Debates of March 22nd, 2021

Small Business

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The member is over her time.

We will go back, for the last minute, to the hon. member for Bow River.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member did not touch on getting skilled workers back to Canada. There are no flights going from Mexico to Canada. What about the clawback of commissions at travel agencies? No, that is not part of the deal the government is talking about with the airlines. This is about people who booked tickets on airlines. It is not the travel part she is talking about. Then there is irrigation and the carbon tax, and the tens of millions of dollars that we are going to lose in our ridings. Small businesses are not going to gain from that. No, she did not touch on that either.

Let me go to one more issue. Several businesses in my riding have had stranded assets for a year because in May, gun legislation was brought in by order in council and it stranded assets for small businesses. They cannot sell them; they are stranded assets. Now the government has gone into the airsoft gun business and we have more stranded assets in businesses. These are small, local businesses, and the government has changed regulations to introduce legislation that leaves their assets stranded.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to apologize to my colleague. The time does go by very quickly. I had many more notes to share with him. I know in this second round I only have one minute.

Suffice it to say that on the new issues my colleague raises, we cannot find a stronger proponent of our measures to support tackling climate change. I will not apologize for the carbon tax. It is critical that our government take real action in order to stem what is the biggest issue of our generation. I followed closely the events of this weekend, and I am sorry the Conservative Party chose not to recognize that climate change is real and is something we need to address, but I certainly will not apologize for that.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Before I close off, I would like to thank the hon. parliamentary secretaries for their kind words.

The motion to adjourn the House is 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 6:52 p.m.)