Debates of May 27th, 2021

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is a great question from my colleague, who works hard on the Canada-U.S. committee. There is nothing in this budget. In fact, not only is there nothing for oil and gas and for natural resources, but there is no contingency in this budget in case Line 5 does shut down. That will certainly drive the costs of everything up, including fuel that the government uses.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour to rise in this House on behalf of my constituents of Edmonton Mill Woods.

In the lead-up to this budget, the longest lead-up ever, as we went over two years without a budget, there were dozens of news stories and trial balloons talking about how innovative this budget was going to be. We heard time and again about how this budget would be a stepping stone for the Liberal government to build back better, whatever that means. Instead, at 739 pages and nearly a quarter of a million words, the longest budget in the history of our great country is also the greatest disappointment.

There is no plan to deal with inflation. There is no plan to make the dream of home ownership more attainable for Canadians. There is no plan to create new jobs and economic opportunities for families and young people across this country. Instead, we are left with a budget that says so much, proposes so little, and leaves Canadian jobs, productivity, and economic growth behind.

Let me start by looking at the full picture. In my riding of Edmonton Mill Woods and right across Canada, there are countless families and businesses on the brink of losing everything. The jobs numbers that came out earlier this month revealed that another 207,000 people across Canada had to come home and tell their family and loved ones one of the most difficult things to hear, that they had lost their job.

To be clear, Alberta’s economic problems didn’t just start because of this pandemic. The Liberals' Bill C-69, which many people called the “no more pipelines” bill; Bill C-48, the tanker ban; and general disregard for the energy sector have driven away billions of dollars of investment and, with it, thousands of Canadian jobs. The government has failed to produce a plan for one of Canada’s largest economic sectors, the energy sector.

There are some things in this budget that we and our Conservative team are in favour of. For so many Canadians who continue to struggle throughout this pandemic, the budget does have the extension of emergency programs that our Conservative team supports, measures like the wage subsidy, rent subsidy and other recovery benefits, but there are still issues that remain with some of these programs. My office has heard from so many Canadians. It has heard repeatedly from small businesses that opened just before the pandemic or during the pandemic, which have been left behind by these wage subsidy and rent subsidy programs. When asked about it, the Liberals continue to repeat what everybody already knows, that small businesses are the backbone of our community, yet they continue to do nothing to rectify this issue, leaving many small businesses, and the Canadians employed by them, behind.

One thing that I know would bring jobs to Alberta and to Canadians from coast to coast is pipelines. Our natural resources sector accounts for nearly two million jobs and nearly one-fifth of Canada’s GDP. There are mentions of pipelines in this budget. They talk about a vaccine pipeline, a talent pipeline, an innovation pipeline and a PPE pipeline, but no mention of a pipeline to carry our natural resources. Once again, the Liberal government continues to ignore our energy sector, which will be instrumental in our economic recovery coming out of this pandemic. Instead, we continue to import oil from the likes of Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, where there are much lower environmental standards and horrific human rights records. Talk about a failure.

Perhaps the biggest failure, and the focus of my speech today, is the government’s failure to take inflation seriously. Canada’s inflation rate in April was 0.6%, or roughly 7% on an annualized basis. For the average family in my riding of Edmonton Mill Woods, that means the inflation tax is going to take nearly $6,500 out of their pocket this year. This has been seen right across the board, as Canadian consumer prices are climbing at the fastest pace in a decade. The average family will pay nearly $700 more in groceries this year because of inflation. Everything from meat and vegetables to cereals and bread has increased by about 5%. Gas prices are continuing to increase dramatically. As Bloomberg reported last week, they have increased more than 60% in a year.

Perhaps the most explicit case I can make here is with lumber prices, which have increased by 300% over the last year. As Kevin Lee, the CEO of the Canadian Home Builders' Association, points out, this drastic rise in lumber costs will add tens of thousands of dollars to the average price of a home.

This leads me to another area of failure in this budget, which is the lack of any semblance of a plan to address overwhelming housing affordability issues in Canada, which has pushed the dream of home ownership further out of reach for far too many Canadians. Prices across Canada are skyrocketing, with young families who were saving for their first home at the beginning of this pandemic even further behind than when they started.

This has led to feelings of hopelessness. A poll from the Royal Bank of Canada released last month revealed that 36% of non-homeowners under the age of 40 have given up on ever buying a home and 62% of respondents said they expect the majority of people will be priced out of the market over the next decade.

What is the government doing to address this concern of people being left out of the market? The hallmark of this budget’s efforts on housing affordability is a 1% tax on foreign owners of vacant housing, which will simply be seen as a very minor inconvenience for wealthy foreign investors who have seen their investments appreciate by 42% this past year. This will not solve the problem at all. Instead, the current government should be focused on the root of the problem, which is the shortage of supply right across Canada.

As a recent Scotiabank report points out, Canada has the lowest number of housing units per capita of any G7 country. If Canada set the modest goal of simply catching up to the United States, Canadian builders would have to complete an extra 100,000 homes. To catch up to the U.K., it would require an extra 250,000 homes. To put these gaps in perspective, we have had an average of 188,000 home completions in the last 10 years.

I believe this serves as a perfect microcosm of the government’s philosophy. When it identifies a problem, it does not address the root cause. Instead, it takes a small reactive step, creates a new government agency or program for it, and then dumps millions, if not billions, into it.

The budget introduces another $101 billion in new spending, pushing our debt-to-GDP ratio to over 50% over the next few years. What are we getting out of this increased spending and debt? The budget predicts that the growth rate will slow steadily starting in 2022, all the way down to 1.7% growth in 2025.

As Robert Asselin, the former policy and budget director to Bill Morneau and policy advisor to the Prime Minister, said of this budget, “it is hard to find a coherent growth plan.... [S]pending close to a trillion dollars [and] not moving the needle on…growth would be the worst possible legacy of this budget.” While the budget is entitled, “A Recovery Plan for Jobs, Growth, and Resilience”, there seems to be much concern about whether or not it will deliver on jobs or growth.

The budget has no investments to address the structural problems that have plagued productivity and our ability to compete on the global stage. There is no plan to address the unprecedented level of investment that is fleeing Canada. There is no plan for regulatory and tax reform to help us win on the global stage. There is no comprehensive innovation strategy to ensure Canadian tech start-ups keep their job-creating investments here at home.

This budget is not meant for the growth of the economy. I believe Canadians are looking for hope that things will soon get better and they will still have a bright future to look forward to. They want their jobs and small businesses back. They want their lives and communities back. They want the hope of being able to afford a house. Simply put, they want to return to normal and live the Canadian dream.

This budget fails to deliver. There is no growth plan. It is not meant for the people of Edmonton Mill Woods, Alberta or our future generations. It is a failure. That is why we will not be supporting it.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Edmonton Mill Woods for his speech, which gives me an opportunity to ask him a question about the environment and natural resources.

My colleague talked a lot about oil and gas, but there are other natural resources, including the sun, wind and bioheat. Simply by transforming forest resources into bioproducts, we can create thousands of jobs, and it is good for our health as well.

There are 15,300 premature deaths in Canada every year, the cost of which is equivalent to 6% of the GDP. If we are going to talk about money, let us talk about it as part of the bigger picture.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her question on support for our energy sector and the different types of energy sectors there are across Canada. The fact is that we do not have to shut down one industry to support another. We can continue to support the different aspects of our Canadian energy sector.

The oil and gas sector has improved its global greenhouse footprint significantly now that it is running much better environmental processes. The new technology of carbon capture and storage is something Conservatives believe we could have invested in to help improve things and create jobs in a way that would be better for the environment. Unfortunately, the Liberal budget did not deliver on that.

[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, I find it interesting that Conservative members continue to say there is no plan. If one reads the document, one will find there are many different measures within it to continue to support Canadians through the pandemic and beyond.

As the Prime Minister often references, we are learning from what occurred during the pandemic in order to build back better. There are ample examples of it, and I will reference a specific one. For the Prairies, we are now talking about a prairie diversification fund, which will be far greater than the western diversification fund Stephen Harper had years ago.

Does the member not agree that having a prairie investment fund and advocacy for the three prairie provinces is a positive step forward?

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the problem is that, even just yesterday, our shadow minister asked the government about its plan, how many jobs it would create and when the budget would be balanced. The government had no answers to any of those questions. The unfortunate thing is that Liberals can call it a plan, but they really do not have the answers to very basic questions.

What we need is a plan to create jobs, especially in Alberta. The Liberals' policies, such as Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, and their overall disregard for the energy sector have hurt investments. Thousands of jobs have left. We need a plan to bring those jobs back. We need to bring investor confidence back, and this budget does none of that.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives of course do not talk about the fact that hedge fund operators around the world are pulling out of Alberta because Jason Kenney is refusing to get serious about an environmental plan. On the other hand we have the Liberals, who promised us two billion trees. We are still waiting on those.

As well, they have this great renovation plan. I love it. It is the best plan since 1992. It is five thousand bucks. Thirty years ago that was also the plan. One would get $5,000 to fix their house and make it energy efficient. What is $5,000 going to get someone today? A person could not build a deck for $5,000.

I did not know Justin Trudeau was so old that he lived in the pre-economy of the monies of 1992. How much does my hon. colleague think a $5,000 investment is actually going to do to save the planet?

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I will remind to the hon. member about the use of other hon. member's given or family names.

The hon. member for Edmonton Mill Woods.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is part of the problem with the government. It makes a lot of announcements. It talks about how many billions of dollars it spent. It actually has thrown a lot of money around, but the problem is actual results.

How many jobs have been created, and how much has this helped the environment? Liberals just do not have the answers because they have not done the studies or had have proper follow-through on these answers.

If we think about it, one would figure that any organization that has increased its spending, and the government has considerably increased its spending, would increase its auditing as well. This is because one would want to make sure the spending one has done has ticked the boxes and is getting results. With the government, audits of its spending have actually gone down, so there is less transparency and fewer results. We need more results and fewer big announcements from the government.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my speech, I would just like to thank everybody who lives in the riding of Huron—Bruce for their tremendous work over the last year and a half in combatting COVID. The rates in Huron County and Bruce County are some of the lowest in Ontario, and may be some of the lowest in Canada.

This is because of everybody, not just one person. Everybody's efforts have made the difference. I thank them. We are all proud of everyone's efforts. That is likely the best news of this speech.

When I look at this budget, I think maybe we could call it the “lack of vaccine” budget. Here we are. Just a few days ago, we had our May long weekend. We are near the end of May. We are in Ottawa today. Sparks Street should be full. The markets should be full. The patios should be out. The restaurants should be busy. There should be kids here on class trips, coming on tours. The hotels should be full.

Why are they not? By and large, the reason, and this is just the microcosm of the entire Canadian economy in the service industry, is that we did not have vaccines quickly enough and we did not have enough of them. That is the reality of why we have spent so much more than we ever would have thought we would have needed to spend.

In the process, the Liberal government, in its lack of action, has decimated tens of thousands of people's equity in their business, their savings and equity in their home. That is the truth. There is no bank manager in the country who would argue that fact.

Maybe someone who sells four-wheelers as a business has had the best year of all time. However, certainly for those in the service sector, this has been a humbling experience, to say the least.

The Bank of Canada, and this is unprecedented, has purchased over 250 billion dollars' worth of bonds. Who would have ever thought that we would be doing this? Who would have ever thought? A high of $6 billion a week, currently around $3 billion or $4 billion a week. Clearly, we cannot sustain this at all.

We all know there is inflation. We could go up and down the streets in our communities and see the homes for sale, going for $100,000, $200,000 or $300,000 over the list price. I talked to a builder the other day. A two by four that is 16 feet long, I think he told me it was $28. It was $7.50 last May. To the member for Timmins—James Bay, $5,000 to spruce up a home is not going far.

The printing of money, the Bank of Canada buying, is creating inflation. The other day I saw some commentary about how, compared to the U.S. dollar, ours is looking pretty good. The U.S. is probably printing more than we are right now. I think last week I saw the fed bought $92 billion in the United States. The Canadian dollar is doing well against the American dollar, but if we look at it as a Canadian dollar and what could be bought, we can buy less.

What the government has tried to do is it has tried to help. I believe the government has tried to help people, but maybe in the wrong ways. This inflation has cost the very people it was trying to help the most, the ones in the service industry, the ones earning an hourly wage who maybe do not have benefits. In Ontario, the province I am from, that wage is $14 to $15 an hour. The last year and a half has made that $15 an hour more like under $10 an hour. Certainly, if anybody had any hopes of buying a home or a condo, almost 40% to 50% has been added to what people thought would reasonably have to be paid.

For a country that had 75% ownership, when Europe has about 25%, in short order we have almost taken away the opportunity for the middle class to ever own a home. That is a shame.

For the ultra-wealthy, the people who have multiple homes, investments and all sorts of apparatus to accumulate wealth, this has been the absolute best time of all time. If we think about it, the last two or three years should have been the opportunity to raise up everybody. The Prime Minister, his finance minister and the party have diminished the middle class and the poor working class. That is an absolute fact. People are now in bidding wars for rental properties, not to buy a home, but to rent. It is not sustainable and will probably go down as one of the darkest moments of the government.

I live in a rural community, a hard-working, resilient rural community, and I have been mystified for the last five or six years as to how the government continually gets it wrong in rural Canada. Money for rural infrastructure is a pittance compared to what urban centres receive. Rural areas do not carry the burden of so many people, but they also have the biggest burden of protecting the most precious resources. In my area, Lake Huron has fresh water. For rural infrastructure, water, sewage, culverts, bridges, just name it, there is not enough money.

Members do not have to think I am biased. They can talk to the mayors or CAOs of Huron County or Bruce County and they will say it is not enough. It is a bidding war to even get it. By the way, the way it works is backward. One has to pitch it to the federal government, it picks over the bones, then says it is approved, but does not even tell the MPP or MP for the area. It should be the other way around. It should be that the federal government allocates money to the provinces, the provinces pick their priorities based on what the mayors and wardens tells them and then they approve the projects. This is just common sense. We have been doing this now for six years and it does not work.

As for low-income and social housing, forget it. Members can talk to any community in my riding, Saugeen Shores, South Huron or Goderich. They apply, apply and apply and it is never approved. No one has to take my word for it because the mayors call me to complain.

Then there is strategic infrastructure. We are going beyond my riding, looking at other areas and what rural areas produce. In my area there are soybeans, corn, red meat, all those different things, and we are constantly under the pressure of not having enough capacity at the ports and other areas.

As for broadband, the SWIFT project was working. The minister changed it and what a mess. We had consistent funding for rural projects and they were starting to work. Now it has changed and what a mess.

There is a chronic labour shortage throughout Ontario, which is certainly exacerbated in my riding. We need workers. We need to motivate people to get to work. We need to speed up the process of bringing in new Canadians to work in our sectors, such as, for example, meat processing. Just name it and we need it.

God bless the trade minister, but she has made a mess of trade, in my opinion. The U.S. is running roughshod over us. Everybody thought that when Trump was gone, Biden would be Canada's best friend. We do not need friends like Joe Biden, the way he has treated us with buy America and softwood lumber tariffs.

How is it that Canada has a beef trade deficit with the United Kingdom? There are those who do not think we are getting treated poorly. We are getting treated poorly. We have a pork and beef deficit with the European Union. That is not fair trade. That is not a fair partner.

I would love to talk about our borders. What a mess the government has created at our borders. Port Huron is about an hour and a half from my hometown and I know there are a lot of business people awfully disappointed with how they have been treated at the border in an arbitrary way. It is not the officials. It is not the hard-working men and women who work there. It is the mixed messages they receive from the health minister and the public safety minister.

It is not a good situation. If they cannot fix it, we will do the heavy lifting. I am saying we are prepared to do it. They let Line 5 go to this state when in Huron—Bruce and many other ridings we need it. We need it to dry our crops and heat our homes and it is willy-nilly with the current government. I know the Liberals send out the resource minister and he has some things to say, but behind the scenes there is no way the message is getting drilled home to the United States. If they want to shut us down, they are going to shut us down.

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

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where to begin, there are so many different items listed there that are just factually incorrect. I guess I will go to the one that I know the best from my time as a municipal politician in Ontario and from working at the federal level.

The member's description of how money is allocated for infrastructure is just wrong. It does not work like that at all. The feds set up different funds of money that can be applied for, but the projects have to be prioritized by the province. The province has to sign off on them first. I know that with infrastructure projects in my own riding alone. First the provinces sign off on it and give their blessing and then the federal government will review the project to make sure it meets the criteria. That is just how it works.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Speaker, just in the definition right there, it shows the member does not know. If he walked down the aisle and talked to the infrastructure minister, it would be that the provinces have to go on their hands and knees to her and then she maybe does or maybe does not approve it based on the priority.

How could they go through that many steps and then have her say it does not meet the criteria? It has taken months at that point. If it does not meet the criteria they should not be allowed to apply for it. If the member wants to, as a former mayor, he can come on down to Huron—Bruce and I will let him talk to all the mayors.

You can come on down and bring your Miller Genuine Draft and we will go down and have a chat with all the mayors and they will tell you that you are wrong.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I just remind the hon. member to direct his speech to the Chair.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Langley—Aldergrove.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for alerting us to inflation and the risks there too. I wonder if he has any comments about interest rates rising to combat inflation and what that will do to the debt-servicing costs for the federal government.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is going to be out of this world, and it will be more than anything they could spend money on.

What else costs a lot of money? It is raising a family these days, and the proposal the Liberals have for day care is ridiculous. People who are pregnant today will never receive the big $10-a-day day care. Their kids will be in SK. If they have a one-year-old child today, there is this big promise of day care for $10 a day, but their kid is going to be in grade 1, so big deal. If the Liberals really want to do something, help the poor families today.

I talked to my neighbour who pays $2,000 a month for day care and $2,300 a month for rent. How are people getting ahead on that? If the Liberals want to help somebody, help him and his wife out and put it to $10 and give them a chance.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for such an excellent speech. I really do not know where to start. He has really pointed out the incompetence of the Liberal government and there is so much to talk about here, but I would like him to focus on one thing he brought up about the quantitative easing, the printing of the money.

I wonder if he could comment on the Liberal inflation tax, which we are all starting to see. I am getting complaints about groceries and the cost of living. It is happening a lot quicker than any of us would have thought. Could he please talk about the secret inflation tax that the Liberals are putting in that Canadians are unaware of?

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to inflation, if they want to talk about something, how about OAS to seniors age 75? How about 65? Who has been hit the hardest? It is seniors on a fixed income, and the Liberals are offering $500 if they are over 75. My parents are 73 and 75. They laughed. How can my mom not get it and my dad does? I have had more calls on this 75 business than on anything.

Regarding inflation, seniors are hit on gas, groceries, rent, heating. They are getting hit literally every which way. Only the guys across the aisle would be oblivious to this, they would be the only ones. If we talk to any real Canadians out there, they will tell us they are getting hit hard.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

I am just curious if the member can tell us what a “real Canadian” is.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I think we are in the debate category there. Members are trying to extend questions and comments. That is what they seem to be doing.

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The question is on the motion.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes to request a recorded division or that the motion be adopted on division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will ask for a recorded division, please.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Pursuant to order made on Monday, January 25, the division stands deferred until later this day at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

SPCA Fundraiser

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, for many, changing the way we treat our climate and animals are tasks so daunting that they do not know where to start. This was not so for 10-year old Cody Kelso who, inspired by Terry Fox before him, walked 115 kilometres from Gibsons to Powell River with his mother, Megan, to raise money to make change.

After four days of walking in the rain and through blisters, ups and downs, Cody and Megan reached the finish line an entire day early. Cody succeeded in raising a total of $33,500 for the B.C. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to enable it to install the solar panels needed for the local branch to reach net-zero emissions, and to bring the B.C. Sustainable Energy Association's Cool It climate leadership training program to the Sunshine Coast.

Cody's journey not only made a meaningful difference in his community. It also inspires others that they can accomplish anything they set their minds to. While the walk was certainly challenging, Cody and his mom have a motto that kept them going on their journey and that we can all use to keep ourselves motivated to make a difference in our communities: Believe. Do. Achieve.

Canadian Heritage

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Mr. Speaker, our nation has a legacy of being a prime destination for immigrants and refugees because we enjoy many liberties and freedoms here that many around the world do not have the luxury of. Things such as freedom of expression, religion and choice and free enterprise make us a beacon of hope and prosperity for many. However, that is under attack with the Liberal government's Bill C-10.

The government flaunts supporting diversity in media and representation, but the bill could affect many ethnic and marginalized media outlets that have small budgets. This bill muzzles freedom of speech and expression. This is similar to what dictatorships do to their citizens. The heritage minister's agenda to silence ethnic and marginalized groups is unacceptable.

I stand here today for freedom and for diversity in media, and against Bill C-10.