Debates of April 20th, 2021

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Mégantic—L'Érable.

Yesterday, the federal Liberal government tabled its first budget in over two years, which happens to be the longest period of time our country has been without a budget in Canadian history. It was the first budget in a crisis so vast in scale that the last time we faced a crisis of this magnitude was the Second World War. That was the last time Canada was at this level of financial burden. This was also my first budget as a member of Parliament.

All things considered, the pressure was on for the Liberal government to get this right and deliver a real plan to secure Canada, to get us out of this crisis and to recover our economy. I listened very intently to the budget speech yesterday, hoping to hear something that would give me and the people of my generation the confidence that the Canada of tomorrow will be better than the Canada of today. However, I regret to say that, following the Deputy Prime Minister's speech, I did not feel that confidence.

As Canada braces for the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have spent a significant amount of time, as we all have, reflecting on what is at stake. The crisis we face in this country and around the world—the uncertainty of the future, the uncharted waters and the millions of deaths and economic casualties—feels at times unsurmountable. Every week, I spend a morning calling my constituents, and I can confidently and sadly say that the anxiety, the fear and the worry are palpable.

Confidence in the future is not a common commodity among the people right now, and it is really no wonder. Tens of thousands of small businesses have closed, as we know, each one representing a Canadian family that put its heart and soul, years of sacrifice and work into its business, which contributed to the cultural landscapes of our communities. Millions more Canadians depended on these businesses for employment to put food on their tables and to live their lives, and now these opportunities are gone. It is predicted that 220,000 businesses may close before this is all over, which may impact another three million jobs.

What is frustrating is that not all countries in the world are facing a third wave as we are here in Canada. The United States seems to be well on the road to recovery. It is the same thing with the United Kingdom, which is holding fast to its plan to fully reopen in two months. So, why is this not the case in Canada? This is really what I do not quite understand. Why is it that the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is now raging in Canada's four largest provinces, with Ontario entering a six-week stay-at-home order and closing schools indefinitely to try to stem the exponential growth of this virus? Manitoba just announced further restrictions as well.

If we listen to the Liberal government, it is trying to pin the blame for this third wave on the provinces. Yet, if nearly every province is facing this third wave and if other countries are managing to do better, perhaps the fault lies with the lack of national leadership, with our Prime Minister and his Liberal government.

Canada has more deaths of people over 85 years of age than do our American counterparts, and we now exceed the U.S. in new per capita cases. The U.S. has provided its citizens with over 250 million vaccines, and in Canada we have had less than 10 million. It is really shocking how far apart we are from our neighbours to the south and across the pond. Just last week, the Prime Minister stood in this House and repeated this bizarre misinformation that the U.K. was in the midst of a third wave, when in fact the U.K.'s daily COVID infection rates are a quarter of Canada's daily total, despite having double our population.

It seems that countries that more successfully procured vaccines have been able to prevent the level of death, hospitalizations and economic closures that Canada is now experiencing. Canadians are paying the price for Liberal mismanagement of the pandemic. This third wave is the Prime Minister's third wave, and he has left Canadians unprotected and not secure.

If the third wave was not enough for Canadians to deal with, now we have a budget from the Liberal government that does little to get us out of this pandemic. In fact, there seems to be very little in the budget overall that can make Canadians feel secure in the future and feel that it is going to get better. There did not seem to be a coherent, thoughtful, strategic or innovative plan for recovery in this budget, and I do believe Canadians were really hoping to see something like this. I think they were hoping to wake up in the morning and see headlines like “Finally a Plan”, yet that was not the case.

We now know that the deficit for this past difficult year is $354 billion, and next year it is projected to be $154 billion. Further, the budget predicts that our federal debt will grow to $1.4 trillion by 2026, which is double what it was before the pandemic, which means that the debt that was created in 150 years was doubled in a few short years.

The Minister of Finance continues to tell us that it is all good and we can afford this because interest rates are low. However, Jack Mintz, professor at the University of Calgary's school of public policy, has said:

It’s kind of like rolling the dice.... We are hoping that this huge amount of stimulus won’t impact inflation and interest rates even within the next five years or beyond.

Therefore, we are hoping, but there really is no guarantee. The Liberals are just guessing and hoping that this tremendous gamble, gambling the future of Canada, will all work out and everything will be just fine. However, we know from six years of Liberal government that the Liberals do not keep their promises to Canadians. Despite promising in 2015 that they would run only three modest deficits of $10 billion, which we all remember, the Liberals spent over $100 billion in deficits in their first four years. They justified this by promising it would create amazing economic growth, yet Canadians experienced sluggish economic growth during the Liberals' first term. As the Conservatives warned before the pandemic crisis, spending $100 billion of debt with little economic growth was foolish and selfish and left us more financially vulnerable when and if a crisis hit Canada; and then it did hit Canada.

The truth is that the overwhelming majority of members who rise to speak to this budget will not have to deal with the long-term or even medium-term consequences of this type of spending and this mismanagement. It is my generation that will be on the hook for this bill. As it now stands, we are the first generation since World War II to inherit a worse economy from our parents. Millennials are dealing with a decimated job market, soaring housing costs, increased debt and a dim economic future with what seems to be no end in sight, and the situation has only intensified after six years of the Liberal government. The last time, the Liberal deficits did not work to create economic growth, so why should the Canadian people trust that this time it will be different, that all the spending announced yesterday will deliver better results? I am not buying it.

Despite all of this, all these deaths and all these closures, the loss of freedoms for well over a year, the fear, the anxiety, the worry and the incomprehensible spending and debt burden for future generations, what has been the tone from the Liberal government? How has it really been viewing this crisis? From last week's Liberal Party convention, we know how the Deputy Prime Minister sees this crisis: “COVID has created a window of political opportunity”. She said that.

Then, when the Prime Minister was asked last week if he would do anything differently to avoid the devastation of the third wave, he simply replied that he had no regrets and would not change a thing. This is not leadership. This is political opportunism and a Liberal Prime Minister who fails to grasp the severity of his failures.

People wonder if perhaps the Liberal government does not take the time to speak to isolated seniors or out-of-work newcomers or devastated small business owners to truly try to understand what the past 13 months have done to people in Canada. I feel that if it had, it would never have made these offensive and insensitive comments. These comments do not make Canadians feel secure that the Liberal government knows what it is doing.

To conclude, I will share, yet again, what I am hearing on the ground in my own riding, where I have spoken to many parents who tell me their little children are depressed and do not want to eat. I have had elderly women being very emotional with me on the phone, saying they do not want to spend the last few months or years that they have on this earth locked in their apartments away from their grandkids. I have had grown men cry to me on the phone as they have watched their life's work, their small business, go up in flames.

The most frustrating part for everyone is that there is nothing they can do about it. They cannot force the Liberal government to care or to show competency or to prevent the third wave. They cannot go back in time and stop the Liberals from wasting a hundred days betting on a Chinese company to produce vaccines for Canada, only to be embarrassed and dismissed by the Communist Party of China, putting Canadians three months behind other countries for viable vaccines. They cannot go back and force the Liberals to heed the Conservatives' advice to close the borders when we first learned of this mysterious virus wreaking havoc on China, and later Italy.

That is our job as parliamentarians, to hold the Liberal Prime Minister to account. I, along with my Conservative colleagues, have been standing virtually in this House for months, over a year, pleading, asking, demanding that the Liberals show leadership, put forward an innovative, strategic plan and take care of our country's finances so they do not bankrupt Canadians and bring on a second Great Depression. I wish Canada's Prime Minister would acknowledge the impact of his decisions and lead with humility, given the enormous toll his mistakes have had on Canadians, and bring forward a real plan to get us out of this.

I will close by saying that I am proud of the resilience and the strength of the people of Kildonan—St. Paul. I am thankful for their prayers, their kindness and their support. That support gives me strength to keep going in the tough days. It is my duty to represent them, and I will continue to faithfully fight these battles on their behalf and fulfill my duty as their member of Parliament.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, it is disappointing to listen to Conservatives spin or provide misinformation. The government from day one, whether with the Canada emergency wage subsidy, emergency rent subsidy, emergency business account, credit availability program, CERB program, or direct support for seniors and people with disabilities and so much more, has been there for Canadians in a very real and tangible way over the last 12 months plus. We will have over 40 million doses of vaccines before the end of June.

Can the member tell the House if she believes that it was the federal government's fault that Manitoba was leading during the second wave back in November? We need to recognize that we have a federation and provinces do have a role to play. The federal government has been there in a tangible way. Has it been perfect? No, but we have made the changes and the modifications. This budget embodies a way in which we can build back better. That is what Canadians want: strong leadership. They are at least getting it from one political entity inside this chamber, the best I can tell, based on the speeches I have been hearing.

I wonder if the member might want to reflect on some of her comments and recognize the many good visionary things—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Kildonan—St. Paul.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is disappointing that the member, again, like many of his colleagues, has yet to show humility for the shortcomings of his Liberal government. In the speech I gave I was trying to be very honest and earnest about what I have heard.

I do stand firm on the position that if the Prime Minister had provided real leadership we would not be in a third wave of the pandemic, experiencing hundreds more deaths and thousands more business closures. That is on the Prime Minister.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member on her speech. She noted that this is her first budget, which is a big thing, and there are lots of big numbers showing up in it.

Throughout the pandemic—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I am just going to interrupt the hon. member.

The hon. member for Drummond on a point of order.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the member has the equipment needed to speak because he does not have his headset on.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I can see that the hon. member for St. John's East has switched his audio device. We will just ask him to start again with his question to make sure that we have the audio functioning properly.

I thank the hon. member for Drummond for his comments.

The hon. member.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for reminding me of that. It is important for the interpreters.

I want to congratulate the hon. member on her speech. She mentioned at the beginning that this is her first budget. The numbers are huge, as we all know, and the Conservatives, throughout the pandemic, have been expressing concerns about the enormous amount of money being spent.

I just want to ask the member whether she thinks there ought to be a little bit more fairness as to who will actually pay for the cost of this pandemic. We have been talking about the necessity for a wealth tax and the fact that during this pandemic billionaires have earned billions more money. Would she and her colleagues support a fair share of the cost of this being paid for by the ultra wealthy?

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the people who we should ask whether it is fair for them to pay for this are the members of my generation. The millennial generation and their children are going to be the ones burdening the tax increases that will surely come to pay for this. We know that inflation is coming. We know that higher interest rates are coming and, yet, the Liberal government before the pandemic was setting us up for failure, should a crisis hit.

As I mentioned in my speech, we were left with low defences because of the amount of money that was spent before. Now with this unbelievable amount of spending, we have doubled Canadian debt. It took 150 years to acquire that debt and we have doubled that in now, what, two years? It is unbelievable, so I think the unfairness lies with future generations who are going to have to pay for this.

There has been zero acknowledgement from the Liberal government of the debt burden it is putting on future generations and the severe consequences that may have on the public services provided by the Canadian taxpayer from the federal government.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear what my colleague from Kildonan—St. Paul thinks about the things that were not in the budget and about the fact that the provincial governments and the Quebec government are once again being left with an underfunded health care system, because the federal share is dwindling year after year and the Liberal government refuses to increase health care transfers.

There is also the matter of regional media. I am sure that there are regional media outlets in her riding that are having a hard time because of the crisis. I would like her to share her comments on these things that the budget failed to include.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of things not in this budget, like a plan for how we are going to get out of this and a real, strategic, innovative, thoughtful plan of how we are going to get our economy back to normal to make sure the days of tomorrow are better than the days of today.

On the health care transfers, the Conservatives have been very clear. We know that the health care burden on the provinces is incredible and we believe that provinces should have more autonomy to spend health care dollars how they see fit in their regions. We know no two regions are the same.

What is interesting is that the Liberal government will say that vaccine distribution is a provincial jurisdiction, this is provincial jurisdiction, that is the province's jurisdiction, so it is not the government's fault, it is the provinces' fault, and yet when it comes to something like the child care announcement, which is clearly in provincial jurisdiction, that is not a problem to the Liberals. They are happy to spend billions of dollars in the provincial jurisdiction when it suits their electoral fortunes.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by commending my colleague from Kildonan—St. Paul for her excellent speech. She did a great job of identifying the positive and negative aspects of the budget speech that was given yesterday by the Minister of Finance.

I also want to commend the Minister of Finance on her first budget. Yesterday was a historic moment in the House of Commons. The minister was the first woman to ever present a budget speech. I think that is worth pointing out and celebrating.

Obviously, I am not going to spend 10 minutes singing the praises of the finance minister, but I do want to quote her. She said before that the budget she was going to present would be the most significant of our lifetime. She was not wrong. This budget will go down in Canadian history as the highest-spending budget ever.

The Minister of Finance made sure of it by presenting a budget containing spending measures beyond belief. Everyone in the Liberal Party of Canada's voting base who had a request got a little something in the budget. Of course, there was $100 billion to spread around. The Liberal government was handing out money like drinks at an open bar. Some people must be sorry they did not ask for anything, because they probably would have gotten it.

That being said, the Canadian provinces made requests, but they were ignored. We would have expected a budget announcing the end of the pandemic to focus on bolstering the fight against the pandemic and making sure we never find ourselves in this situation again.

Unfortunately, the Liberal government did not say a word about health transfers. There are not even any plans for that. The budget makes mention of many plans, but none of them have anything to do with health transfers to the provinces. What the Liberal government presented yesterday was an election budget.

It is clearly a red-ink budget. It was probably drafted at a time when the Prime Minister was thinking about triggering an early election because he has a minority government. Unfortunately, since he was unable to procure enough vaccines for Canadians, a third wave hit. We will have a lot of vaccines by the fall, but when we needed them, when it was important for all Canadians to be vaccinated, there were none. That is why there was a third wave of COVID-19, because the Prime Minister and his government were unable to anticipate our vaccine needs and failed to negotiate at the right time.

We have been given something halfway between a pre-election budget and a pandemic budget, and we clearly saw that choices had been made. We approve of some of the measures. In fact, some of the measures announced yesterday are worth mentioning. They are actually measures that we asked for. They are measures that were needed, like extending the emergency programs to help Canadians and businesses. In my opinion, given the situation Canada is currently in, it was obvious that the government needed to maintain them.

One would have expected the budget to provide a little hope and give some indication of what will happen after all Canadians have been vaccinated later this year. Unfortunately, this budget has just a smattering of the measures that Canadians have been calling for over the past few weeks and months. More than anything, it is a Liberal pre-election platform.

Were it not for the pandemic, not even this Liberal government would have dared to present this kind of agenda. The pandemic was the perfect excuse to come up with a pre-election budget. The ultimate proof is the $500 that will be sent to seniors aged 75 and over in August, which is most likely the best window for calling the election.

I am not the only one saying so. All political commentators are confirming what I am saying here this morning.

My office received many telephone calls this morning. Everyone is asking why that money is going only to people aged 75 and over, and why the Liberal government is ignoring those aged 65 to 75 in this budget. People are wondering what they did to be left out of that measure, because they have the same needs. Sometimes their needs are even greater, since they tend to be active and want to participate in the economy. Unfortunately, we have not gotten an answer.

We asked for clear and specific action to be taken to help Canadians and stimulate the economy. Our leader, Erin O'Toole, has presented an economic recovery plan.

Mr. Speaker, I apologize for naming one of my colleagues in the House.

The opposition leader called for clear, targeted, temporary measures to stimulate our economy. Unfortunately, what the budget actually contains is an assortment of superficial measures lacking a clear, precise, concrete objective. We asked the government for measures to stimulate our economy. We agreed on the principle. Unfortunately, that is not what we got.

Economic stimulus means having job creation targets and a plan to end public spending and get out of the recession. What the government presented yesterday contains none of that.

Commenting on this government and the idea of balancing the budget, pundit Bernard Drainville said this morning that it is as though this government takes special pride in not balancing the budget. That concept scares Liberals.

We all remember the Liberals' 2015 promise about running small deficits and balancing the budget by the end of their term. Not only did that not happen, but we also ended up with a $100-billion deficit before the pandemic even hit.

Today the government is announcing a $354-billion deficit for last year and more than $150 billion for this year. Deficits will continue to pile up like that to the point that we will have to start a using a new word when talking about public finances. That word is “trillion”, and that is how big Canada's deficit will soon be. Canadians will be $1 trillion in debt. This budget adds half a trillion dollars to the debt. We have to take these things very seriously and think of future generations.

I would like to talk about the national child care service. My wife is an early childhood educator. Yesterday, the government made a big deal about this announcement to impose a single Canada-wide child care system on the provinces. In its budget, it has allocated $30 billion to create this system. It did not mention that part of that amount will be paid directly to Quebec, which established this system many years ago.

Had this been an economic recovery measure, we might have understood. However, I know and respect the work of Quebec's early childhood educators, and I know that they must have a minimum of three years of training, and it also takes time to build and upgrade these buildings. Do the Liberals honestly believe they can deliver what they have put in the budget and that it will contribute to our post-pandemic economic recovery?

It is quite simply impossible. It is not an economic recovery measure. The Liberals are making a promise that they may not be able to keep, because there will be an election in the meantime. Once again, we have become accustomed to the Liberals making announcements and not keeping their promises.

In closing, I want to mention something else that is conspicuously absent from the budget: compensation for supply-managed dairy farmers under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement. Despite all the billions of dollars it dished out yesterday, the government was unable to keep its promise to fully compensate supply-managed farmers for their losses. We certainly must take note. The government probably thought that group had already received enough in the past and did not need any goodies before the next election.

That is what I dislike about this budget. The government is trying to please so many people without thinking about the future. The 724 pages that were presented to us yesterday tell us that the future is not important to the Liberals.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like my colleague's thoughts on two things in particular.

First, how does he square the federal government's penchant for centralization with its refusal to increase health transfers? Every year, Quebec sends half of its taxes to the federal government. Cuts were made—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Order. I must interrupt the hon. member to ask him to wear his headset and repeat his question for the hon. member for Mégantic—L’Érable.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first, how does the member square the Liberal government's penchant for centralizing decision-making, even on matters of provincial jurisdiction, with its refusal to increase health transfers? In the 1960s and 1970s, the federal government funded 50% of health care expenditures. Today, it funds just 22%, and health care systems like Quebec's are always at breaking point as a result of this chronic underfunding. Why does the Liberal government keep refusing to restore health transfers while trying to impose standards on the Government of Quebec and the provinces?

Second, we know that seniors have suffered the most during this pandemic. It is bordering on insulting to offer a paltry $500 to seniors over the age of 75. Why not increase pensions? The Bloc Québécois is calling for old age security to be increased by $110 a month. Seniors built Quebec and Canada. They should be able to live decently and maintain their purchasing power.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from La Pointe-de-l’Île for his questions. It is not very often that we agree on all of the points he mentioned.

To answer his question, it is in the Liberals' DNA to want to centralize and to preach to the provinces. It is therefore clear that they were not going to use an election budget to meet the legitimate demands of the provinces.

With regard to health care for seniors, what stood out to me is the fact that the Liberal government allocated $3 billion in the budget for measures affecting Quebec's long-term care facilities. However, this morning, the Quebec finance minister described that amount as a pittance, since it will have no impact over the next five years. What is more, the federal government wants to impose national standards in Quebec's long-term care facilities.

It is in the Liberals' DNA to want to impose their solutions and their views on the provinces. There is a well-known expression that says, “Ottawa knows best”, which, in this case, can be interpreted as, “the Liberals think they know best”.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one thing that is really important for people to understand is how fundamentally different the economy of northern Ontario is from the rest of Ontario. We are resource-based and we are isolated. The resources that are created in the north go to Queen's Park or they go to Ottawa, and we have to go cap-in-hand and beg for programs to maintain some kind of balance.

I noticed one thing in the budget that is really important for people to recognize. The New Democrats have been pushing for FedNor to be a stand-alone agency for years, something the Conservatives refused to do. The Liberals have ridiculed it up until now and we have seen nothing from its northern members to defend northern Ontario. The Liberal government has finally realized that the New Democrats are right and has established FedNor as a stand-alone agency. It will be in the same category as all the other economic development agencies in the country.

Up until now, northern Ontario has been the poor, underfunded cousin. It is really important for the House to recognize that northern Ontario has a right to proper economic development and FedNor, as a stand-alone agency, will make a huge difference for our region.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said, the Conservative Party wanted the government to include specific measures in the budget in order to help every region of the country to grow.

As long as FedNor has the tools it needs to restart the economy and make sure that those who lost their jobs are rehired, then I think that time will tell whether creating FedNor was the right decision.

Is that the ultimate solution to all of northern Ontario's problems? I do not think so, but if it is a possible solution, then I do not see why we should not examine it.

Still, I hope that this was not just more lip service from the Liberals to try to win over people from northern Ontario, because it is going to take a long time before the budget is passed, not to mention that there is also the risk of an election.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday in her speech, the Minister of Finance basically said it would be irresponsible not to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars because interest rates were so low, completely ignoring the fact that interest rates will inevitably rise.

Does the member think the budget should have had a plan to account for future interest rate increases in its expenditures for it to be a responsible fiscal plan?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, of course there should have been a plan. There is no plan for economic recovery, and there is no plan to control spending. This is a budget without a plan.

Just beneath the surface though is the Liberal Party's re-election plan, and that is a shame. The Liberal Party and the government put their own interests before the interests of our generation and future generations.

Half a trillion dollars in debt is being added to Canada's total deficit, and that will take years or decades to pay back. Canadians will have to pay that back for generations.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and to the Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, we are at a pivotal moment in the history of our nation. How we respond as we continue to fight COVID-19, and as we plan to emerge from the crisis that it has created from both a public health and economic point of view, will dictate what Canada looks like not just next month or next year, but 10 years and 20 years from now, when my five-year-old daughter is ready to join the workforce.

As we embark upon this debate, I would impress upon my colleagues the importance of focusing on the tasks at hand, which are defeating COVID-19, creating jobs and growth opportunities as we emerge from this pandemic, and setting the stage for a recovery that is both inclusive and sustainable.

Before I go further, I would like to inform the Speaker that I intend to split my time with the hon. member for Newmarket—Aurora at the 10-minute mark.

Those three categories that I have outlined, the continued public health response, the need to create jobs and growth and the need to set the stage for a sustainable and inclusive recovery, are precisely what this budget endeavours to do. Over the course of my remarks I will spend a moment on each of those particular items.

When it comes to the public health response, though the conditions here in my home province of Nova Scotia are quite good compared with just about anywhere in the world, I recognize the same is not true for many different parts of Canada. In order to continue the public health response that we have started over the course of this pandemic, our government proposes putting forward several very serious measures backed by spending commitments. In particular, in the budget I note our commitment to invest $4 billion to strengthen public health care systems in provinces across Canada.

I have spoken to community members who have had appointments delayed and who have been dealing with certain services simply not being available as the public health care system has pivoted to deal with the influx of COVID-19 cases. In the early days of this pandemic I remember wondering whether someone in a car accident would have a place to go, if the case loads got too high in our local hospitals. This injection of billions of dollars into provincial health care systems would help alleviate those strains and let our front-line health care workers have the tools they needed to do their jobs and keep us safe.

When it comes to vaccination, Canada is currently third in the G7 in terms of the number of residents who have had access to a first dose, but we know that we need to continue to do more. Budget 2021 proposes to inject an additional billion dollars to help provincial governments administer vaccines as they arrive.

One of the national tragedies we have witnessed over the course of this pandemic is what has taken place in our long-term care facilities. Here in Nova Scotia the vast majority of deaths we have seen as a result of COVID-19 have come from a single long-term care facility: Northwood in Halifax. We need to make the kinds of investments today that will ensure this tragedy does not repeat itself and that will provide an enhanced quality of life, so that our elderly, when they move to long-term care facilities, can count on living a dignified experience. While there are good facilities all across Canada, we have seen some horror stories emerge from this pandemic. That is why this budget's investment of $3 billion to strengthen long-term care facilities across Canada and our work to establish national standards are so important.

One of the chief concerns I have heard from residents of my own community, both over the course of this pandemic and before COVID-19, is the importance of mental health. Through the pandemic we have advanced measures that would see increased investments in telehealth opportunities and would ensure folks could tune into the Wellness Together portal online. However, we know that is insufficient, particularly for people who need the support of a medical practitioner face to face.

Members will note that budget 2021 includes a commitment to work with provinces and territories to establish national standards on mental health as well. This is backed by funding that would allow the process to actually take place and achieve meaningful progress in the mental health portfolio. However, this pandemic was not just a crisis of public health: It was also an economic crisis that we continue to experience, and we have advanced record measures to support Canadian households and businesses so that families could keep food on the table and businesses could keep workers on the payroll. I am so pleased to share with businesses in my own community that we are going to be extending the emergency benefits, which they have come to rely on to get them through this very difficult time, until it is safe for their customers to return at full scale.

The Canada emergency wage subsidy has now kept more than five million Canadian workers on the payroll. The Canada emergency rent subsidy has let hundreds of thousands of businesses keep their doors open at a time when it would have been very difficult to do so otherwise. However, it is not enough to support businesses through this pandemic. We have to set the stage for jobs and growth so we can accelerate out of this pandemic and get back to where we would have been had the pandemic not shocked our economy so badly.

That is why I am thrilled to see the kinds of investments that are included in this budget, including hiring incentives for businesses and supports that will help small businesses and medium-sized enterprises in particular adopt an online strategy so they can participate in the digital economy. We see record investments in skills development, particularly for young people, new investments that will spur entrepreneurship, investments to remove internal trade barriers and investments in the kind of infrastructure that will create growth for the long term. It is that growth that will allow us to escape this pandemic and ensure that we can afford the measures we are putting in place today.

Colleagues in the House who have known me for some time will know that I have been a passionate advocate for our environment from the time I was young. In fact, the very first time I was involved in politics was when I was seven years old and signed up to be the vice-president of the environment club at my elementary school. I have literally been an advocate for a clean environment since then. Of course, I had the chance to serve as the parliamentary secretary to the minister of the environment and climate change in the previous Parliament and I am proud of many of the measures that we introduced.

When I look at the measures that are backed by serious funding commitments in this budget, I see the opportunity to take advantage of clean growth opportunities in the global economy, and to promote opportunities in my own community in the green economy. I see that we are not only going to invest over $8 billion to reduce industrial emissions, but we are also going to let homeowners take advantage of hundreds of thousands of opportunities for home energy retrofits. There are massive investments to develop clean technology and expand zero-emissions vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing opportunities right here in Canada. I see opportunities for us to make investments that will mitigate the consequences of severe weather events, whether forest fires in the west, floods throughout the country or hurricanes on the east coast. I see the single-largest investment to protect nature in the history of Canada included in this budget, and I am very proud to support it.

It is not enough that our budget is sustainable from an environmental point of view: It also needs to be inclusive to ensure that everyone is able to take part in the economic recovery. I note in particular the support for women in the economy in this budget, including the marquee policy of Canada's first early learning and national child care strategy. This is a policy that will be a legacy piece for this government, and 30 years from now I am confident that families will look back and say that this was the right thing. We know that although it may be expensive to advance this particular policy, the impact it is going to have of allowing more women to take part in the economy will more than pay for itself. It will save phenomenal amounts of money for families of young children and will allow families not only to have that extra cash on hand but, as I have mentioned, allow the secondary earner, who is more often than not a woman in the household, to take part in economic opportunities that she may not have had access to in the absence of an investment of this nature.

I see the significant investment of billions of dollars to support young people and make education more affordable. I see opportunities for job placements and hiring incentives specific to young people in this budget. I look at supports for low-income workers and precarious workers, such as the $8.9 billion investment in the Canada workers benefit. It will ensure that someone who works full-time in a minimum wage job will not live in poverty in Canada. I see new protections for workers in the gig economy and I see an expansion of the EI sickness benefit to 26 weeks, which is very important to me at home. I want to thank in particular Kathy MacNaughton, who raised this with me in 2016 and has been working alongside me to see this done. People should not be better off to get fired than to get cancer in the 21st century in Canada.

There are additional supports for Black Canadians. There are additional supports for indigenous Canadians. There are additional supports for the LGBTQ2 community. We will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to see Canadians through this pandemic, but this budget also sets the course for jobs and growth that will allow us to rebound out of this recession more strongly. It will ensure that everyone, no matter their background, no matter their age and no matter their level of income, is able to have a fair shot at taking part in the economic recovery. This is the Canada that I want to build, and this budget lays the framework to achieve these outcomes.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I noticed when the budget was presented that revenue was not indicated in this budget as coming from tax increases. I believe the expectation of the government is that the programs it is implementing are going to stimulate the economy, and that growth is where the funding is going to come from to pay for what it is doing. However, as the member mentioned, child care is its big budget item, with the biggest payoff, but that child care program will take years to implement and, in the meantime, interest rates can go up and all kinds of other things can happen.

I want to quote Amanda Lang, whose views on the budget I really appreciate. She said on Power Play, “I will say this, Evan, and this is kind of like one of those more boring line items, but it is important especially for resource industry companies, and that is there is a form of a corporate tax increase in this budget that the Liberals have talked about for a while. It is a reduction on dividend interest deductions allowable. It is super boring sounding, but I will tell you this: It could hurt oil and gas companies disproportionately and at a time when they can least afford it."

Our oil and gas industry is part of the future. It is part of the sector that will bring about the environmental changes that we want, yet this government continues to cause it the greatest duress. Why is that?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, there is a lot to unpack in that question. First and foremost, when it comes to the cost of our measures and the risk of interest rates going up, I would point out that there is a severe cost of not taking action and making the kinds of investments that we have made. In particular I would point to a recent IMF report, which indicated that in the absence of the government's pandemic response our deficit would have been roughly the same, but the economic scarring would have been enormous, limiting our opportunity to grow out of this recession.

Regarding the energy sector, I will let the hon. member know that I spent about five years working in Calgary, Alberta, much of which was spent working in the energy sector. The reality is that we need to be implementing measures that transition to a clean economy, but we also know that we need to support workers, regardless of the industry in which they work. That is why we have extended record supports to the energy sector through things such as the Canada emergency wage subsidy and support for abandoned wells.

I would be happy to carry on this important conversation with the member at her leisure.

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

Mr. Speaker, I do want to applaud the fact that this is the first time a female minister has tabled a budget in Parliament, but I have to say that, in many ways, it is a very paternalistic budget. What I mean is that the federal government is taking a top-down approach, telling us what is good for us, and imposing national standards for long-term care homes and mental health. In addition, it plans to develop a national child care strategy. Given Quebec's experience in that area, I could go on and on.

To truly meet the provinces' needs while respecting their jurisdiction over health care, can the government distinguish between temporary allocations and what provinces really need, which is recurring funding through Canadian health transfers?