Debates of June 22nd, 2021

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is so important for the federal government to work with individual provinces, with their leaders and, quite frankly, with their governments. Everyone has to come to the table. It is important that everyone has a voice at the table and whatever works best between the federal government and each specific province is a direction about which we certainly need to talk.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Essex for pointing out that the Liberals love making things up. One of the things that they suffer from is a disease called “dyspocketnesia”. What it means is taking from “this pocket”, which is the taxpayer pocket, and putting it into “that pocket”, which is the government's pocket, and then forgetting about why they did it.

One person who does not forget about things that the Liberals do is the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who points out the Liberal claim that they would create 315,000 jobs this year, 334,000 in 2022, and 280,000 in 2023. He notes that it is more likely 39,000 jobs this year, 74,000 next year and 94,000 in the year after that.

I wonder if my colleague would mind commenting about these job numbers.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day, there are other people who know about the taking money out of this pocket and putting it into that one. It is everyday taxpayers. It is the young 20 or 21-year-old man and woman who pays taxes and wonders what is left in their bank account at the end of the day.

As I mentioned in my speech, 54,000 jobs directly related to manufacturing in Windsor-Essex are coming under the gun if we do not get this ship righted really soon.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member's speech. He said that everybody needed help, and I agree. Seniors who are not getting their OAS increase because they are under the age of 75 but over the age of 65 need to be treated equally.

People are going to be cut from their CRB payments when they are not going back to work yet. Businesses, in particular in the tourism industry, are not going to have the wage subsidy extended in time.

The member also talked about the debt. I wonder how he sees these two things fitting together. Who should be bucking up and paying their fair share?

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, they are directly related. I do appreciate the fact that he brought up tourism. Tourism in my riding of Essex has been devastated beyond belief. One hand will feed the other, but we must have tourism to drive that back up and to drive down the deficit.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak to the budget implementation bill.

Before I do that, I would just like to say thank you to some people. Undoubtedly, one of the problems with a minority Parliament is that we never quite know when that election might come. Whether the rumours are true or not, two years is certainly, by conventional wisdom, on par with the standard length of a minority Parliament, so I will take this opportunity to give thanks to some people.

I have been coming to this House for 75 sitting days in a row. I have been in the House almost every single hour, every single minute. I just referenced my own participation and attendance in the House, which I think I am allowed to do.

I could not have done this work without the incredible work of the folks back in my offices. We all know we have these incredible teams of people who work behind the scenes. In particular, in Ottawa, I have Kaitlin and Kelly, who have been working to help me prepare for here.

Then, of course, because I have been here so much, I have not been able to be back in my riding or working on a lot of that constituency work. I have three incredible women in my Kingston office, Ann, Nicole and Jennifer, who have been handling that case work and working with the government to help people through these difficult times.

I just want to give a huge thank you to them for being so supportive in the functions and for being an incredible team that really knows how to come together.

I also would like to say thank you to you, Mr. Speaker. When you first announced you would not be running again, I said something briefly, but I have really enjoyed you as Deputy Speaker. I hope that means something coming from the riding that also produced the longest serving Speaker of the House of Commons, Peter Milliken. We certainly have a keen eye for a good Speaker.

You have undoubtedly done such a good job in your role as Deputy Speaker throughout the years. Whenever you are in the chair, I have admired your patience with us, even at times when we seem to be at each other's throats. Thank you for that.

Getting toward my discussion on the budget, I would like to talk about the first responders out there who have literally been fighting this pandemic on the front lines for the last 15 to 16 months. We come to this place and we fight, argue, debate and create policy with the hopes that it impacts those on the front lines and makes a genuine difference in the work they do. At the end of the day, they are the ones we need to be looking out for, making sure they have the right tools to fight and do the incredible work they do.

A lot of those frontline workers are probably not even all that keenly interested in what is going on in this place, but nonetheless we have an incredible obligation to make sure they have what they need to do the job they are doing on our behalf.

To that end, I know it has come up in this debate from a couple of different members, I would like to take this opportunity to appeal to members of the House with respect to something that happened in this House yesterday. Hopefully we could learn from the experience.

I learned very early on in my political career, back in municipal politics in Kingston, that it is fair game to be fighting and disagreeing with other politicians. We are elected. We choose to be put in this position. We choose to come forward, voice our opinions and engage in those debates and that dialogue. However, staff do not. What we witnessed here yesterday was something that, quite frankly, has not happened in this Parliament, in this institution, for more than 100 years.

We dragged a public civil servant to the bar of the House of Commons, to Parliament, to receive a scolding from the Speaker. I am appealing to members because of my desire to try to have them recognize that that is not proper conduct toward a public servant. If there is disagreement or concern over the manner in which a government or a particular minister is acting, it would be entirely appropriate to engage in holding them accountable, and if they wanted to, to pull that minister before the bar, if they could do that, and to exercise the same kind of decision or scolding on them.

I just do not think it is right to bring a public servant, especially the lead of the Public Health Agency of Canada while we are in the middle of a global pandemic, to be used as a political tool, as we saw yesterday. It is just not appropriate and, in fact, it has very rarely ever happened. Never has a public servant come before the bar. The last time a private citizen did was in 1913.

For all the differences we have in this place, I really hope we can learn something from yesterday and commit to never doing that again. Politicians are here to be the ones who are in the line of fire, not our public servants, who are doing the incredible work on behalf of Canadians. I will note that my understanding is that that particular public servant has been in executive positions in public health for the last 17 years, which spans multiple governments of different parties.

I did obviously want to speak to the budget implementation act, and I am very proud to be supportive of this. I am very proud not just of the government, but also of this Parliament, for the way it acted 15 or 16 months ago to get supports to Canadians, quite often through unanimous consent motions. We were passing motions in this House to immediately trigger sending money to Canadians who needed it. It was not just because Canadians needed the money, although that is incredibly important, but also because we were encouraging people to stay home.

In the beginning of this pandemic, the objective was to get people to stay home. We did not want people to go out because we did not want them to become infected and for the pandemic to spread. We saw our public service working through the direction of Parliament to send money out in record speeds. When we think about what it did in four short weeks back in March of 2020, it is truly remarkable. I am indeed proud of all members of this Parliament for working together.

I know different parties had different ideas about how much the wage subsidy should be, and I think we ended up with better proposals and better policies as a result of those deliberations and discussions. I am very relieved to see this budget, and it looks like it will be supported and that it will pass, so we can continue those supports through to the end of this pandemic.

We see the light at the end of the tunnel. We can see what is coming, and we can see we are going to be, fingers crossed, in a much better position in the coming weeks and months in terms of relaxing restrictions throughout the country. We can see Canadians will be getting back to life like it was before the pandemic.

I think knowing the government and Parliament were there for them genuinely means a lot to Canadians because, when it was necessary to provide the supports, the government, and indeed Parliament, had their backs. It is extremely rewarding for me personally to see that we were able to do that.

I also think there is a great opportunity here. I will choose my words carefully, because when our Minister of Finance said that there was a political opportunity she was pounced on and her words were taken out of context. At the heart of this, there is an opportunity in all of this to look at the way in which Canadians are supported, where we can do better and where we can make corrections. For example, long-term care homes and developing national standards on long-term care homes is something we can do better in.

This pandemic has provided us with an opportunity to say that we failed many seniors in long-term care homes and must do better. It is a provincial jurisdiction, and I certainly do not want to reopen the debate with the Bloc Québécois about who is responsible for what. I totally accept provinces are responsible for long-term care, but the federal government could play a leadership role in defining how we can develop some long-term care standards, just like we do with our national building code, as one example.

We can also look at this as an opportunity to say we need to invest in our economy now if we want to come roaring out of this and ask ourselves where the best place is to invest right now. If we look throughout the world, we see new technologies developing.

There is an opportunity here for the government to determine if it should continue to invest just in traditional infrastructure like roads and bridges or also look at some of these new technologies. We could help businesses develop them so these technologies and new opportunities can continue to spin off for years and decades to come.

Therefore, I think it is entirely appropriate to look at where we can position ourselves in the global economy in the years to come and use that as a strategy for where to invest money now. It is incredibly indicative of the government to take that approach and quite frankly for any government would take that approach.

I find it concerning and unfortunate that the words of the Minister of Finance were taken out of context when she said that there is a political opportunity to look at child care. The opposition clipped half of her sentence, because what she was really saying is there is a political opportunity to look at the way we are approaching child care.

I am very happy to see the budget announcement on child care. I will start off by saying we probably owe to the Province of Quebec for the desire and need to move toward more affordable child care. Quite frankly, it has done an incredible job of showing what child care supports can mean to individual families and some of the burden it relieves.

It has recognized that, in 2021, it is not only the responsibility of parents to raise children, but also that of our collective society. That is where child care comes in, and why I think we are better off as Canadians because of Quebec's experience with child care.

Not only has Quebec seen an increase in people in the workforce as a result of its incredibly good child care program, it has particularly seen more women in the workforce, which is incredibly important because, more often than not, it is women who end up staying at home with the children. By using child care opportunities to help subsidize those costs, Quebec has seen more women enter the workforce, which has contributed to more economic activity, which means more income taxes paid. It has also contributed to more women pursuing the entrepreneurial desires they may have held back on because they chose to or were expected to stay at home with children.

Therefore, I look at this child care plan in the budget as not only a support for families, but also as an economic opportunity to unleash into the marketplace and the labour force those people who want to work, but for one reason or another, based on their family situation and young children, have chosen not to participate. That would result in more people working and paying taxes.

This would also result in having more entrepreneurs and people running family businesses, generating income and creating ideas, which would be better for our entire society and indeed all Canadians. Therefore, as the government strives to provide more supports with respect to child care, I hope it takes a long, hard look at the incredibly efficient model Quebec has produced and how it has changed the labour force, according to the statistics that have come out.

I will also touch briefly on seniors and the OAS. I know that has been coming up a lot. In particular, there has been a lot of criticism about how the increase should be for every senior over the age of 65, which is a really good talking point. It sells well and delivers well when the Bloc and NDP members continually bring it up. However, the reality of the situation is that, the longer seniors are in retirement, the more of their savings they go through and the less they have as they get older. This is not the case for every senior, but it is the case for low-income seniors in particular.

The government had a choice here. It could either increase the amount for everybody or increase it even more for those aged 75 and over. Of course, in response to that, we are asked why we did not increase it for everybody. Well, there are limitations. There are budgetary limitations and decisions that have to be made from time to time with respect to how much money to spend. I think the government is trying to balance the objective of having meaningful supports with the genuine need for them.

I do not hold the NDP and the Bloc entirely in distain, for lack of a better expression, for using that argument. I think it is a very effective political argument, so I can appreciate why they are doing it, but I think it is important to recognize why the current approach is the right one.

Finally, I want to talk about the debt incurred as a result of the pandemic, because I know that has been coming up a lot. The reality of the situation is that if we had told any member of the House two years ago that the debt would be over a trillion dollars, they would have probably laughed and said nothing. When I think back to the first majority Parliament session that I was a part of, I remember that people were harping about an extra $10 billion being spent or said the deficit was supposed to be $10 billion and it ended up being $20 billion.

We are now talking about hundreds of billions of dollars. It is over a trillion dollars. Indeed it is a lot of money, but the choices were quite clear: Do we invest in Canadians so that we can come out of this in a much better position, or do we leave people on their own? It is not a Liberal, Conservative or NDP thing. Every member agreed on it. Every member voted in favour of it, and we had unanimous consent motions to spend the money because members knew it had to be done.

As I indicated in a question for the member for New Westminster—Burnaby earlier, this was acceptable because every country did the same thing. Every country took on incredible amounts of debt. If Canada had been the only country that took on this kind of debt, it would have been detrimental to a lot of our policies. It would have sent companies running out of the country. It would have done a whole bunch of other things that could have been seen as extremely negative.

The reality is that all of the ally countries that we interact with in the marketplace through commerce and our various trading relationships did the exact same thing. We are going through this together with our partner nations. Also, we had an incredible debt-to-GDP ratio going into the pandemic, and if we expect to come out of the COVID recession with relatively similar economic activity, we will have to invest. I genuinely believe that everybody agrees with that. I think that is why everybody, at the end of the day, supported the measures. They recognized that it was important.

I believe that because of the measures we took and because of the spending that was authorized by the House, we will be in a better place when we come out of the pandemic in a few months. Our economy will come roaring back and we will see the debt-to-GDP ratios return to what they were before. We will also see unemployment return to some of the historic lows that we previously had. Why? It is because when we went through this, we did it in the right way. It cost a lot of money, there is no doubt about that, but we did it in conjunction with our global partners and did it in the responsible way according to the vast majority of economists.

I hope that after my run of 75 consecutive sitting days, this will not be my last opportunity to speak. However, I know I have had my fair share of time over the last 75 days, so if it is, I am entirely content with that. I look forward to questions.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I did not hear the member use his favourite word, according to Open Parliament, which is “Conservatives”, so I want to congratulate him for being able to avoid the rhetoric.

I am grateful that he talked about some things of substance in the budget bill, particularly child care. The federal government has a $30-billion plan for it. There has been a lot of interest and a lot of feedback on that in my riding. A lot of people are concerned about the costs that are going to be shared with the provinces. People are looking at the finances of the provinces and asking how on earth the provinces will be able to afford their portions of this.

Can the member comment on that?

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

Mr. Speaker, it would be a mistake if we tried to develop a national plan that was completely done by the national government. It is indeed something that will be done through collaboration with the provinces. The first stop in this exercise needs to be Quebec. We should have a real thorough look at how it has been so successful at this, and then try to see how we can apply this model to other provinces, respecting the fact that everything is different from province to province to territory.

There is a great opportunity here, and I think the provinces will have to be partners in this. They will have to want it too, which is why it will take negotiations and discussions with the provinces.

To answer the member's question, I do not know what the exact cost will be, but I do know that it is something the feds want to do. If the provinces want to do it, I am sure we can find the solution.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I too would like to congratulate our colleague because he is his party's sole representative across the aisle, in the actual House, of course. There are Liberal members who we will not recognize when the Liberals decide to resume sitting in the House.

My question for my colleague is the following: Concerning child care, can he guarantee that Quebec will obtain the full amount that it is due?

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

Mr. Speaker, I do not know. I guess that will come out in the discussions with the provinces. The formula will be set up through negotiating with Quebec and the rest of the provinces, such as Ontario and Alberta, wherever it may be. If we can replicate Quebec's success, I certainly would not want to try to change the program considerably. We know something already works successfully in Quebec, so I agree that we should be looking at that and having those discussions. If the outcome the member is suggesting is determined to be the best course forward, then I suggest that is what we need to do, if it is why Quebec has been so successful at this.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take the opportunity now to thank you in public, although I know I had a chance to speak with you privately last week to thank you for your years of service and gentlemanly conduct in the House of Commons. It has really been appreciated by all of us.

To the member for Kingston and the Islands, we have heard repeatedly about the senseless cut in CERB payments that the Liberals have brought in, but there is a similar senseless cut to other pandemic supports. One is very important in my riding: the seasonal agricultural worker program. The federal government has been providing $1,500 per worker to pay for extra costs, including from the two-week quarantine and charter flights from Jamaica, Mexico and Central America, because there are no public flights. These costs are not going down any time soon, yet this benefit is being cut in half right now, to $750.

I wonder if the member could comment on where the sense in that is.

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

Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day, it is important to recognize that these programs were never designed to be there forever. There needs to be a transition away from them. There needs to be a transition back to regular life, so to speak, that does not depend on these programs specifically.

There will be some industries that are affected for quite some time. A good friend of mine is an audio engineer who works at a lot of big concerts and conventions. His industry was one of the first to be hit. He went from having six months' worth of work ahead of him to having absolutely nothing in 48 hours, and it will be one of the last industries to come back, later on. He is equally worried about these kinds of supports and what the changes are going to mean.

Will we have to continue to revisit this and look at new opportunities to support people? I think that is the fair thing to do, and I hope we will be able to consider the people who will be impacted by the pandemic for longer than others.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, let me say, and not in a back room in a private conversation, that you are awesome. Thank you for your service.

To the member for Kingston and the Islands, the demographics in this country are getting older, and we know that means there will be less of a tax base for governments, both provincial and federal. We also know that there has been criticism, even from the member's own party. Mark Carney has said publicly that this is not a growth-oriented budget and so has David Dodge, both former governors of the Bank of Canada. We need to see more investments for the long term that make us more productive, but unfortunately it seems that the government is only focused on consumption today.

I agree that making sure people have supports during the pandemic is important, but why is the government always fixated on giving people money for things that will not build long-term value in the way that we need for growing this economy to help support public services, like health care, that we all depend on?

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

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately I could not disagree more. There is a reality, and I spent a lot of time talking about child care, for example. That is not about just giving people money right now to deal with their children; it is a long-term growth strategy.

The member asked how we are going to get more people into the economy. I submit that one of the ways we are going to do that is by unleashing the economic potential of the many people who are stuck at home taking care of their kids. That is not a bad thing, because a lot of people want to do that, but there are a lot of people who would also like to be working.

To the member's point specifically about how we deal with the labour shrinkage, it is in the budget. Child care is one way. However, it is not something that will work when we start spending the money. It is going to take years to get to a point where the labour force has the injection. To that point, we need to be investing in ways and in places that are going to help our labour market later on.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague why the Liberals absolutely do not want to provide stable and adequate funding for health care systems by increasing health transfers.

Health care systems in Quebec and the provinces have reached the breaking point. Cuts in health transfers have left them with insufficient funding. In the meantime, the Liberal government is meddling in Quebec's jurisdictions with its spending power.

Why not increase health transfers, as Quebec and all the provinces are asking?

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

Mr. Speaker, I do not think my intervention would be complete without a question from the Bloc Québécois about health transfers. It is my understanding, at least from what I have heard the Prime Minister say in the House over the last several months and from discussions out there in the public, that it is the intention of the government to revisit this issue. Could it have been done in this particular budget? I think everything that has been going on with the pandemic, as we get through it and focus on it, has made it more difficult to do. However, there is an opportunity, as we move into the future, to have those discussions.

I know that people within our party are talking about it. I certainly hear it a lot from the Bloc Québécois, and I hear it from the Conservatives. I think there is an opportunity here, but it was perhaps too challenging to accomplish in this budget in addition to all of the other stuff that needed attention.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise on behalf of the good people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola. Let me inform you, Mr. Speaker, that you will have a much more enlightened speaker because I plan on sharing my time with the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London, who, I am sure, will do a fantastic job.

From a parliamentary perspective, we live in dangerous times. I say that because I would like to take us all back to 2015 and a comment that this Prime Minister shared with Canadians. “[W]e are committed to delivering real change in the way that government works”, said the Prime Minister. He followed up with, “It means setting a higher bar for openness and transparency, something needed if this House is to regain the confidence and trust of Canadians.”

When we look at the actions of this Prime Minister today, it is profoundly obvious that this PM had absolutely zero intention of honouring those words to Canadians. In fact, as is so often the case with this Prime Minister, it is all just words. The actions are always at odds with reality. Look at where we are here with this omnibus budget bill from a Prime Minister who had promised he would not use omnibus budget bills, promised he would not use prorogation, and promised he would deliver a balanced budget, cast in stone, in 2019. He also promised openness by default.

I could go on and on, but we are not here today to debate the character of this Prime Minister. We are here to debate the omnibus budget bill, Bill C-30, a bill that the finance minister has repeatedly stated, if it were not to pass, would be the single greatest threat facing Canadians. Honestly, the finance minister said that multiple times in question period. Here we have a government that tells us we do not need a budget for over two years, and suddenly not having a budget is the greatest economic threat facing Canadians. What unbelievable arrogance that is.

In reality, this budget is really about furthering the Liberals' electoral chances. I would submit it that does not do so. It is not in the long-term best interests of Canadians. However, in my view, this is a Prime Minister who will always place his needs and those of his powerful friends and insiders ahead of the needs of everyday Canadians.

People should not just take my word for it, but read very carefully the many criticisms of this budget bill. They come from prominent people not accustomed to criticizing Liberal government budget bills: Parliamentary Budget Officer, Yves Giroux; former Bank of Canada governors, both David Dodge and Mark Carney; and even former senior Liberal adviser Robert Asselin. They have all provided well-articulated concerns over this budget. To summarize them, ultimately this bill proposes to spend money that the government does not have to spend and, according to these critics and many other experts, does not not need to spend.

However, that is what this Prime Minister does. He believes he can spend his way out of any problem or circumstance, but that in itself creates problems. Let us look at our communities' local downtown. If they are anything like the communities in my riding, there are increasingly more help-wanted signs out there. A huge number of small and medium-sized business owners have said they cannot get people to work.

I am going to share something with this place. Recently, my Summerland office was contacted by a woman, and we will call her “Nathalie”. Nathalie is very concerned about her brother, whom we will call “Doug”. Doug has a trade. Unlike some trades, Doug got very busy during the pandemic. Last fall, Doug decided to quit his job so he could collect the CERB. Granted the system was not supposed to work that way, but it was, by design, set up so people like Doug absolutely could quit their job and still collect it. At the time, Doug told his family it was just for the winter months and he would go back to work in the spring. Over the winter months, Doug began drinking. His drinking led to the loss of his place. The family now says Doug lives in a recreational vehicle. He collects the Canada recovery benefit and spends most of the time drinking. Doug now refuses to return to the workplace. Doug's position is that he paid the government EI and taxes for years and now he is owed this money, and not working while he is collecting benefits is his way of getting even with the government.

I am not suggesting for a moment that everyone collecting benefits is in Doug's situation, but speaking with many who work with individuals in addiction and recovered, many will share privately just how damaging the CRB has been and how it has derailed many recovering addicts. The problem remains that the Liberal government has absolutely no exit plan that ultimately will help people like Doug return to the workforce.

Indeed, according to the Prime Minister, people like Doug do not exist. Some will say if only employers paid more, we would not have this problem. However, in Doug's case, he had a trade that provided net take-home pay of $60,000. Doug can make much more money returning to work, however, the $2,000 a month he collects now is enough money that Doug can choose not to work.

I come back to all those help-wanted signs. A local small business owner told me his small business could survive the pandemic, but he was less sure it could survive the government assistance programs like CRB. I am not raising this to be partisan, I am raising this because this budget by design extends all of these benefits into September and it does this by design because the Prime Minister wants to go into an election where everyone is still getting paid those benefits. He wants to use the payment of these benefits as an election issue. That is ultimately what the bill proposes; that and massive amounts of spending that even former Liberals and friendly experts have said is excessive and largely unnecessary.

However, when it comes to winning power, we know that the Prime Minister is capable of basically anything. We know from his many promises in 2015, he will say basically anything. We know from his governance, from prorogation to multiple Liberal filibusters, to being found in contempt of Parliament, he is capable of doing anything to remain in power. Indeed, Bill C-30 is just another example of this.

Is there seriously a person in this place who does not believe that Canada needs an exit plan to get Canadians back into the workforce? I am starting to think that maybe there are some who believe we can continue on this current path that the Parliamentary Budget Office has repeatedly told us is not sustainable. Do we listen? Bill C-30 suggests we are not listening. Indeed, even raising these issues is rarely done.

We all know that there are people like Doug out there who are struggling. This budget fails people like Doug. This budget fails the many small business owners who need Doug back in the workplace. Let us hope that he can rejoin the workforce. His sister Nathalie blames the government programs. She pointed out EI, as one example, never used to work this way. She asked how long can the government continue to pay people benefits that they do not qualify for. It is a fair question, yet I do not hear any member of the Liberal government ask this question.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has raised it. Various ministers have promised to address it, but when the opposition has raised it, they never do. We all know that the EI system ultimately has to be sustainable and currently it is not sustainable. The government has no plan to address this. This should trouble all of us because ultimately we need to defend the integrity of the programs that Canadians depend on. We are collectively failing to do that.

It is just not responsible. This is ultimately what troubles me so greatly about Bill C-30. It is great for a Prime Minister trying to stay in power, however, it maximizes short-term political gain for long-term pain that will be felt by future generations of Canadians.

Somehow in this place, we have drifted away from long-term thinking, of building a foundation for the success and prosperity of future generations of Canada. Worse, we have seen this movie before, as it was the former Liberal governments that made some very difficult and unpopular decisions, but necessary decisions. Many of what I refer to as traditional Liberals, at least in my riding, wonder where the Liberal Party has gone.

Before I close, I will leave with one final note. When the finance minister introduced this budget, she told us that we must “build a more resilient Canada; better, more fair, more prosperous, and more innovative”.

We should all ask ourselves who has been governing this country for the past five years to have made Canada so unresilient, so unfair, so unprosperous and so lacking in innovation. We all know the answer to the question. This budget bill, Bill C-30, simply offers more of the same.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola is a real champion for the wine industry, which is very important in the Okanagan, and has a private member's bill that could help the wine industry. I am worried that, with the constant rumours about an election, that private member's bill will not make it onto the Order Paper in this Parliament.

I would like to give the member the opportunity to talk about the situation that we have seen with the wine industry losing the excise tax exemption through a WTO challenge. The government has a promise of funding in this budget, $101 million over two years, but now we hear it has back-loaded that promise so that only a third of the money will come in the coming fiscal year. This is a time when the wine industry has really been suffering, like a lot of sectors.

I am wondering if the member could comment on that decision by the government.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, obviously small family wineries, small craft breweries and artisan distillers are hurting. The foot traffic is gone, tourism has dropped, people are not buying from them and they are often going to liquor monopolies, so this is a big issue.

My Bill C-260 deals with trying to get around provincial liquor monopolies. I will let the member know that the leader of the official opposition gave a speech to the Penticton and Wine Country Chamber of Commerce where the question was asked: What if this bill dies on the Order Paper? Guess what, we are going to be campaigning on this so that we can bring some resiliency and opportunities to that industry.

In 2015, I said that the Liberals would say anything, then disregard what they said, do what is right for them and not the long-term interests of Canadians. They are doing the same thing to the wine industry, and it is wrong.

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there is lots of talk in this budget about training for new jobs, green jobs, jobs that are not here yet. Does the member have any idea what specific jobs the government is talking about that people will be retrained for? In my province, people want to know where these new jobs are, how they are going to get started and what these training programs are going to do for them in the near future, not looking out five years.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is one area where the government continually talks a game about innovation and skills. Kevin Page, former parliamentary budget officer, is now heading up the University of Ottawa's Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy. It is a think tank that analyzes these issues. When the government first came to power, it was presented with a report from the think tank that showed that for years it has been funding employment skills training with tens of billions of dollars and it has never been reviewed. When we look through it, and I met with the expert who penned the report, there are no metrics. The government continually adds more rhetoric and more money, but there are never any results.

That is the big problem. We are not thinking in terms of the long-term interests of Canadians. With our demographics and the pandemic debt, we have to start asking the tough questions. We cannot let the Liberal government and the Prime Minister slide by with nice words and a quick wave. My community deserves better than the government is offering.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, once again, I get to speak to you while you are in the Chair. To anyone who is tuning in right now, I wish all the best to the Speaker in the Chair right now. I know that the next chapter of your life will be very fulsome. It has been wonderful working with you. Hopefully, we will be able to work together again in September.

I will continue with some of my thanks. I know so many people are involved in making sure that this chamber can run. I am thinking of all the House staff, the interpreters about whom we have heard so much, making sure we are not popping in the mike, the technical support folks for the hybrid virtual Parliament who have been very busy, and the table staff, especially one of my favourites, André Gagnon. I have always said that he is going to be stuck in my living room forever, because one of my favourite photos is of him and me at my second swearing in. Thanks to all of the great people working in our House and making sure the democracy of Canada continues.

It truly has been a great pleasure serving in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session, as the deputy House leader for the Conservative Party. There has been a lot of learning to do and a lot of procedural things, as well. All of us are working together to get that done.

I thank my colleague who spoke before me, because when we talk about results, that is something we really focus on. I would like to see results. When I first got here in 2015, we would talk about the government. We would talk about what we had done in government for nine and a half years, and some of the positive changes that we saw here in Canada. Some very good legislation was put forward. Every single time I was on a panel, I recall that the words used against me were, “Ms. Vecchio, that's rich.” Those were the words of our Liberal government members, all of the time: “That is rich,” any time we asked for something to be justified or asked for verification on things.

The government just does not want to answer. When we see an omnibus bill like this budget implementation bill, we should not be surprised. When we try to have debates, we should not be surprised when we do not get answers. I know that shortly we will be going into Question Period where that will continue.

In this Parliament specifically, we have seen things, such as the WE scandal, prorogation and Bill C-19 being done wrong. I want to focus on that. As of yesterday, Bill C-19 was reported back and tabled in the House of Commons. The fear that I have, and the fear that I think so many other Canadians should have, is that we are putting forward bills that have no witnesses coming to talk about these things. When we wanted to discuss Bill C-19, there was a motion to have important organizations representing everyone from seniors to people with disabilities look at this legislation and ask what it means. We were looking to speak to chief electoral officers who were on the ground and could talk about some of the things we needed to do.

What would a pandemic election look like in London North Centre or London West? I am looking at the member of Parliament for London West right now. What would it look like for London West? What would it look like for Elgin—Middlesex—London? I am seeing that special member look at me right now. I would like to thank her for all of the work that she has done. It has been great having a person beside me in London West who is part of the government and who has always ensured that when I give her a call, she knows what is happening in Elgin—Middlesex—London.

On behalf of all the constituents of Elgin—Middlesex—London, on behalf of my municipalities, I know I can call that member and say that we need an announcement, and the member for London West will ensure that announcement is made. If it is sitting on a minister's table, she is one person I know who can get it done. I really appreciate all of her hard work.

Moving on, when I am talking about some important things, I see that we are truly not doing what we should always be doing. We talk about due diligence. Last night, I got to listen to the member for Winnipeg North talk about the Conservatives and how awful they are. Although the word “corrupt” was not being used, he loved to use the word “obstruction.”

I will tell Canadians what obstruction looks like. Obstruction looks like 101 days in a filibuster when we are talking about prorogation of the government. That is what obstruction looks like. I love looking at the member, because he is laughing. I think it is because he knows exactly what I am getting at. He knows. He has been in politics for over 30 years. He knows how to wing this. He knows when we are playing these games, and we know that when the member for Winnipeg North is coming to a committee, the plan is to filibuster. When some of the greatest speakers who can speak 700 or 800 times in Parliament are brought in, we know the government is bringing in the big guns to filibuster. I would like to commend my colleague for Winnipeg North because that is exactly the type of work that they are able to do.

We have seen committee reports delayed. As the former chair of the status of women and as the former shadow minister of the status of women, I am really concerned that the defence committee could not table a report. Why it could not table a report, I think, has to do with the obstruction in committee. There has not just been obstruction in the Procedure and House Affairs committee. There has been obstruction in the committees for defence, ethics and any other committee in which the reports and information going forward are not to the liking of the government. That is just the type of thing that I have been seeing.

I do a lot of outreach as well in my riding. When reflecting on this budget, what do we see and what is important? I like to go out and speak to my constituents. We do a lot of householders. We do a lot of mailers and get a lot of information back. I would say that we probably got the most information back ever from replies to our last householder. We looked at that data. Do not worry. We were not using Liberalist. We actually looked at this data in our own office to see what my constituents were saying. I did not send it off to somebody to ask them to please look at it analytically and then let us know, while targeting my voters. I actually wanted to hear what they have to say. It is not just about how I am going to get their vote the next time. I want to be sure that I am serving them with a purpose.

However, 66% of our respondents believe there should be an increase in health care funding to the provinces. The government can talk about the funding put forward through this pandemic when it comes to health care. It did have to put some forward, but why? It was not prepared for a pandemic. It had taken some of the money and it had taken some of the programs. We know that the system to alert us of a coming pandemic and its impacts was not there. The information we should have been able to receive was not there because of some cuts and things they were doing while thinking that it was not important.

Sixty-six percent of our respondents believe there needs to be more money put into this health care system, but in this budget we do not see an increase in health care. We can see some things when it comes to pandemic spending, but as the former speaker talked about, we need to look at long-term plans as well. They cannot just be short-term. They cannot just be about how we get people voting for us today. It is about how we can provide good lives and better opportunities for them.

Coming from a farming community, one thing I always talk about is sowing the field. How do we prepare the field so that people can be the best crop possible? How do we encourage great growth? I look at all of these programs coming forward from the government and I am very concerned. What do we see for these people moving forward? I look at my son, who is 27 years old, and know that if he were to try to purchase a house in Elgin—Middlesex—London and put down the $20,000 he has been able to save, it would get him nothing. Why? It is because we have seen a 46% increase in housing prices in my area alone.

Those are some of the things that I think the government needs to tackle, along with the fact that we see inflation going higher and higher. That inflation is going to impact us greatly, especially if the interest rates go up.

I look at my own children who want to buy houses. The rates for getting a mortgage are awesome, but how can they buy houses when the prices start at almost half a million dollars? How are they ever going to get into the housing market and out of renting? I think that 55% of renters have been paying more in the last six months than they were before. How are people able to move forward and go up the housing ladder? How will they be able to go from being renters to being home owners and into those next homes for retirement? How will they be able to do that? I just do not see the path, unfortunately. I am very concerned with that.

We have 73% of respondents who were concerned about Bill C-10, which we voted on last night. At about 1:30 a.m. we saw that some amendments went through. We also saw the bill pass, unfortunately. I can tell colleagues that in my riding of Elgin—Middlesex—London this was an issue about which I heard from tons of my constituents. They said they did not want Bill C-10, and that they believed it needed to be amended. The amendments we put forward did not, unfortunately, go through.

Finally, 86% of respondents were concerned about the level of debt in this budget. These are the types of things I talk about.

[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, when I reflect on standing committees, the potential within them is fairly significant. Some standing committees perform exceptionally well and produce fantastic reports for Canadians.

I am wondering if the member could provide her thoughts on another situation in which we can do fine work if we take out the partisan politics. I am not reflecting on a specific committee, but generally speaking, would she not agree we can see some positive work come out of standing committees when the partisan politics are put to the side, for a little while anyway?

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am actually also looking right now on my screen at the Chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. I am the former chair of the status of women committee. Last July we met on July 7 or July 8, I believe, before prorogation. We had a standing committee that worked really well together. It was a minority Parliament so we had a variety of different views. The member for London—Fanshawe was on the committee and we had members from the Toronto area. It was a really good mix.

The report we would have tabled right before prorogation was fantastic, but it has a lot to do with what the interests are. We know in some committees there are topics we really want to work on and then there are committees that are a bit more partisan, so I absolutely agree with the member.

It is always a delight to work with the member for Winnipeg North. He keeps us going.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Elgin—Middlesex—London will have three and a half minutes for questions and comments when the House next gets back to debate on the question, should she wish to take them.