselves in at this point, and we laid out a seven-year plan to get back to budget balance. I had the opportunity to serve on the cabinet subcommittee that evaluated plans from departments and ministers to get back to balance, and I am pleased to say that by 2015 we maintained that schedule and got back to balance. There is no conversations right now with the current government on the long-term impact of the spending we are now undertaking.

There is a lot of talk about deficits and previous governments' deficits. When we take a look at the deficit cycle of governments from 1968 until today, it is easy to trace back exactly why we wound up having the fiscal situation and debt we have right now. We can go back to 1968 when we had almost no debt in this country. We had the Pierre Trudeau government at that time, which made a very deliberate decision to run deficits in 14 out of 15 years.

We ran those deficits in 14 out of 15 years, and then by 1984 the country was in crisis. Rates were through the roof. Interest rates were in the high teens and 20s. In the previous years the Liberals, like the current government, had run an absolutely disastrous energy plan, which was devastating to the people of my constituency in Alberta. Yes, in the Mulroney years the deficits were even higher, but if we look at those Mulroney years, those deficits were actually almost entirely made up of interest on Trudeau's debt. It is very important to understand that. Because interest rates were so high, the Mulroney deficits were almost entirely the interest on Trudeau's debt.

Then we fast-forward to the late nineties and another Liberal government, the Chrétien-Martin government. That generation of Canadians had to pay for the debt that was accumulated back in the seventies and early eighties under the Trudeau government. It was a generation later, and we can see there is a parallel here and a predictor of the future. The impact then was that the Trudeau-Martin Liberal government cut $35 billion from health care, social services and education transfers through the Canada health transfer and the Canada social transfer. There were devastating cuts down the road because of the spending that happened in the late sixties, the seventies and the eighties.

When we listened to question period today, it does not seem to matter what question is asked. All three main opposition parties can ask very legitimate questions about vaccines, testing or spending programs, and they are almost always answered with derision and condescension by the Prime Minister and other ministers, but particularly by the Prime Minister. Almost every question is met with an accusation of our playing political games, and again, it does not matter which party asks. Then we get this sort of throw-away line, without the ministers ever really answering the question about when vaccines might be coming, or answering the legitimate question today about how many Canadians would need to be vaccinated, and what the evidence shows, before we can start to come out of the lockdowns. These are things that my constituents desperately want to know.

We hear this throw-away line that the government has Canadians' backs. What does that actually mean? First of all, it is a line that gets used for almost every question without the person actually giving a response to the question. It is very calming. It is presented in a very calm fashion by someone who has clearly been trained in delivering lines, but it does not say anything.

If we look closely at that, when they say the government has Canadians' backs, it is not really the government that has Canadians' backs, it is not the Prime Minister who has Canadians' backs, but our kids and our grandkids who ultimately have Canadians' backs right now, because our kids and grandkids are going to be paying for the deficits we are running right now. It does not mean we should not be doing it. Absolutely, I think members from all sides, from all parties, believe that we should be spending and running a pretty significant deficit right now.

However, as we are putting forward these plans for spending, there needs to be some hope, some vision for the future, and a consideration, an acknowledgement at least, that the spending we are undertaking right now is a trade-off. There is going to be a trade-off from that spending down the road. In other words, future generations of Canadians are going to forgo a certain level of their quality of life because this money will have to be paid back, or money will have to be spent to pay for the interest charges on the debt we are incurring right now. That money will not be able to be spent on other things.

The previous speaker eloquently brought up the member for Carleton's question about interest rates, which has been asked a lot. I remember the night we had a debate with the finance minister and the opportunity to ask him those questions. There was a complete refusal to acknowledge that interest rates can go up at some point in the future and that there might be a cost to that.

If we take a look at the interest rates in the situation we saw in the 1970s, there is a clear lesson in this. Back in August 1971, the interest rate in Canada, the overnight rate, was 5%. By August 1976, the interest rate was 9.25%. That was very high, obviously. However, it was nothing, because by August 1981 the interest rate had risen to an astonishing 20.78%.

The lesson for us here is that in August 1971 the Trudeau government would never have envisioned an interest rate of 20.78% as it was just starting on the road of ramping up its deficits. In 1976, things had started to get out of control; things had changed in the energy market and there were all sorts of factors that were leading to that interest rate going up, but the government had kind of lost control a little.

By 1981, we were in a spiral. At the same time, there was a national energy program that was devastating on the revenue side. I will not have enough time to get into that. Maybe someone could ask me a question about it and the parallel it has with our policy today. I would love to have that opportunity.

By 1981, we had a 20.78% interest rate, and ever since that time, governments have run deficits or we have had significant debt in this country, and we have been making interest payments on the debt that was run up during that time and forgone the opportunity to pay for things that we could have used those revenues for.

I have lots of other things I could say. I could talk about the government's absolute inability to generate innovation or take advantage of the substantial innovative capacity here in Canada around testing and the development of rapid testing, the development and procurement of vaccines, and the possibility that spending on those things early on might have resulted in a decreased need to spend the $30 billion a month we are spending on support programs right now.

I will wrap up here and look forward to taking questions from my colleagues.

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

Madam Speaker, talk about cherry-picking the data. The member talked about the debt that Liberals ran during the last three or four decades; for the nearly two decades that Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper were in this place, they ran only two surpluses in those nearly two decades. I got a real kick out of how the member justified that by saying that they had to make the interest payments of the previous governments. No, they did not have to. As a matter of fact, Stephen Harper decided that he was not going to run a deficit, and what happened in his minority Parliament? He almost got taken down by the balance of the members of this House. Then he decided that maybe he needed to play ball. That is actually what happened.

If the member is so concerned about the supports that have been given to Canadians over the last 10 months and the debt that these supports created, why did he vote in favour of them, quite often through unanimous consent motions? All he had to do was stand up and say no, he would not give unanimous consent, but he never did that. He voted in favour of them. Why?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, I love how the member talked about cherry-picking data and then cherry-picked his own data. He criticized the Harper government for running deficits and then, in the same sentence, accused the Harper government of being reluctant to run deficits.

It is almost as though he has talked to some of his colleagues who were around at the time and may have reminded him that, yes, it did go against the DNA of the Harper government to run deficits. We did it anyway, because it was the right thing to do at that time and, as I mentioned earlier, we could not spend fast enough to satisfy Liberal members of Parliament at that time. In fact, they threatened to band together with the separatist Bloc and the NDP to bring down the government because the deficits just could not possibly be high enough for them.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like my colleague to explain the Conservatives' thinking on the unanimous demands with respect to health transfers.

His party says that there will be predictable, stable transfers. When the Conservatives cut health transfers from 6% to 3%, they were predictable and stable, but we have seen the disaster that chronic underfunding of health care has caused. What does “stable” and “predictable” mean to the Conservatives?

Does this meet the unanimous demands of Quebec and the provinces, yes or no?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, again, I was in government for almost a decade, and having actually been there, I can say that the Conservative record is stable over the entire time. There were stable increases of 6% every year through the entire time Conservatives were in government. If the member wants to look at stable funding for health care, let us avoid the rhetoric, the talking points and the revisionist history. The fact of the matter is that under Stephen Harper's government at that time, we increased health transfers by 6% a year.

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

Madam Speaker, we have heard the new president, President Biden, talk about a buy America strategy. We have heard that in the U.K. they have a COVID recovery strategy that implements the United Nations sustainable development goals of 2030 when it comes to procurement. In fact, every dollar they spend has a strategic social, economic and workforce impact that is analyzed as to how it will play out.

The member spoke a lot about vaccines. I really appreciate his commentary on the lack of capacity and the importance of building capacity here in Canada, but we have also seen what happened to distilleries in Canada when the government flooded the Canadian market with foreign sanitizers. Does he agree that part of our COVID recovery should be a strong domestic procurement strategy that would ensure that we analyze social, environmental and workforce impacts and do it quickly?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member talks about supporting Canadian business. Let me give an example that hits really close to home for me.

The fact of the matter is that right now in Atlantic Canada, we are importing 600,000 barrels of oil every single day. The third-, second- and fourth-source countries for that oil are Algeria, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. That oil is not subject to the same strict regulatory regime as oil from—

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

I must interrupt.

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, Ethics; the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, Housing; the hon. member for Kenora, Indigenous Affairs.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Repentigny.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, the government's economic statement in November gave us all a lot to think about.

We have heard about many measures in today's speeches on Bill C-14 and certain provisions from the economic statement. My colleagues have given us a thorough rundown, and I thank them for that.

Spending is up, and this is necessary, given how the pandemic is ravaging our sectors. Our caucus is also pleased to see that some of our party's suggested measures were adopted. We are working together. Naturally, there is a cost to helping workers, small businesses and families in Quebec. We expect that.

However, with the government's deficit now estimated at over $381 billion, it makes no sense that it refuses to heed another of the Bloc Québécois's requests, namely to create a special committee to study all COVID-19 spending. All of this spending needs to be studied. No amount is too small.

Nobody can blame Bloc Québécois MPs for speaking up when hundreds of millions of dollars are being, or were intended to be, squandered all over the place, some of it through WE Charity, or when we hear about a shady contract awarded to a former Liberal MP, or when the Parliamentary Budget Officer repeatedly insists that there is a transparency and accountability issue with federal spending. I should also mention that the government promised to create such a committee. Those of us on this side of the House are not surprised to find that this promise will not be kept, and who could blame us? We are getting used to it.

Quebeckers and Canadians need to be sure that federal authorities are also contributing to our collective effort. Creating this committee is crucial to shedding light on the structure of support programs and on the nature and extent of planned spending. Most importantly, it is crucial to ensuring full transparency during an unprecedented economic recovery. This economic statement once again leaves us in total darkness regarding $100 billion in planned spending. I will elaborate on that at the end of my speech.

My colleagues and I are getting calls from constituents who are concerned because they have been the victims of fraud. Some are worried because CERB payments were requested in their name, while others never received their cheques. There have also been some glitches with the transition from the Canada emergency response benefit, or CERB, to the Canada recovery benefit, or CRB, which have left families dealing with uncertainty and stress that they did not need.

Taxpayers' money is more precious than ever. The pandemic has demanded so much effort and sacrifice from families that the government and elected officials must treat the public purse with the utmost care. Yes, workers are important. Yes, business owners are important. Yes, families are important. The government must play the role of universal benefactor. I want to emphasize the word “universal” because, since 2020, the government has been a somewhat self-serving benefactor. Let me explain.

We submitted questions about all of the government's spending on fossil fuels and renewable energy. We are talking about loans, grants and any other government programs. We received a 105-page response less than a week ago. We began analyzing it and found that three letters came up frequently in the searches conducted by the Library of Parliament analysts. They were E, D and C, which is the abbreviation for Export Development Canada. I want to take a few moments to talk about that.

The government has in no way slowed down on environmental measures during the pandemic. I am not talking about measures to protect the environment or key renewable energy projects. I am talking about big, concrete measures that will negatively affect our environmental record and the climate crisis. The minister has taken hundreds of meetings with lobbyists representing the oil and gas sector, and the nuclear sector as well, while coalitions of citizens concerned about climate change have not been able to speak to the minister.

The government does not want to leave Export Development Canada out of its post-pandemic plans. The government needs EDC because there is a lot of money there. However, there is no transparency. A number of observers have criticized Export Development Canada for its practices and status. The Globe and Mail talked about the pattern of secrecy and the lack of transparency at this government agency.

Prior to COVID-19, EDC contributed up to $14 billion annually to the oil and gas energy sector. That is 13 times more than the total funds allocated over five years for renewable energy. This means that EDC's incorporating statute needs to be reviewed, since it is profoundly inconsistent with the targets that are desperately needed to address climate change.

I mention EDC because Quebec and Canadian taxpayers' money is directly involved in its practices through what is known as the Canada account, which is managed by EDC. With this account, ministers can facilitate guaranteed loans that EDC might refuse and deem too risky. Ministers can have a say and do so when it is in the national interest. Ministers can approve a project that EDC would not support because of financial risks.

One such example is TransMountain. These are the same ministers who are listening closely to the demands of lobbyists, who have been tirelessly active for nearly a year and who used this account to purchase TransMountain. We therefore have every reason to fear the worst. Using the Canada account ignores both environmental and financial risks. Ministers could try to use this account again for who knows what else, because there is no transparency.

The legislation governing EDC was amended, allowing the agency's total liability to increase from $45 billion to $90 billion, while that of the Canada account would skyrocket to $75 billion. That was until October 2020. Handouts with the greatest political discretion tripled. I would remind hon. members that the Canada account is secured by the Treasury Board and therefore by taxpayers. To be accurate, we might call it the government's discretionary account.

For a government to be a universal benefactor, it needs to manage public funds responsibly, not in a way that, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer says, does not take into account the jobs that will come back or be created in a few years. In this future context that we must take into consideration, is it really necessary to add another $75 billion to $100 billion to the deficit? It is just another example of the lack of transparency criticized by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

A universal benefactor demonstrates transparency, accountability and responsibility. Recent experience shows us that the party in power does not value transparency or integrity in key areas of government action. It has no concept of accountability and responsibility.

From the hundreds of millions of dollars that the government plans to spend supporting oil projects from coast to coast to the half a billion dollars for the Coastal GasLink pipeline in British Columbia, the hundreds of millions of dollars for drilling in the Maritimes and the obstinate support for the TransMountain pipeline expansion, these are all obscene expenditures. They are obscene because of the government's official line that it is a leader in the fight against climate change. They are obscene because public money is enriching foreign corporations and shareholders who are already multimillionaires. They are obscene because needs are being manipulated and exploited at the expense of indigenous workers and communities.

The Bloc Québécois will continue to monitor the doublespeak and announcements that hide other contradictions, such as decisions that harm the environment and increase spending. I am referring to deregulation at all levels of government, the weakening of the requirements of the clean fuel standard regulations, regulatory changes for nuclear energy and its waste, drilling in Newfoundland, which I spoke about at length today, and the 25% reduction in funding for monitoring oil sands waste, not to mention what my colleagues clearly pointed out in their speeches, the federal government's desire to interfere in Quebec's jurisdictions.