Debates of May 3rd, 2021

Finance

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have to shake my head at the most recent intervention by the member for Kingston and the Islands complaining about the NDP when he conveniently forgets the fact that the Liberals had majority governments in 1993, 1997 and 2000. Why did they not use that time to get child care done?

The member for New Westminster—Burnaby has been in the House for a while and has been witness to things that would give a lot of people cynicism in politics. He saw Jack Layton's climate change bill killed in the Senate. He saw his most recent bill, Bill C-213, voted down by the Liberals who profess to have an interest in pharmacare.

When it comes to things such as tackling climate change, health care and poverty, our approach has always been that those investments are really important at the front end. They might seem costly, but they will have measurable impacts on people's lives at the back end. Those investments and dollars can have real, tangible results for people.

The member touched on some of those aspects in his speech, but could he expand a little more on how these investments are so important to addressing the very real and evident gaps that so many people in all of our ridings are facing daily?

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford for his question. He is extraordinarily hard working and one of the most learned members in the House of Commons. His contributions to debates every day are always at the highest possible level. He really does his constituents proud with his work in the House of Commons. I am very honoured to work with him.

The member raised a couple of questions. First, the child care myth that the Liberals put out is unbelievable. I guess the member for Kingston and the Islands was given something by the Prime Minister's Office that said, “Oh, remember Paul Martin's budget”. This is not Trumpism, and we cannot make up our own facts. Anyone who can do fact checking, and who actually understands the 2005 budget that Paul Martin put out, knows that it was a disaster. There was not a single mention of child care. There were just massive corporate tax cuts. The Liberals either disingenuously are trying to change that reality from the past or they are simply ignorant of how bad their government actually was. Massive corporate tax cuts were their siren song.

We see the huge gaps. Canadian families are the most indebted among those in all of the industrialized countries. More than half of Canadians are $200 away from insolvency in any given month. We see rampant inequality and hundreds of thousands of Canadians who are homeless, and the Liberals say, “Hey, we got the job done”. They have not, and I think it is time for them to move over and allow a government that is actually going to take the interests of people over the interests of the ultra-rich so that we can actually get things done in this country.

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

Madam Speaker, maybe the best place to start is where we left off with the last speaker. Although I admired his quip about the PMO handing me documents, I will assure the member that I have three extremely capable, young, energetic staffers who do the vast majority of my research. Since I am singling them out, I am going to name them: Parth, Kaitlin and Kelly. They are absolutely incredible, and they do amazing work for me. They are the ones who quite often bring these very important pieces of information forward that I can use in debate. I am extremely lucky to have those incredible young Canadians working for me.

To the member's point about fact checking, let us fact check. I will admit I was younger at the time and not as engaged in politics as I am now; however, my understanding is that Paul Martin and Ken Dryden had worked out a deal with all the provinces. That is kind of required in these constitutional things. I know the member completely disregarded that with the pharmacare private member's bill he brought in. Of course, he does not see the need to work with our partners, especially the ones we are constitutionally required to work with.

Nonetheless, Ken Dryden and Paul Martin worked with the provinces and finally got the infrastructure or the programming structure set up so that national child care could be brought into Canada. This is where the budget part comes into it. This member, with the Conservatives, teamed up against Paul Martin and Ken Dryden and took down the government. That is why we do not have national child care. That is the reality of the situation. He should really go and do some fact checking on that, although I assume that he would have known, given that he was here at the time. However, who am I? I was only 29 at the time, and perhaps not paying as much attention as I should have been.

I really look forward to using the remaining 18 minutes of my time to talk about this very important concurrence motion that was introduced by the member for Carleton. He brought in the concurrence motion on the report from the finance committee. It is a very important report, with 145 recommendations in total, outlining the budget consultation process and what the government should be focusing on as it looks toward the budgeting process.

I know the previous speaker said he was very disappointed that the budget seemed to miss the mark on a number of different initiatives brought forward during the time of the consultation. He went to great lengths to explain how the consultation is done.

I would like to highlight some of the recommendations within the report that I thought were very good. Some made it into the budget and will have a meaningful impact on, and beneficial changes for, the lives of Canadians. There are a number of different sections to the recommendations. I will start in the section on health care.

One of the recommendations there, specifically with regard to mental health, was extremely important. We are living in a day and age when mental health is finally being recognized as the health problem that it is. I find it very frustrating that we have always been able to focus on the health issues that affect people's physical well being, and are very quick and responsive to invest money there, but we are not as good when it comes to mental health. I say that as a society. Certainly, there is always more that could be done.

A number of years ago the government brought in big stimulus for research and for helping to give people with mental health issues the supports they need. There is always going to be so much more work to be done, and I am glad to see that the committee came to that conclusion, based on research and recommendations given by various stakeholders throughout the process.

The other item in the health care section that I really liked seeing, and is something that has been talked about a lot in this House lately, was the request for long-term care national standards. What we have realized during this pandemic is that we have failed Canadians. Again, I do not say this as one particular party or another; I just mean society as a whole. We failed our seniors. We did not set up the right systems in order to protect them at a time when they would need it the most. The responsibility for this needs to be shared by everybody, by society as a whole, and we need to do better. If there is anything we have learned from this pandemic, it is that we have an opportunity to do better when it comes to long-term care standards and we need to act on that.

I know there are some members of this House who are very concerned about national standards for long-term care, including my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois. However, I really think that this does not have to be a top-down approach, as they are suggesting it is. It can actually be an opportunity to share best practices, to develop standards that can then be used throughout the country as provinces see fit.

I have said this many times and I will say it again: I compare it to something like our National Building Code. A lot of people probably do not even realize that there is a National Building Code in Canada because provincial jurisdictions use the building code. At least people who live in Ontario or Quebec may not realize that the National Building Code exists because Ontario and Quebec have their own building codes. The rest of the country pretty much uses those national standards. When we think of a building code, we think of the best practices that are put in there. If we compare the National Building Code to Ontario's Building Code, with which I am more familiar than I am with the Quebec one, we will see that the two are almost identical because Ontario is getting its best practices from the national code and I am sure that the national code is also influenced heavily by Ontario's Building Code and Quebec's Construction Code.

Therefore, I look at this as an opportunity to do something very similar as it relates to national long-term care standards. It is to develop some standards, not to impose them and force them upon provinces but to set the standards so that they can be adopted as best practices where provinces see fit.

One of the other sections that I enjoyed seeing in this report was the section on children and families in particular, and talking about a national child care system. Members heard me speak about this at the beginning of my speech and in the questions I was asking for the previous speaker. It is long overdue. I know there is a tendency to say, “What about this? What about that?” The Liberals have been promising it since the early 1990s when I was still in high school. I do not know what the situation is and why this happened, other than what I have been referencing around the Paul Martin time, but, as a parent who has children who have gone through nursery school and day care, I see so many parents out there, more often women, who do not put their kids into day care or child care because it just does not make economic sense. One of the parents, more often than not the woman, ends up staying home and she does not have the opportunity to realize her full potential in the marketplace.

When I talk about child care, it is not just about taking care of children in day care and giving the parents a break; this is about unleashing an economic opportunity here. Imagine what it would mean to put so many more people into the workforce and what that would mean for our economy. If one does not care about the social impact of child care, one should at least consider the economic impact of it. It has the opportunity to unleash new people working in our marketplace, which is only good for the growth of our economy.

I also note that there was a recommendation with respect to domestic abuse victim supports. I liked seeing that. There will never be enough that we can do to support victims of domestic abuse.

When I was younger, in high school in the early nineties, as I alluded to earlier, my mother worked at the Kingston Interval House, which was a special house to support more often than not women who were subject to domestic abuse and give them the support they needed right then and there to help them. To know the committee has heard from people in our country who are advocating for this is important. As we move forward I hope we will see more supports being put into this particular initiative of protecting and giving supports to those who have been subject to domestic abuse.

Another section I found very interesting when I was reading through the report was on employment and labour. There was a recommendation to fund Statistics Canada to make sure it had the funding it needed to do its job. My predecessor Ted Hsu introduced a private member's bill on this particular topic about reinstating the long-form census. Nothing is more important to government, agencies and businesses for that matter than good data. Getting that data and making sure Statistics Canada can compile that data in order for organizations, businesses and government to utilize is truly important for our economy and the social fabric of our communities.

There were also, in the employment and labour section, recommendations on supporting and developing training for green jobs. I talked about this earlier when we were discussing Bill C-12. The opportunity here of Canada being at the forefront of those green jobs and allowing Canadians to really expand their skills as these new industries are created in our economy is truly important, but we need to make sure people, and particular workers, have the skills they need for these jobs.

Along those lines, I know in the education and training section of the report there were also recommendations on investing in young Canadians for skills training specifically. I do not know if anybody has tried to hire a plumber or an electrician lately, but they are not easy to get and can pretty much charge whatever they want.

I come from this generation where my parents are immigrants from Italy and Holland who came here very young. They saw the struggles their parents went through, and the only thing their parents wanted was for their children to be lawyers, doctors and teachers, or “professionals”. That gets passed down to the next generation, and unfortunately, in the process of doing that, we have somehow devalued the core skills of those really important jobs. We made a giant mistake in doing that, as a society, when I say “we”.

To put resources into making sure that skills training can continue and people can get trained for those skilled trades jobs in particular truly is important in this day and age. If any of my three children come to me and say they want to get into a skilled trade, I will be beside myself and excited by this because I know they will be set for life and will be making money taking care of everybody else's problems for years to come.

There was also a lot in the report about arts, culture and hospitality. I come from a riding that really needs a lot of supports right now. About 11% or 12% of the economy in Kingston specifically is in tourism. These industries are struggling right now. We have a number of museums in Kingston, which make up the tour in Kingston, that literally have been sitting empty for a year, and these museums and cultural amenities that exist throughout the country really need the supports to get through this particular time so we can still have those cultural assets when we get through this pandemic. I was really happy to see that recommendation in there.

Perhaps the part of the recommendations I liked the most were the last five recommendations of the report, which focus on electric vehicles. I think there is such a huge opportunity here, as we discover that we will transition to electrified vehicles. There is no stopping that. It is going to happen. I genuinely believe we have passed the tipping point. It is really going to take off, and it will do so at a much more increased pace than it is now.

I heard a member from British Columbia, I believe it was one of the Green Party members, indicate that B.C. is now selling approximately 10% of its vehicles as electric vehicles. This industry is really going to take off, so putting investments and incentives into research and development, which is what one of the recommendations calls for, makes me wonder about what that will lead to.

When NASA does research to build new things for space, quite often we get a ton of spinoffs that end up becoming new products, which become available for more residential and commercial uses. Therefore, the spinoffs that will come from research and development in electrifying vehicles, for example, will be tremendous.

I also think there is a huge opportunity here. We are starting to see electric vehicles get to the end of their lifespan, as some have been around for a good 10 or 15 years now, and there is an opportunity to do a lot of research and development in what to do with an electric vehicle when it gets to the end of its life. I think there is a huge opportunity here, and I am really glad to see that was in one of the recommendations of this concurrence report.

Of course, there was also another recommendation in that same section on incentivizing the purchase of electric vehicles. I think it is extremely important to do that, but I know there are a lot of people out there who criticize the incentivization of electric vehicles.

I will be the first to admit that I have taken advantage of those incentives in Ontario on a number of occasions. We are on our fourth electric vehicle. People who are overly critical of these incentives are being very short-sighted on how much we actually help the fossil fuel industry in Canada, in particular with the incentives that are out there and the credits that are being applied to the fossil fuel industry.

Of course, there was another recommendation to increase the electrification of the federal government fleet dramatically. That is something I am very encouraged to see. It is another great recommendation, which I think the government should act on. We need to be leaders. If we are going to convince other people to buy an electric vehicle, the government needs to introduce a lot of electric vehicles into its own fleet.

I made a comment earlier about electric vehicles being an industry that is evolving. I can tell members that our first electric vehicle we had was a Chevy Volt. We could get 40 kilometres after plugging it in, and then we were using gas after that. We now have a Chrysler Pacifica, which is a minivan. We get about 60km and then use gas.

Then we have a Hyundai Kona, which I get about 400 kilometres on and which I drive to and from Ottawa. To see the evolution, just from my own limited experience of how these vehicles have changed in such a short period of eight or nine years, is truly inspiring. I know it is only a matter of time before they are flooding the market and everybody will be driving electric vehicles.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, I always love speeches from the member for Kingston and the Islands because I appreciate his honesty and sincerity. In response to one of my questions earlier he told the House that he was against buying the pipeline. It is amazing that he can say so even though his party was the one that bought it.

He spoke about education, day care services, long-term care homes and standards in these homes. I suggest that he go to Queen's Park, since those are all provincial jurisdictions.

From the beginning of the debate I have been hearing that the Liberals promised to increase old age security for seniors aged 75 and over, which is why seniors under the age of 75 do not get an increase. However, the pandemic started after the last election. Drug and food prices have gone up and seniors have been the hardest hit.

I would like to hear the honest and sincere answer I know he is capable of giving. Why are seniors 75 and under not eligible for this increase?

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

Madam Speaker, to answer the question as directly as I can, I think the member is confusing two issues. Yes, we have a pandemic, on one side, but on the other side, we have a commitment to seniors. To answer his question, we need to divide the two issues and not bring them together like he is trying to do.

On the one side, people are struggling in the pandemic and are having difficulties, which have changed dramatically since the pandemic began. We need to be there to help them and make sure they get the supports they need. I would argue that the government has been doing this.

On the other side, which relates to seniors, we know that seniors are living longer now. As they get to an older age, over 75, seniors need more supports by default because what they had when they retired is starting to deplete by that point. Is there an opportunity to have more discussions on the age? I do not think the age as a number matters as much as the data that shows when some people need more support than others. The number is irrelevant; it is about what the data says about when people need supports the most.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Madam Speaker, part of the concurrence report, under recommendation 55, spoke to the support for the cultural, tourism and hospitality sectors. It asked about providing additional financial support to those sectors until COVID-19-related restrictions can be safely lifted.

One thing in the budget was disappointing for the stakeholder community, and there was almost unanimity in my conversations with stakeholder groups and the tourism industry. They were looking for an extension to the CEWS and the CERS programs until at least the end of the year. Some have even indicated that they may need them into the new year as we transition along, because tourism is not going to recover immediately. It is not like we are going to snap our fingers and 14 million people, who traditionally would come to Niagara Falls, are going to magically reappear. This is going to take time, and it is going to take effort and support for those sectors to get their feet back under them.

The member talks about tourism in his own community. Is he a little disappointed in the early end of these programs?

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

Madam Speaker, anything that is or is not there for the tourism sector definitely impacts my riding and means something to me. It is something I am watching very carefully. However, the government has demonstrated through the work of Parliament and in working with the other side of the House, quite often through unanimous consent motions, that it will be there for small businesses and will be there for the industry. It has been there for over a year now.

Although the particular item the member is looking for might not be in this budget, I have no doubt that the government will be there for small businesses and these sectors until we get through the pandemic and they can start to get on their feet again.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Madam Speaker, I quite enjoyed the member's speech and I want to compliment him on his delivery. It was quite passionate.

I want to know if he has looked further into the impacts of child care. I have been reading about this. When we look at the Quebec model, not only did it grow the economy, but it also took the female workforce employment rate from being one of the lowest across Canada to becoming one of the highest across Canada. When we compare Ontario and Quebec now, Quebec stands at 81% female workforce participation and Ontario only stands at 75%.

I definitely think that many improvements were made when Quebec moved to this model. I want an opinion from the member as to what he thinks about that and what he thinks about the wasting of skills and intellect that we are currently seeing across the country by not providing women and families with the support they need with their children.

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

Madam Speaker, I sit on the PROC committee with the member for Brampton North. I have not been there in a while and I miss it, quite frankly, so I am looking forward to getting back on the committee.

The member is absolutely correct. This is why I said earlier that if not for the social reasons of supporting child care because it will help families, we should think of the economic impact alone. The economic impact, as demonstrated in Quebec, is significant when we can unleash the potential of people who want to work. As the member indicated, as I said during my speech, more often than not it is the woman who ends up staying at home. By making sure the supports are there, women can then realize the full potential of what they want to do.

It is a strategic decision that is being made by families. One parent may say he or she will stay at home because even if that parent works, after income taxes and paying child care, the family will only be ahead $50 a week, or whatever it might be. It just does not make sense. If we can conquer that problem, the economic impact of this and the growth of our economy will be incredible. Not only that, but people get to realize their full potential and their dreams of what they want to do, not to sound cliché.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, earlier I heard the question from my colleague who wanted to know why seniors aged 65 to 74 are not entitled to the $500 cheque or the proposed increase of $63.50 a month, as opposed to $110 a month as the Bloc wants. I heard that it was not a question of age but of statistics.

I do not know what to say to my constituents when I return to my riding. There is obviously frustration. People feel left behind, and there are two classes of seniors. I would like to see the figures because I just do not believe it.

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

Madam Speaker, I do not think there is any evidence to suggest that there are two classes. What I was saying in response to the previous Bloc question was that, to me, what is important is that people are taken care of. There is evidence to suggest that the older people get, the more their savings are depleted along the way.

Five years ago people could not retire at age 65, it was 67, which is a whole other issue. When people retire at 65, they have more saved-up wealth that they can then use. As they get older, we are seeing that people are finding it harder and harder to meet their basic needs. When I say that the number does not matter, it is because I do not think the number is arbitrary. I think the number has been set because it properly reflects when people need increased supports.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to enter into debate on this concurrence report and, more broadly, the budget in general.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Cariboo—Prince George.

More than a year late, swimming in red ink and rife with risky new economic strategies based on the Liberals' reimagined Canada, the Liberals appear to be doubling down on failures. It is with great disappointment that we look back at the budget presented a couple of weeks ago and see how, in so many ways, it misses the mark on what Canadians need.

I am going to try something a little bit different in this speech. My communications assistant has livestreamed my speech as well. I am going to try to get some comments on the record from constituents, some of whom have written to me about the budget in the past and others who I am expecting will comment on Facebook. This is the first time I have tried something like this, so we will go from there.

Audrey from my constituency says clearly, “Instead of begging other countries for vaccines, we need to ensure Canadian manufacturing, like Providence Therapeutics that I would note just announced that they may be moving out of Canada. Without vaccines we won't be able to get back to work and a large percentage of small businesses that employ women may no longer exist”.

Debra says, “There would be money for programs if the Prime Minister's Liberals stop giving our money away to the Infrastructure Bank, China and their friends.”

Fred says, “With budget debate starting today, could we possibly get an answer as to why the OAS increase starts at 75 instead of 65 when OAS starts? Is that the Prime Minister's way to save money since by 75 there are some who will already have passed on?”

Those are a few of the concerns that I have heard from constituents.

When we look at other aspects of the budget we see a child care plan. I agree that a child care strategy is needed. In 2006, this was a heavily litigated issue in the election. In fact, it was Conservatives who ran on a universal child care plan. The Liberals like to take credit for the Canada child care benefit, but really what they did was take over a program that was introduced by the Conservatives and was incredibly popular. It was first brought forward in 2006 during that election. The Liberals adjusted it a little bit. Instead of paying taxes based on income, with a flat rate for every Canadian, they made it income dependent. They then ran on it as their own and claimed it as their own, but it was an idea brought forward by Canada's Conservatives and it was incredibly popular. It ensured that the playing field was level.

It is interesting because what is proposed in this budget actually goes against what the Prime Minister wrote in the Minister of Finance's mandate letter. He talked about her being careful not to introduce any more permanent spending. We have an Ottawa-knows-best approach to child care.

I am a Conservative, so ideologically I would suggest that often we can see that the government is not overly effective at delivering these programs. If we look, for example, at many of the government-run agencies and institutions across the country, we can simply see that they are not the best use of tax dollars. They are not effective in terms of providing the best services for Canadians. I have heard from some constituents and will admit there are some who are happy about the possibility of more child care spaces, but they are concerned that these will be focused on urban areas and will leave rural Canada behind, as we often see in these big government programs. There are many others who have alternative child care arrangements, such as when one parent chooses to stay home because they have a small business or differing hours, or when a grandparent, aunt, uncle or whomever provides child care. They may use an unregistered day care, which is how many Canadians get their child care. Those are all not part of the plan. It is an Ottawa-knows-best approach.

We see the $100 billion green infrastructure fund, which is a slush fund with little accountability. Forgive me for not trusting the government with that kind of money when we see 9,000 missing projects with the Canada Infrastructure Bank, and now the government wants another $100 billion.

With the rent and wage subsidy, my hon. colleague from Niagara Falls articulated very well some of the challenges. I have two communities in particular, and other small businesses across my constituency, that depend on seasonal tourism. To see it phased out at a time when we will hopefully just be starting to see a recovery is very problematic in terms of these businesses being able to survive.

I will get into a few more of those specifics, but I would just like to read a few of the comments I am getting on Facebook. Jesse is talking about the budget and feeling very sad for Canada. Shauna talks about the reimagined economy and that risky economic idea. It is troubling that, at a time when Canadians need leadership, we are not seeing it.

I have a comment from Ken saying he is concerned about how the Liberals seem to deflect the very valid questions Canadians are asking. These are not my comments. These are comments from, in this case, followers on Facebook. Canadians are asking some very serious questions.

I find this interesting with this budget. I have spent a great deal of time over the last number of months talking about the need for democracy, an essential service, and the Liberals talk often about a team Canada approach to the COVID response and otherwise. It is interesting to see who is included in team Canada. We saw with Parliament shut down there was so often a lack of collaboration.

I would add that I hope I have a new follower on Facebook in the member for Kingston and the Islands. I am certain my constituents will appreciate his comment.

This team Canada approach seems to leave many behind. It is unfortunate because, at a time when Canadians need leadership, they are left wanting. This may be because of the 750 pages in the budget, which many pundits and political observers have suggested is simply the precursor for an election platform.

The Prime Minister even let it slip over the Christmas holidays about expecting an election. Canadians are not looking for an election. They are looking for leadership out of some incredibly challenging times.

We see so clearly the need for leadership at a time when, as many have rightly suggested, we face significant challenges, whether as small businesses, families, women or young people who do not have the opportunities that should be present.

It has been interesting to try Facebook Live while doing a speech in the House of Commons. I am not sure that has been done before, but I look forward to maybe incorporating this again in the future.

I am seeing questions asking where the money coming from. I have a tremendous amount of research on swimming in red ink, as I mentioned before. We saw a deficit in the last year where there was no budgetary framework. It was approximately equivalent to the previous year's entire federal budget. That is debt being accrued by our country.

As I read through the budget, the debt repayment plan that has been outlined by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance has just been to make sure we refinance at a lower interest rate. That is not a debt and fiscal plan that Canadians can trust will not damage our future. That is money that will have to be paid back. I know it is the sort of thinking that could cause significant economic damage to our nation's future, the very future that the Prime Minister and the government talk about, yet they are being left behind by some of these risky strategies.

I look forward to taking some question from other members of the House. I would note that the member for Kingston and the Islands did comment on my Facebook post. I am not sure if that counts as his intervention or not.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member mentioned infrastructure, slush funds and money that he thinks is not being well spent. This morning there was an announcement in my city of Brampton for electric buses. We are finally getting electric buses out on the road starting tomorrow.

Just a couple of weeks before that, we had an infrastructure announcement for a third bus facility in my neighbouring riding, the largest of its kind in that riding. This is really going to help set Brampton up to be a great city. To me, it is a requirement. We have a growing immigrant population and a lot of people really need good, clean and safe transportation to get to work. These investments can be life-changing.

What part of the budget would he like to see cut for Canadians?

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, I find it interesting that the members opposite are always so quick to say that it is all about what we would cut.

Conservatives look at things a little differently. The metric for success for the Liberals seems to be the more money they can shovel out the door, the more successful a program is. The reality is very different. Conservatives are focused on ensuring that dollars actually deliver for Canadians and that every dollar spent is respected, is held accountable and has the biggest benefit possible. I would suggest that is a fundamental difference between Conservatives and Liberals.

When it comes to this infrastructure project, $100 billion would buy a lot of buses. Certainly, I hope that is not a precursor to some of the conversations that we had when the previous minister of infrastructure, when bragging about billions and billions spent, was only able to talk about a few buses that were purchased. Canadians expect a lot more than a few buses for $100 billion.

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

Madam Speaker, I did comment on the member's Facebook page, although he did not read out my comment, which is fair. I will say that I admire his desire to use technology for the purpose that he did. I thought that was very creative, so kudos for that.

I do not think the member answered the question from the member for Brampton North. The question was about what he would actually take out. It is fair, when he says he does not support this level of spending, to ask him to tell us where he would start to remove money.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, I did answer the question. The engagement on my Facebook page from the member opposite will make waves in the constituency of Battle River—Crowfoot, I have no doubt.

Again, I bring it back to the base level of what we are taking about. Dollars spent are not a metric of success. We have spent a tremendous amount during the COVID pandemic, and Conservatives have supported much of that spending because Canadians needed it. Would we have done things differently? Absolutely. We would have adjusted programs. In fact, we made a lot of suggestions and the Liberals did take some of our advice, but on other fronts they did not.

We have seen what happens at different times throughout our history when the finances of the country are not kept in mind, and when there is not a strong fiscal framework, let alone there not being a budget or a budgetary framework for an entire year. We have had nothing more than a fiscal selfie, yet there is such extraordinary spending. Now, we see increasing evidence that we are being set up for an inflation rate that could drive more Canadians into poverty.

These are all very concerning things. The government simply talks about the more dollars spent, the better. If we are going to spend money, let us make sure that it actually serves Canadians, that every dollar is respected and that there is accountability to ensure that it is actually serving the best interests of the Canadians who pay those taxes, which is why it can be spent in the first place.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise this evening to speak to the concurrence motion for the first report of the Standing Committee on Finance, entitled “Investing in Tomorrow: Canadian Priorities for Economic Growth and Recovery”. There is a lot in the 378-page report that I am sure the minister did not have a chance to look or did not even look at.

For the sake of time, I would like to focus my speech this evening on a few key priorities that affect my riding. However, first, I want to speak to something our colleague, the member for Kingston and the Islands spoke about, and that is mental health.

The House unanimously supported a motion I put forward 143 days ago to bring a simple three-digit national suicide prevention hotline to our country. It has been 143 days. Let us put that in perspective. We know by the statistics that 11 Canadians take their own lives every 24 hours and another 275 attempt to take their lives every 24 hours. To do the simple math, 143 days equates to 1,573 people who have lost their lives and another 39,325 who have attempted to take their lives. Let that sink in for a moment. While my Liberal friends can sit there and talk about $1 billion, which is not a small number, in supports that this budget included, we need to be better and we need to do better. It is incumbent upon all 338 members of the House to do better for Canadians when it comes to mental health. There is no health without mental health. I will leave members with that.

I would like to talk about recommendation 55, support for tourism and culture; recommendation 63, support for municipal assets; recommendation 72, support for rural Canadian infrastructure; and recommendation 74, support for high-speed Internet in rural Canada.

Recommendation 55 talks about the chance to support local, cultural, tourism and hospitality sectors. I have stood in the House and spoke about how COVID has impacted companies such as Central Display and C+ Rodeos ranch in my riding. I have talked about how areas in my community, such as Williams Lake, Quesnel, Vanderhoof and Prince George, depend so dearly on their events, like the Williams Lake Stampede, the greatest show on dirt; Billy Barker Days; the BC Northern Exhibition; or the the Vanderhoof International Airshow. These communities are struggling. However, what we have seen in this budget is really not a lot of support for these companies.

I spoke about how Roy and Earl Call ran the C+ Rodeos ranch for over 25 years. They are the tops in the rodeo business in terms of rodeo stock. They are among the top 10 in Canada. When those companies have to downsize, it means animals lose their lives. Regardless of whether a show is going on or not, those animals need to be fed. If no dollars are coming in to support and feed those animals, sadly, they have to be euthanized. We know that this has gone on right across our country. That rodeo stock is bred specifically for high performance; they are athletes. If no shows are going on, then something needs to be done.

I talked about Central Display, a company that puts on conventions and conferences all across northern British Columbia. It has been struggling to make ends meet. I talked about all types of organizations, such as Barkerville, a historic site in our country. It is struggling to makes ends meet.

This budget falls short with respect to our national post-pandemic needs in so many ways. If members do not believe me, let us talk about all the premiers and mayors who have spoken out about it from coast to coast to coast. It seems like our Liberal colleagues believe that once COVID is done, it is just a flip of a switch and everything will be all right. Sadly, we know we are going to face a mental health crisis like never before.

We know that over 200,000 businesses have had to close their doors. That is millions of Canadians who are out of work. We know that as we sit today one in six businesses is considering closing its doors.

I want to talk about support for municipal infrastructure: roads, roads, roads. If members follow my Twitter feed, they will see that over 200 roads in my riding are compromised by landslides and washouts or are impassible altogether. I want to talk about the Quesnel-Hydraulic Road, where in April 2020 a 400-metre section was washed out. This forced the residents of that area to ride or drive and travel on a mountain pass logging road, one that should not be intended for passenger vehicles, for over a year. Emergency crews will not go on it. Ambulance and fire support will not go on it. School districts will not send their school buses on that road.

If Canadians who are listening want to see images of what that road looks like and some of the other damage that is going on, they can go to my Twitter feed. They will see that on my social media. Those are real-time photos, and there is more coming. We have been raising these issues with the infrastructure minister, as well as the transportation minister, since 2017. We knew there were going to be challenges with the 2017 wildfires and the root structures that are missing.

Another thing I want to talk about is connectivity. This budget announces a billion dollars toward getting Canadians connected. Then there is $4 billion for getting businesses online. Is that not backwards? Should we not be doing everything we can to get Canadians connected?

Madam Speaker, you of all people will know the challenges that MPs from coast to coast to coast face with our connectivity issues every day. We were just having a storm up here in Prince George and I was worried that I would not be able to make my speech because in a blink, just like that, we can get booted off because of our connectivity issues. We have to do everything in our power so that all Canadians, regardless of where they are, are connected and have access to the Internet. That makes sense post-pandemic, that we have telehealth, that Canadians can connect with their friends and family better, that we are putting a concerted effort and getting businesses and rural and remote communities connected.

There are lessons that we should have learned over COVID, but sadly what we have seen in this budget is that the Liberals just want to pay off their friends and create a further divide between urban and rural. That is sad.

I believe it was one of our NDP colleagues who said that the budget is always an important document and it is always an important week when the budget comes out because this really is our keystone document as we move forward. We have just had two years of no budget and we have gone through perhaps the worst year in our country's history, and then we see a budget like this. There are a lot of great recommendations in this report. Sadly, what we have seen with this budget is that this is not a budget; rather, it is a pre-election platform. When the election is called, when the writ is dropped, I suggest that the word “budget” will be taken out and the word “platform” will be submitted.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member and I spend a lot of time together on the veterans committee, and I really appreciate the work he does there.

My question for the member goes back to veterans. What we have seen in this last budget is another announcement for an interim program to help veterans who are on a huge wait-list, up to two years, for their disability pensions, for the supports they desperately need. Here we have another program. What we heard at committee again and again is that what veterans and their families want is one person who knows their story so they do not have to repeat it again and again. I wonder if the member could speak to this and how we are continuously seeing veterans failed in Canada.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, I get fairly emotional when we talk about our veterans and those who serve our country and our community.

Our freedom is not free. It comes at a very real cost and a very real sacrifice to those who serve our country and their families. Sadly, what we have seen is that time and again they are forgotten. They are told to go to the back of the line instead of being told, “Thank you, your bill has been paid in full.”

We need to do more. We need to make sure that they have that one-stop shop and that they do not have to continually relive the stories. It re-traumatizes veterans and their families. We can do more. We should do more. Sadly, this budget would not do more.

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

Madam Speaker, my colleague talked about small businesses and some of the challenges that owners are facing.

Dave Ball, who owns VanIsle Wine and Beer Makers, got a CEBA loan. Five months ago, the government announced the increase to the CEBA and he applied for it. Now, there is a technical issue and he cannot get the increase. Here we are five months later, he cannot get the increase and we hear that there are 60,000 business owners in the same position. We have written to the minister, we cannot get a reply. There is no hotline for Dave to call to get information about his application. In fact, we have been asking the government to increase the CEBA loan from $60,000 to $80,000 because we are in the third wave where many business owners are struggling for their businesses to survive.

Could my colleague share whether he has constituents in the same situation, who have applied for the CEBA loan extension but cannot get an answer as to whether they are going to get it? Does he think that we should increase the CEBA loan for those business owners who need extra help, especially those in hospitality and tourism and those being impacted most greatly by the pandemic?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, my hon. B.C. colleague from Courtenay—Alberni also reminded me of another thing.

Absolutely, I have heard the exact same thing. We are failing small business owners and we need to do more for them.

The member reminded me of something I failed to mention in my speech, and that is the opioid crisis in British Columbia. We are facing dire times, not only here in our province but right across this country, and this budget fails to do anything for that. We need to do better for those who are struggling with mental health and addiction, and this budget falls short.

[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]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate what the member has been talking about but I wanted to emphasize that under programs such as the provincial restart program, the federal government has invested tens of millions, going into hundreds of millions, of dollars into health support with a special focus on mental health. Other provinces have played an important role by working with Ottawa to deal with this issue. I wonder if the member could provide his thoughts in regard to the fact that we have been investing more money in mental health than the previous administration had.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, our previous Conservative government set up the Mental Health Commission. We need to do more. We are failing Canadians when it comes to mental health. There is no health without mental health, and until we actually view mental health in parity with physical health we are failing Canadians.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, as some members will know, I used to sit on the finance committee in a previous Parliament. I do not get to do that now as chair for the Conservative caucus, but I see this is a report that has 145 recommendations and is one of the biggest in the past five to six years. Typically, what I have noticed is that the Liberal government has been ignoring the finance committee's recommendations, and in this concurrence report we have an opportunity to compare what is in the recommendations from the pre-budget submission to the government, created by the Standing Committee on Finance, with the actual budget document. We can compare the two and what has been proposed.

Some of these recommendations I actually agree with, but I know the government has no intentions of following through. The recommendations are either not in the budget document, or the Liberals have gone completely silent, so I want to highlight those issues I am most interested in.

Recommendation 12 is a good one: “Ensure that the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board changes do not create barriers for new medicines for Canadians.” It is Canadians with rare diseases who would be impacted by these changes. January 1 was when these new regulations were supposed to be coming in. I do not think I have spoken to a single patient advocacy group or stakeholder group that has said these changes were terrific and that they should go through, especially during a pandemic when we have interim health orders and special rules put in place by the federal health minister to manage the pandemic. This is the wrong time to be introducing changes such as this.

Now they have been delayed to July 1, so we have less than two short months, and the federal government should be delaying it further. This is the wrong time to be introducing PMPRB changes that would deeply impact new medications coming onto the market, including vaccinations that will be coming onto the market here in Canada, because they provide so little direction to provincial governments, health insurers and benefit plans. It would create more uncertainty.

In fact, it would create so much uncertainty that Alberta Health Services, the operator of the Alberta health care system, sent a letter to the federal health minister saying that these rules did not make sense. It could not inform the manufacturers or the people it negotiated with to give them any type of certainty on what the future would look like. That is Alberta Health Services, the provincial health insurer, telling the federal government it had gotten it wrong and that even it was confused by the contents. That was repeated by the Quebec government, and the British Columbia government said the same thing.

One of the biggest worries I have is that the federal government is taking its lead from an organization that, in its annual report to Parliament, says that medication is going up in cost and is actually one of the biggest drivers of health care costs in Canada, with 70% of those costs coming from expensive drugs for rare diseases. These are very expensive drugs, of which Kalydeco is a good example. The problem with what the PMPRB is doing is that, in that 70%, there are many rare disease medications that are given for everyday conditions. The health care systems decide that a rare disease medication works for a condition really well, and they allow it to be prescribed off-label. The federal regulator, this organization that is only supposed to look at excessive pricing of medication, is saying it is going to include that as if it was given to someone with a rare disease, and that is wrong. That is not the way it should be done. I have called them out on it at the health committee. I continue to do so in public advocacy, but recommendation 12 is very good. I think the finance committee got it correct, and the federal government is getting it wrong.

Recommendation 15 is about Diabetes Canada asking for Diabetes 360° to be implemented in Canada. I think this is a very good recommendation. I know there are many diabetics in my riding who suffer from this condition or have children or family members who suffer from it. This, to the government's credit, is in budget 2021. Diabetes is a condition that is chronic, and its numbers are going up. Every single year in Canada, more Canadians suffer from it. This is one of these chronic conditions that will crush the different medical systems in Canada, because there are so many associated costs. I have a friend who lost half of his foot to diabetes. It is a terrible condition, so I am pleased it is in both the pre-budget submission and budget 2021.

I will move on to recommendation 23, to “Uncouple the eligibility for the disability tax credit...and a registered disability savings plan”, so if someone loses access to the DTC, they would not also lose the RDSP and have to refund the RDSP. Members will remember that in the last Parliament the federal government, through the CRA, went through an audit process in which it denied tens of thousands of people with type 2 diabetes very unfairly. Many of those then also lost access to the RDSP and were forced into this massive refund.

There are many members on the Conservative side, in other parties, and on the Liberal benches as well, although not in the government unfortunately, who thought this was deeply unfair. Uncoupling it would be the right way to go, but it would be much better if the CRA simply ceased going after diabetics in this country and treated them like people who have a very bad chronic medical condition.

Recommendation 24, asking to make the disability tax credit refundable, is a very good recommendation. I had a private member's bill on this in the last Parliament, which I am hoping to reintroduce with some tweaks in this Parliament.

The disability tax credit is for Canadians with disabilities that never go away. Some people are unable to walk, like my daughter who passed away in the last Parliament. People with a rare condition like Patau syndrome, which she had, Edwards syndrome or spinal muscular atrophy will never walk, and the disability tax credit makes it possible for parents, when they still need support, to pay for things like a wheelchair or assistance to get into a bed. It pays for those costs. However, with the way it is set up right now, lower-income Canadians do not get access to it because they are not paying taxes. This is a good recommendation, and I really wish the government had taken it up, because it would help lower-income Canadians especially.

I am going to move on to recommendation 45, which asks us to adopt Bill C-395, the opportunity for workers with disabilities act, from the 42nd Parliament. It is also about disabilities. The member for Carleton actually proposed this private member's bill. This is a terrific idea for a person who chooses to work when they have a disability, like a learning disability or a physical disability, that makes them unable to work perhaps a full week or makes it challenging for them to go to a workplace every day even though they want to. They get innate dignity from working and a great sense of self-worth just for showing up to work and doing a job with their own two hands, and they should not be made worse off at the end of the day. There are a lot of programs, such as PDD and AISH in Alberta, that penalize people who go to work. They actually lose more money than they get from them.

I am glad to see that the finance committee decided to put that recommendation in. However, it is very sad that for budget 2021, it was not added into the bill. It would bring a great amount of fairness to persons with disabilities.

I have looked at the content of the pre-budget report and budget 2021. There is a Yiddish proverb that says, “It doesn't cost anything to look”, so I'm looking through the window at what's being done.

Recommendation 62 says, “Simplify access and implementation of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation funds for housing.” I have been a huge critic of the CMHC and I make no apologies for it whatsoever. However, I do welcome Romy Bowers, who is the new chief executive officer, and look forward to filing many, many access to information requests with the CMHC.

I do not like this recommendation because the CMHC is there to provide one service. I know it tried to rename itself “housing Canada”, and I believe it misled a parliamentary committee when it pretended that it was not using current funds to fund the rebranding. This has been set aside during the pandemic as something to do in the future, but hopefully CMHC will return to Parliament to ask for more money to do the project.

It has a project called the first-time home buyer incentive, which was introduced before the 2019 federal election. At the time I called it an election gimmick. Officials were saying that this was going to help 100,000 first-time homebuyers in Canada, but by my count, as of January 31, 2021, there have been 9,108 approvals. One hundred thousand people were supposed to be helped between 2019 and 2022. We are about at the midway point now, and we have 9,108 approvals. Also, an approval does not mean that a first-time homebuyer actually followed through and accepted the offer to have the government share in the equity of their home in a purchase. I strongly believe that even if we simplified access and implementation, this program would still be a failure.

During the 2019 election, the governing party announced that it was going to change the rules for the incentive to make it easier, to broaden the reach and to expand the income levels so that people could still apply for it. The city where the most people applied for it and took the offer from the federal government through the CMHC is Edmonton. Edmonton is perhaps an expensive city in the Alberta context, but it is nothing compared with Vancouver or Toronto. Very few people in those two large metropolitan areas took advantage of it.

I do not like this recommendation because, frankly, the CMHC's primary purpose for existing is to provide mortgage insurance for chartered banks, credit unions and financial institutions. That is its primary role and it should focus on that job. It acts as a backstop. It does an immense service by providing and broadening the ability of first-time homebuyers to become homeowners. That is the purpose of its existence. I am happy to continue to criticize the previous CEO now that he has joined Alberta Investment Management Corporation, but that is the purpose of CMHC. Home ownership is the purpose of CMHC. That is what it was created for. I do not like this recommendation because I do not like it getting more powers. I am sure I will get a letter in the mail from someone at CMHC disagreeing with me and I look forward to submitting an ATIP for the drafting of that letter as well.

Recommendation No. 90 says, “Require the companies receiving the Large Employer Emergency Financing Facility”, which was the LEEFF program, a program that some employers in Calgary did take advantage of, “to prove that their business plans are in line with the Paris Agreement target to limit temperature increase to 1.5 degrees.” This is interesting because the Paris Agreement does not say 1.5°C. It has several models in it, too. The IPCC also talks about several different models. A lot of that work is based on the social cost of carbon by William Nordhaus, who is an award-winning Nobel laureate.

This is the stuff that really worries my constituents. This is the stuff where they start accusing the government of trying to reimagine the economy and taking advantage of a crisis to force through its ideas. The large employer emergency financing facility was to help large employers during a pandemic. It should not be used to then leverage them on the one side to do policy objectives of the government and, on top of that, who is going to review these business plans? Who is going to sit down and kind of add up what is leading to the Celsius degree reach?

For a trucking company I might be able to understand it, but what about a really large employer like a post-secondary institution? That is where it becomes really difficult. Who is going to review my business plan if I am trying to teach tens of thousands of students every single year? What does that have to do with demonstrating my temperature increase? Do I need to lower the thermostat in my buildings? Stuff like that seems kind of ridiculous, so I am perplexed as to why it is in this finance pre-budget document.

The report goes on like that. There are some good ideas and some bad ones. Recommendation No. 109 says, “Require airlines to reimburse their customers whose flights are cancelled.” I agree with that. I have a lot of constituents who are extremely angry at the airlines. Calgary is home to WestJet, which used to be its biggest employer after the downturn in the oil and gas economy. Now that the pandemic has hit, oil has drastically rebounded and is very close to $70 for West Texas Intermediate and Western Canadian Select is just a few dollars behind it, so the price of a barrel of oil is very strong right now.

A lot of my constituents still have not gotten their refunds. The government has struck a deal with Air Canada and WestJet is still waiting to hear from the federal government, but independent travel advisers also cannot be hurt with any refund. I know the two major airlines, and others have been doing it too, are leveraging independent travel advisers, trying to extract out of them their commissions for services already rendered. I really wish this recommendation had included independent travel advisers. I have probably met with 40 to 50 in my riding several times. They are suffering. They are small business owners, typically they are single parents and it is a really big deal.

Recommendation No. 123 says, “Withdraw from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.” I have been on this train for four years now trying to get the federal government to withdraw from this bank. It was the member for Malpeque who put it best to the government when he said that the federal government needed to wake up and smell the roses. This is the only way we are going to find leverage.

Canadians are being held against their will in the People's Republic of China. It has cracked down on democracy activists in Hong Kong and renegued on the basic agreement it signed with the United Kingdom. It has intimidated Taiwan, which is an ally and close friend of Canada. It has tried to annex the South China Sea. It has persecuted over a million Muslim Uighurs, an ethnic minority in Xinjiang province, that it has interned in concentration camps to try to wipe them out culturally.

The least the federal government could do is get a stick and withdraw from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as a way to apply political pressure, to have a G7 country back out of the AIIB, a bank that is based in Beijing, has built pipelines in the suburbs of Beijing, has built pipelines in other countries and financed projects. In Recommendation No. 123, I really wish the federal government had taken this on.

It is nice to see an all-party committee such as the Standing Committee on Finance actually say to the federal government that it is right, and no less than the chair of the committee tell the federal government it is wrong on the matter of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. We need to withdraw from it. It would send a signal to Beijing that we will not be intimidated and that we will stand up for the two Michaels, and other Canadians who could be, in the future, held hostage by a regime that has taken advantage of the federal government at every single opportunity.

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

It being 8:56 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith the question on the motion now before the House.

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.