House of Commons Hansard #103 of the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was debt.
The Deputy Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton
Before resuming debate, 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 Regina—Lewvan, Natural Resources; the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, National Defence; the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, The Economy.
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak today on the budget implementation act. There is a lot to talk about, so I will stick with a few important issues, and I will start with the good.
This budget has a few elements that are remarkably similar to parts of the NDP election platform in 2015. One, of course, is the promise of $10-a-day child care. The Liberals criticized the NDP in 2015 for that proposal and I am glad they have finally seen the light. I am sorry it took a pandemic to make them realize how critical child care is to Canadian families and our economy, and I am disappointed that it took them six years to figure that out, but I am glad to see it here.
The second is the $15-an-hour minimum wage for workers in federally regulated sectors. Again, that NDP idea was criticized by the Liberals in 2015. I say good work, but it is six years late. I am really disappointed that there is no part of the bill that is designed to ensure that ordinary Canadians do not end up paying for the necessary pandemic stimulus and programs to build back better. There is nothing in the budget that makes sure the superwealthy, Canadians who literally made billions of dollars in extra income in the last year while most Canadians struggled, pay the lion's share of those pandemic spending programs.
The NDP has put forward a plan for a 1% wealth tax applicable to all Canadians who have more than $20 million in assets. That is a very small number of Canadians. It is fewer than 1% of Canadians, yet the Parliamentary Budget Officer has calculated that such a tax would net $5.6 billion every year. The NDP has also demanded the government close off access to offshore tax havens. That would net the treasury $25 billion per year. An excess profit tax, such as the one we instituted to pay off the debts accumulated during World War II, would bring in $8 billion. Instead, this budget suggests a luxury tax that would make sure the wealthy would pay an extra 10% for their Lamborghinis or private jets. That would net us less than $1 billion. Apparently it is all talk anyway, as it is not included in this budget implementation act.
I would like to turn now to aspects of the budget that have real resonance in my riding of South Okanagan—West Kootenay. It is the most beautiful riding in the country, as I have said on numerous occasions. It has a high percentage of seniors on fixed incomes, a high percentage of people working for minimum wage in the service sector and a high percentage of people working for low wages in agriculture, yet it has some of the highest real estate prices in Canada. The ratio of average income to housing costs here is one of the worst in the country. The big issues in my riding are housing, housing and housing.
The average cost of a single-family home in Penticton, my hometown, is over $800,000. That is the average. Many families, especially young families, are forced to rent, but in many communities across the riding rentals are very expensive or simply not available. There was an ad recently offering a single room with a shared bathroom and no access to a kitchen for $1,000 a month. A local family in the news recently lost their rental suite when the landlord decided to cash in on the housing market and sell the house. The new owner was not interested in renting, so this family had to find a new home. There was none available. The family eventually set up a GoFundMe account and raised enough money so they could buy an old RV to live in.
It gets worse the lower one's income is. People on income assistance or disability pensions are eligible for subsidized housing because the income we provide them is far too low to live on: It is about $1,000 per month for everything. As of last week, there are officially no subsidized rental units available in Penticton, so if a house someone rents goes up for sale, that individual is literally homeless. They are unhoused and on the street. For those who are still lucky enough to have rentals in old motels, the news is not much better. Penticton has a large supply of old motels that are mainly used for affordable rental accommodation. Two were sold recently and the residents evicted. Three more have just been sold and the concern is that they too will be unavailable to low-income residents. A hundred more people will likely be unhoused in Penticton.
Homelessness is not just a Penticton problem. It is a crisis in almost every community in B.C. In my riding, it is a huge concern in Grand Forks and Trail. The City of Trail recently wrote to the provincial and federal governments pleading for help with housing and mental health and addictions, and for support for the RCMP to make sure detachments are fully staffed. These communities are overwhelmed with these complex problems. This is a crisis across the country. We need urgent action from the government.
The NDP would create 500,000 affordable housing units across the country in 10 years to catch up with the backlog that has been building up over the last 30 years, since Liberal and Conservative governments gave up on federal housing programs. Instead, what we get in this budget are relatively small investments that will not make a dent in the housing crisis, not in the short term and not in the long term.
Now I will get back to the good pieces in this budget.
There are a couple of line items that would be welcomed in my riding. One is the $100 million over two years for the wine sector to make up for the loss of the excise tax exemption, a loss that will kick in next year. Losing that exemption will be very hard on many small wineries in my riding, and I have been lobbying hard, along with other MP colleagues from other wine-producing ridings, to find a trade-legal support that would ease that transition, so this is good news.
Another change comes a little too late to help my riding, and that is the new disaster mitigation funding that will cover projects between $1 million and $20 million. I have been trying to help the Town of Oliver get federal funding to cover some of the costs of irrigation canal repairs after a disastrous rockfall in 2016. Those critical repairs cost about $11 million, but federal infrastructure funding covers only drinking water and waste water, not agricultural water that is absolutely essential in the South Okanagan.
Federal DMAF funding only kicked in for projects costing more than $20 million. I repeatedly pointed out this problem to successive ministers of infrastructure, suggesting they allow smaller projects under $20 million to qualify as well. Unfortunately, the Town of Oliver could not risk waiting one more year to make these fixes, so it went ahead with the project last winter with provincial funding, but without federal help. While I am disappointed this change took so long in coming, I am sure it is welcomed by other small communities facing larger costs to repair infrastructure after floods, landslides and wildfires.
One topic I have spoken up on in this House on numerous occasions is the important of home retrofit programs. I even had a private member's bill in the previous Parliament to bring back the ecoENERGY retrofit program the Conservatives had in place. It was a hugely successful program leveraging five dollars for every dollar spent, allowing thousands of Canadians to make their homes more energy efficient, saving them monthly heating bills, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and benefiting the local economies in every community in Canada. I am happy that the government included a similar program in the fall economic statement and a loan program in this budget, but both these measures fail to help the Canadians who need that help most.
Twenty per cent of Canadian households live in energy poverty. They spend more than 6% of their income on home energy. They cannot afford the upfront cost to access grants, and they cannot afford to take on more debt, no matter how low the interest, to do those necessary retrofits. We need a turnkey, fully funded federal program, like the one Jack Layton proposed years ago, to make these older homes more energy efficient and support Canadian families who live in energy poverty.
To conclude, this budget gets gold stars for the child care program, a federal minimum wage, help for the wine industry and small communities facing big infrastructure repair bills, but it fails on so many other fronts. After decades of promises, it only promises more talk on a public pharmacare program. It does almost nothing for students facing crushing debt after post-secondary education. It cuts the Canada recovery benefit for workers still jobless because of the pandemic. It does nothing to take the profit out of long-term care. It does nothing to end fossil fuel subsidies and it does nothing to make the ultrarich pay their fair share.
As the government knows too well, better is always possible. These better ideas are needed now more than ever.
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Mr. Speaker, I am the chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, and we have just done a study on unpaid work. Certainly child care has been a huge issue during the pandemic, and even before, and when I look at this budget, I see the government has $30 billion for it over five years. However, this is contingent on the provinces putting their part in place. It also fails to recognize that in addition to this kind of national solution, many people are looking for a culturally sensitive solution for themselves, so we need to have options for parents.
This looks more like an election promise than anything likely to happen anytime soon. Would the member agree?
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Mr. Speaker, what is really clear to me is that a big component of any economic recovery we will have from the pandemic has to be aimed at getting women back into the job market. We have lost a tremendous share of the job market that women used to have. They took the real hit in job losses during the pandemic.
The key to that is child care. I have talked to so many people who are looking for work. Someone in my riding got a job, but was forced to relocate because there was no child care available for her. That is the critical part, and we can fix it. I do not know which provincial government would turn down funding for child care. It is such an essential part of this recovery.
Larry Bagnell LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages (Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency)
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member. I always appreciate his speeches; they are very thoughtful. I have a great deal of respect for him.
Does he agree with the government's record support of transit or anything else? There are a lot of items in the budget to reduce greenhouse gases, but in particular there are record amounts for transit. This includes a brand new program, announced not long ago, for rural transit, which is very important for my area. There are already over 1,000 projects approved, but many more will be coming. I want to make sure the member is in support of that.
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for the Yukon for those comments.
I agree with him. Like his riding, my riding is very rural, with a lot of small communities scattered far apart. Rural transit is essential here. It has suffered a big blow in recent years, after Greyhound pulled out of the area. It has become impossible for people to move from community to community, to go from the Okanagan Valley to Vancouver or Calgary. Greyhound has now pulled out completely from all of Canada.
This is where the government really needs to step in and create an interprovincial transit system for people who cannot afford to fly, although right now there are few options to fly. We have to put in a rural transit system that works for people. I am all for transit in cities. I think it is very important and I am glad there is funding going into that, but rural transit is often forgotten about completely. I hope it has not been forgotten and that we get a complete, real and integrated system across the country.
The Deputy Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton
We have time for one short question.
The hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean.
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
Mr. Speaker, I will be as brief as possible.
I thank my hon. colleague for his speech. If the NDP were in office right now, would it increase health care transfers from 22% to 35% like the provinces, territories and Quebec are calling for?
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Mr. Speaker, to be quick, I would say that, yes, this is one issue where the NDP and the Bloc agree completely.
Nelly Shin Conservative Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Mr. Speaker, Canadians have waited a long time for the budget. The last one was tabled in March 2019. The absence of a budget in 2020 is a little bizarre, but here we are with budget 2021.
Having a well-planned budget in this pandemic environment is critical because it is like a compass that can help us find our way out of the wilderness. Canadians are distressed by the pandemic. They want a sense of assurance that the government has a plan to help us move forward toward recovery. Families have tragically lost their parents and grandparents to COVID-19 outbreaks in care homes. Social isolation has exacerbated domestic violence and challenged women from being able to reach out for help or leave their abusive partners. Businesses have been crushed. Entire sectors are hanging by a thread. Addictions and suicides have escalated. COVID-19 has stubbornly held our lives, institutions and finances hostage for long enough. The trauma that Canadians have been facing throughout the pandemic has been daunting, and Canadians need hope.
Our country needs a budget that mirrors a plan for recovery, job creation and long-term growth. Canadians are waiting for a practical plan. Unfortunately, budget 2021 seems like a déjà vu of the original COVID-19 emergency benefits that required many hands from opposition parties to fix so that more than just a select number of people would qualify for the announced supports.
While the budget appears benevolent in its parts, as a whole, when examined, it lacks foresight and at times transparency and clarity. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer's May 5 report, a good portion of the recovery-plan spending will not actually be used to stimulate the economy, but is presented as such. Furthermore, the government's projections on growth are inflated. About $24.7 billion in spending from the fall economic statement was already in the economy and accounted for in the figures present when the budget was being written, and much of the $101.4 billion in spending proposed by the budget was already accounted for in the private sector growth projections. It would appear the Liberal government wanted to overstate its generosity.
Furthermore, the increase in jobs, according to the PBO, would grow from 39,000 to 74,000 to 94,000 jobs from 2021 to 2024, while according to budget 2021, the employment growth from the recovery plan would evolve from 315,000 to 334,000 to 280,000 jobs in that period. The PBO report captures this discrepancy in the statement, “Finance Canada’s impact assessment of the Recovery Plan overstates the economic impact of stimulus spending in Budget 2021.”
When it comes to balancing the budget, we experienced yet another déjà vu. The PBO states:
...the Government has decided to effectively stabilize the federal debt ratio at a higher level, potentially exhausting its fiscal room over the medium- and long-term. This means that any substantial new permanent spending would either lead to a higher debt-to-GDP ratio or have to be financed through higher revenues and/or spending reductions in other areas.
Therefore, the next time we have a crisis, who or what are we going to sacrifice? We will have very little reserve to work with.
He also says, “Long-term projections presented in the budget also show the federal debt ratio remaining above its pre-pandemic level through 2055.” In other words, the government does not plan on returning our deficits to at least the pre-pandemic levels.
The Liberal government has left no fiscal room to make future investments and it has no intention to get out of debt. Prolonged deficit spending will bring an inflation hike. We are experiencing this already, with increases in the prices of groceries, lumber, housing and gas. What kind of future does this leave for our country, for our children? Budget 2021 needs a reality check into the future.
The unprecedented needs during the pandemic called for spending from the government to sustain individuals, families and businesses in a temporary time of crisis. The pandemic is a temporary crisis. We are still going through it, but it is supposed to be temporary. We do not need to make it permanent with poor planning or no planning. The deficit will not replenish itself.
As parliamentarians, we need to listen, analyze, process and respond to the needs of Canadians with the foresight of visionaries, the thoughtfulness of problem solvers and the focus and integrity of conscientious leaders who have a plan and purpose greater than ourselves. This is what our constituents expect of us and deserve. However, this budget instead looks like a patchwork of short-sighted, reactionary, electorally driven promises that will leave our country with a larger debt, more deficits and more government interference. Again, the budget strangely feels like déjà vu.
Happily for the Liberals, they have gotten away with the way they have been operating for a long time. However, tragically for Canadians, the government's short-sighted haphazard leadership, which is also reflected in this budget, has delayed our country's path to recovery and has allowed greater plight for businesses and the mental health of Canadians.
Vaccinations were a key part to a swifter path toward recovery, but poor decisions on vaccinations delayed that and caused the third wave of lockdowns. In the business world, this has translated to more losses and fewer reserves to bounce back. Each wave and each lockdown tests the patience of reasonable Canadians, who have been faithfully following COVID-19 regulations for the safety of all.
The CanSino deal between the Liberal government and the Chinese company was blocked by China's communist regime and ended Canada's would-be first procurement of vaccines. This process occurred from May to July last year, when insolvency of businesses was climbing to a peak, and Canadians were gripped with shock and fear. At our most vulnerable stage of crisis, the Prime Minister gambled the health and well-being of our nation on working with a communist regime. I would be curious to know from the Prime Minister's why pursuing this risk took precedence over the lives of Canadians.
Given the Liberals' bad track record when it comes to timely procurement, does the budget reflect a realistic vaccination recovery timeline? Given the extension of the ideal three-week gap between doses that Canadians will receive, the possibility of having to mix vaccines for first-time AstraZeneca recipients and the yet-to-be-confirmed date for the next delivery of Moderna vaccines for second doses, how will the government's abysmal rollout of vaccines impact the effectiveness of the budget?
Our future is uncertain because the government is unpredictable and follows its own convenient electoral clock. How will any efficacy issues outside the government's anticipated success of the vaccinations impact the effectiveness of the budget? Our future is uncertain because the government is unpredictable and follows its own convenient clock.
I would like to speak now on one of the hardest-hit sectors, travel and tourism, which was the first to shut down and will likely require the longest time to reboot. British Columbia's tourism revenue in 2019 was $22.3 billion. The tourism sector provided 149,900 jobs in B.C. The hotels in my riding are dependent on the overflow of the success of tourism in Vancouver at large. Their revenue continues to be tested.
A group of Korean business owners in downtown Vancouver who are also dependent on the tourism sector for their livelihoods reached out to my office to express their struggle. They are primarily owners of small restaurants and convenience stores that are dependent on tourist seasons. They have suffered due to low foot traffic of tourists from international flights and cruise ships.
Because of high commercial rental prices in the downtown corridor, they have been unable to hire employees and are run instead by husband and wife owners. They also have relatively low non-deferrable business expenses that do not meet the $40,000 minimum, therefore they do not qualified for CEBA. They continue to struggle without support. Their recovery will be dependent on the recovery of the travel and tourism sector, which will probably be the last industry to recover.
Where is the support for these small ma-and-pa shops? Will they continue to be left behind? How is the government going to ensure these business owners will make it through?
The President of the United States has told American cruise ships to skip docking in Vancouver because the Prime Minister continues to show no sign of reasonable and safe reopening. The independent travel advisers in Port Moody—Coquitlam and across Canada are concerned and feel left out. They have continued working through cancellations without pay and with clawed back commissions, which are now just starting to get sorted out. Simultaneously, if they were to start booking clients, they would not see commissions for a long time.
Most of them are women, and they are only eligible for CRB. As the travel industry does not anticipate most people will make travel plans until 2022-2023, even though the travel restrictions will be lifted, and their income will be hurt greatly. They need sector-specific help that will support them until the travel and tourism industry operates again. All of this is dependent on the efficacy of vaccinations and safe reopening.
Business owners generally do not want to depend on government assistance in the long term. They want to succeed on the merit of their entrepreneurial excellence and hard work. What they really want to see is for the government to implement a plan to safely reopen. This will let them prosper, and it will create jobs.
They cannot handle one more lockdown. Canadians are moving their businesses from our country to the U.S. because we are so behind in our reopening. A constituent in Port Moody has done just that.
Canadians are waiting for a plan to reopen. Where is it? They are depending on us to give them hope and a pathway to a sustainable future. I hope we will find a way to do just that.
Larry Bagnell LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages (Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency)
Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member is supportive of tourism because there is over a billion dollars for the tourism industry in the budget. This is because we recognize that it is the hardest-hit industry of all. There is $200 million for local festivals, cultural events, heritage celebrations, local museums and amateur sporting events.
There is also the same amount, $200 million, for larger events and $100 million for Destination Canada to market Canada. There is $500 million for the tourism relief fund, and then there is another $700 million in support for business financing and reopening the economy. As the member said, she would like to reopen the economy.
I wonder what other supports the member thinks we could provide to the tourism industry over and above these record amounts.
Nelly Shin Conservative Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Mr. Speaker, I will give the government credit in that it has poured in a lot of money, and that is necessary in times of crisis like we are in now, but it does not necessarily translate into productive fruit that will actually help them.
The reason I mentioned sector-specific support is because they need specialized support. It is not a one-size-fits-all deal. On top of that, as I said, many entrepreneurs do not want to keep depending on these rollouts. They would rather work hard to move forward, be able to plan out their future and have certainty that they are going to prosper again.
While these supports are helpful, it brings me back to the time when we were helping the government refine those COVID supports. I feel that a lot of the things that were mentioned in the budget report require that kind of support with many hands coming together.
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Port Moody—Coquitlam for his excellent speech. I am going to continue in the same vein as the question that I asked the NDP.
I know that the Conservative Party has said that it supports increasing health transfers for Quebec and the provinces. However, it has not said anything about the percentage by which it would increase those transfers, even though Premier François Legault and his counterparts from the other provinces and territories provided a number in their request.
The Conservative Party is saying that it wants to support the provinces, so then why is it unable to officially put a number on the increase in health transfers?
Will my colleague's party agree to increase health care transfers to the provinces and Quebec from 22% to 35%, as requested by all of the provincial premiers?
Nelly Shin Conservative Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Mr. Speaker, I do not have a clear answer because I personally do not know, but I do know, concerning the throwing out of numbers and making promises, that our motto as Conservatives is that we want to over-deliver and under-promise.
We do not necessarily want to give out numbers, as we are in a very fluid situation. I think it would be wise, if the opportunity came to present a number, and that if we were to form government again, then that would be the right time to introduce it.
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for all of her hard work on the status of women committee.
I wonder what the member thinks about this budget in light of what it would and would not do for women in Canada and what is needed.
Nelly Shin Conservative Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to work with my colleague on the status of women committee. We have been looking at the impact COVID has had on women, and what keeps coming up is the issue of child care.
The federal government can promise a lot of money to this effort, but the provinces are struggling. They may not be able to provide the 50% of the money that the federal government requires to provide the transfer, so there may be support for something that we may not see in practice, which is one of my concerns.
The other concern is that, again, one size does not fit all. There were many voices on a variety of needs that came to the table during our committee meetings regarding child care. I hope that in the future we will be able to see those kinds of sensibilities regarding child care.
Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy being here in the House to talk about various bills. I have to say it has been a while. I feel a bit rusty, but I would like to take this opportunity to thank the House of Commons staff who support us and make these hybrid sittings possible. When we are at home, we can be in our ridings. I am grateful to them because I think it is just incredible that this all came together so quickly. I also want to thank the interpreters. Their work is so important, and we do not say that often enough.
We have waited two years for the Liberal government's budget. Let us not blame everything on the pandemic. Canada was the only G7 country that did not introduce a budget in 2020. All the provinces introduced budgets too. The federal government kept us waiting.
Admittedly, there are some good things in this budget, which I will come back to. However, there are some gaping omissions. The Bloc Québécois has made its position clear on those. My colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean outlined them clearly earlier: seniors and health have been forgotten. It is quite ironic, given that we are experiencing one of the worst health crises in our history. We think that that is where investment is needed, to support the health care systems of the provinces and Quebec.
The government ignored the unanimous request made by the House through the motion that was tabled by the Bloc Québécois and accepted. It also ignored the unanimous requests of the provincial premiers, who asked for health transfers to be increased from 22% to 35%.
As I was just saying, it is inconceivable that we could be going through a health crisis without making the necessary investments in health care. Seniors are not getting enough. We did see a glimmer of hope. The Liberal government got in on a promise it made in 2019 to increase old age security. That is great, but the government is not going far enough. It is forgetting seniors aged 65 to 74 who are also in financial difficulty, just like those aged 75 and over. The government is increasing pensions for seniors aged 75 and over, but only by roughly $60 a month, which we do not think is not enough. We in the Bloc Québécois have been asking for an increase of $110 per month, and we will continue to lead that debate. The House has not heard the last of the Bloc on this issue, because the people of all regions of Quebec deserve it.
This comment comes up a lot in my riding. Grandparents, who have worked incredibly hard all their lives, feel so neglected by the federal government, even though they are the ones who have suffered the most in this pandemic, both mentally and physically. This virus can be extremely harmful to their health. It is appalling that they are being let down like this, when we thought we were making progress with this request.
I would like to talk about the money being allocated to the tourism industry in this budget. For a region like mine, the Lower St. Lawrence and the Gaspé, tourism is extremely important. The fact that some emergency assistance programs, such as the Canada emergency wage subsidy and the rent subsidy, are being extended will certainly help many businesses back home. I commend that, but there are businesses that were in financial difficulty before the pandemic or that were having a hard time finding workers. Some other programs that were necessary for some people, such as the Canada emergency response benefit, or CERB, are now hobbling business owners. It was already hard enough to find people who wanted to go to work, and things did not get any easier once the situation stabilized a bit. There were pros and cons to this program. It is a little frustrating because business owners are the ones paying the price. It is important to have targeted assistance for this type of sector, but that is not really what we are seeing. Yes, a few million dollars has been allocated to the tourism industry, but the devil is often in the details. When we look a bit closer, hundreds of millions of dollars are going into ad campaigns to make sure people go visit the various regions of Canada. That is good, but is that really the way to help our industries and our small businesses? That is the question. I think we can do several things at the same time.
Allow me to share some figures. The tourism industry is a vital part of the economy in the Gaspé region. There are 700 businesses and nearly 7,000 jobs, 50% of which are permanent. This is not just a seasonal industry.
Businesses in the area benefit from tourism year-round, which is good. The region saw around $16 billion in economic spinoffs in 2019, but that figure dropped to $5 billion in 2020. This more than $10-billion drop represents a lot of money, and business owners are the ones taking the hit. It is shameful that they are not getting direct assistance, which we have been calling for since the beginning of the pandemic. The message does not seem to be getting through to the other side of the House, though.
As we gradually reopen over the summer, I truly hope that the industry will recover. However, we must bear in mind that there are still no international tourists or cruises, so we cannot expect to see the same results, the same amount of money coming in. The sector will need targeted assistance from the federal government, and that is what we are calling for.
When I see all the different Canada-wide programs that are being announced, such as the national child care program, I realize that it may be good news for the provinces that do not have this type of program. However, Quebec already has a day care program.
We have heard the Prime Minister speak about an asymmetrical agreement with Quebec to redirect these funds. I do not really understand what is meant by an asymmetrical agreement, but it looks like interference to me. The Government of Quebec has been managing its day care system very well for many years. If the federal government decides to implement a similar program, it must give Quebec the money it is owed with no strings attached. Letting Quebec invest these amounts as it sees fit seems perfectly logical to me.
In regions like mine, there is definitely a shortage of day care spaces. Elected officials and families are saying so. However, it is up to Quebec to decide how to use these funds in its system. I believe that it is in the federal government's interest to redistribute these funds without conditions, but that is not the message we are hearing at this time.
I would also like to talk a bit about the environment. Bill C-30 offers no details about how the government plans to invest the funds announced in the budget. I hope that will be revealed in another bill soon because we are talking about $17 billion in green recovery funding. As I said earlier, $17 billion seems like a heck of a lot of money, but consider this: It is exactly what the government will have invested in the Trans Mountain pipeline alone.
Considering the fact that the government continues to invest heavily in the oil and gas industry, we have to wonder how committed it is to fighting climate change. That is a little frustrating too. The budget allocates a mere $1 billion to climate change adaptation. People in the Lower St. Lawrence and Gaspé are very concerned about shoreline erosion, and they are experiencing more and more floods. Stakeholders in the Lower St. Lawrence and Gaspé have said how disappointing it is to see so little money invested in adaptation. The Conseil régional de l'environnement du Bas-Saint-Laurent has pointed out that rebuilding roads only to have them destroyed again the next year is not good enough. What people need is a multi-year framework and actions that will stand the test of time.
I still have several things to say, so I will say them quickly. In the budget, the government announced that, if all of the proposed measures were put in place, Canada would be able to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 36%. However, according to people in my region, that reduction is not enough. The executive director of the Conseil régional de l'environnement du Bas-Saint-Laurent thinks that number is all well and good but that it is lower than Quebec's commitments and the targets adopted by many countries that are parties to the Paris Agreement. The federal government itself realized that several days later and announced a range of higher targets. Ambition is all well and good, but the measures that were announced are not consistent with that ambition. We need to look at how we can align all of that.
Since I do not have much time left, I will close by saying that members are beginning the clause-by-clause examination of Bill C-12 tomorrow in committee. I heard the minister assure us that he was going to include this new target in the bill, but that does not seem to be the case based on what we are seeing in the amendments. I am anxious to see how the government will keep its promise with regard to fighting climate change, because that is the challenge of this century, and we really need to address it.
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Mr. Speaker, since the outset of COVID, we have seen 60,000 small businesses shut their doors. More than 200,000 are at risk, according to the CFIB, and yet we continue to see significant gaps with regard to some of the government's COVID relief supports for small businesses, including with respect to the commercial rent assistance program for companies that have both a holding company and an operating company, as well as the requirement that the full amount of rent be paid within 60 days.
Then, there was absolutely no support for new businesses that opened their doors just before COVID. It has been 15 months, and still no support.
Could my hon. colleague speak to some of those issues affecting small businesses?
Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his extremely relevant question.
I have to say that I have seen some extremely brave people in my riding who decided to open a business in the midst of a pandemic, or just a few months before, and who managed to get through it, but that is not the case for everyone.
This government claims to champion families and small businesses, but that is not necessarily true.
As I said, there was already a labour shortage before the pandemic, and the health crisis certainly did not help. In the Gaspé region, in the tourism sector alone, there is a shortage of some 20,000 employees. That is a pretty significant number.
I think the government needs to invest more to help our small businesses. If our businesses are thriving, we can revitalize the smaller regions and get people to move there. That is hard to do if the government does not step up and help.
Larry Bagnell LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages (Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency)
Mr. Speaker, although my riding is the farthest from the hon. member's, I think what we have in common is support for tourism. I am delighted the member is in support of targeted tourism support.
There are $200 million for local festivals, cultural events, heritage celebrations and local museums in small communities, and then another $200 million for the large ones, $100 million for marketing, and a $500-million tourism relief fund in the budget. On top of that, there are the CEBA loans, which have helped over 170,000 businesses in Quebec, and CEWS has protected over a million jobs. For those who fall through all the cracks, there is the RRRF program, which has supported over 7,000 businesses in Quebec.
I am just wondering what the member's positive suggestions would be on what else we could do to support tourism in the Gaspé.
Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very relevant question.
I would agree that what is being done for tourism is a step in the right direction. However, in my view, the assistance needs to be more targeted.
As my colleague said, $200 million is being allocated to festivals. There are 56 municipalities in my riding, and they are all small. In one of them, there is a small western festival, and another village is home to a small guitar festival. We do not have any large-scale events. These people and these projects are not getting targeted assistance.
When I received the electronic version of the budget, I did a search and could not find any of the municipalities in my riding, but many big cities with their big projects were included.
I think we need more targeted assistance to meet the needs that exist in all regions.
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Mr. Speaker, as the member has indicated, the climate emergency is urgent, and action and leadership are desperately required from the federal government.
British Columbians actually do not want the Trans Mountain pipeline. We want to stop that expansion, so we are in agreement there. However, if we really want to address the crisis, would the member agree that we also need a jobs guarantee for those transitioning out of the oil and gas industry?
Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.
I agree that there needs to be a transition. It would ultimately cost more not to make a transition. We completely understand that there are good jobs in some sectors and that no one wants to see those jobs disappear. However, I think we can invest in other sectors, such as wind, solar and hydro power. We can help our neighbours who may be struggling more with the transition. We can invest in those areas to give them a hand.
I think that is how we will be successful. For example, projects like Lion Electric is getting some big grants to electrify our transportation. That is the direction we need to be heading in. The government needs to stop investing heavily in increasing greenhouse gas emissions. That is unfortunately what it is doing by continuing to invest in the oil and gas industry.
Eric Duncan Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today in the House to speak to the budget implementation act. This is the first time for me as a new member of Parliament to speak to a federal budget. It is hard to believe I have been here 19 months, but this is our first budget.
I am here to speak about what it means for my constituents in Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry and for our country. It is very hard, in 10 minutes, to put all my thoughts together on a federal budget, but I will do my best.
We are talking about $300 billion in revenue and $50 billion in expenses equalling a deficit of $350 billion last year. Finally, after two years, we got a federal budget. That is important because we have seen a lot of money go out the door for those in need. The Conservatives have supported programs that have helped people, but we need this accountability, we need this framework. We need the whole picture of the budget to see what is happening in our country for both short and long-term fiscal sustainability.
We have had different world wars and a global pandemic a century ago. At no time have in our history have gone this long without a budget. The United States and the United Kingdom, which I cite often in the House, never skipped a beat and were able to continue to produce budgets throughout. Nevertheless, we are here. We have a document and we are able to comment on it.
In my limited time, I want to focus on two key themes. I call them the two Ds: debt and delivering. Frankly, this budget does not take our financial realities seriously. The Liberal government and the Prime Minister have accumulated more debt in the last six years than every other government and prime minister combined before them. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars. I acknowledge again that we supported many of those programs because it was the right thing to do to help people in need, but they were some of the highest per capita in the developed world in terms of spending.
Recently, I was looking at the OECD website when I was putting my speech together. When we look at our unemployment rate compared to similar G7 countries, Canada stands at 8.1%. The G7 average at that time was 5.6%. We can all watch Japan in amazement. It has an incredible unemployment rate of 2.6%. We have spent nearly the most to get the least amount of results with respect to our outlook and moving forward past COVID.
My political science degree from Carleton University comes in handy in looking at some of the history of budgeting and our fiscal realities in our country. The Parliamentary Budget Officer recently said that at best we would have a 1% maybe 2% growth. For the amount of money we have spent and the times we are in, other economies are growing at a much faster rate.
The reason I believe my political science degree comes in handy today is when we go back and look at the amount of debt. When we go back a generation ago and look at the debt under the first Trudeau government of the day, the challenge of the PC government and Brian Mulroney and into Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin's Liberal governments, interest rates truly hurt our economic outlook. It was increased interest rates, not in the short term when the debt was acquired but over the course of time that led to significant structural deficits.
Under a Liberal government, under Jean Chrétien and finance minister Paul Martin, we saw cuts to health and social programs in an effort to get our budget sustainable. I worry we could be in the same situation. The numbers we are seeing today, even in contrast, are astronomically larger than we saw back a generation ago when I was just starting out in elementary school. Nevertheless, that lesson is important.
I say this respectfully, but I get frustrated when I look at this. We cannot get things done very easily anymore. Let us look at the slow vaccine rollout. We are now acquiring a higher and higher deficit because we did not secure vaccines early enough so we could reopen and get our small businesses and jobs back on track. We would have been able to wind down our support programs because our economy was reopening. The United Kingdom and the United States have been successfully procuring vaccines, getting them into the arms of their citizens which has allowed them to start to reopen. Their numbers are quite safe lately so they have been able to do that.
We talk about getting things done. I look at the United Kingdom. It was in a similar situation to Canada in not having domestic vaccine procurement in its country. Under the leadership of the U.K. government, when COVID hit, it put in a “wartime-like effort” to build domestic capacity within its country. It worked tooth and nail and when vaccines were approved and ready to be manufactured, the U.K. was able to do it and look after its citizens.
In Canada, the Prime Minister took one year to make an announcement in North York and Toronto to much fanfare. If we look at the website, the facility will be ready in 2027. There is a direct contrast there. The United Kingdom and Canada took two different approaches and had two different results, which is very clear today.
That builds on my second point, which is delivering. Notice that the title of the bill is not just the budget act, but it is the budget implementation act. I am a Conservative member who represents a rural eastern Ontario riding. The word “deliverology” was a big word the new Liberal government of the day used in 2015. It splashed it out in cabinet retreats. It had speakers talk about how “deliverology” was going to be the way of the Liberal government. I hope the Liberals fired that guy. Actually, they did because we do not hear that word anymore.
The key theme in a lot of my speeches is that the government, and I will give it a compliment, is the best in the game with respect to making announcements and making us feel good. However, it does not have the ability to properly implement what it says it wants to do. It gets an A for announcement, but an F for follow-through.
Regardless of where we sit in the House, we have to ask ourselves, when we see some of these items, if we actually rehash them over and over again, will we see a different result? How many times have we seen the Liberal government commit to national child care? Over and over again, it promised that this time would be the year it would get it done. Interprovincial trade has come up numerous times with very little progress. Every target it has set for itself with respect to the environment it has failed to meet.
I think of infrastructure projects in my riding, and I am appreciative and I ensure we get our fair share of dollars at home, but we need timely announcements of those projects. In South Glengarry, the Char-Lan rink got approval for funding. That is wonderful. However, it got the money too late and cannot go to tender this year. Now this infrastructure project is delayed likely for another year before it is completed.
I want to acknowledge the situation, a perfect example, and I do not want to say national shame, of Lac-Mégantic. It has been eight years since that disaster happened. I can still remember the images of that horrible day. I watched it as a staffer on Parliament Hill. I remember the lives that were lost and the anger and frustration that this had happened. We are now looking at maybe the year 2024 the government says. We are still under negotiation. We are still looking for more details. It is still not out to tender. There is still not a shovel in the ground. My colleague today successfully passed a resolution, calling for this to be recommitted to. How is it that on something so vital, a national disaster of that scale, it is taking us over a decade at least to get that project done?
We are losing the ability to get things done in a reasonable and timely manner. The dollars we spend in a federal budget need to be timely, targeted and temporary for our sustainability. Saying we are going to spend money is not a result. We have to check projects off, make tangible differences and put that money to proper, efficient use. There is virtue-signalling, there is talking a good game and there is actually delivering.
We have an amazing country, with great businesses and great people, but the government's inability to deliver is hampering our recovery. I hope we can get better implementation of the budget.
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Madam Speaker, I know there are a great many things the hon. member and I agree on, but the budget is probably not one of them. I want to point out at this point that because the New Democrats have said that we will not plunge the country into an election during the pandemic, he has the luxury of voting against this bill in its entirety.
I want to ask him about a provision that this budget implementation act brings forward, and that is cutting the CERB, starting July 1, by 40% for people who are not back to work yet. Yes, I would like to see an early reopening and I would like to see everybody not needing the CERB, but does the hon. member support cutting by 40% the benefits that are being offered to those who are not able to get back to work yet?