Debates of Oct. 20th, 2022

Public Services and Procurement

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is really hard to answer the question when I cannot even hear myself think.

I have answered this question now four times. For the opposition to call the ArriveCAN app a boondoggle when it was developed to keep Canadians safe is appalling. CBSA is aware of issues with the contract and it is looking—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I am going to interrupt the parliamentary secretary for a second and ask her to maybe give us the answer from the top again.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Wait. I am going to share a little story. Last night I was at a reception across the hall and there were some people in the gallery. They were looking down and were identifying individuals who were screaming and shouting. They were embarrassed for the individuals. I want members to think of that when they are sitting in their seats thinking they are alone. They are not alone. Either they are on camera or someone is watching.

I will let the hon. parliamentary secretary start from the top.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, throughout the pandemic, our number one priority was the health and safety of Canadians. The ArriveCAN app was part of the response to that.

As I have said numerous times in this House, CBSA is aware of issues with the contract and it is looking into them.

Taxation

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are struggling because of the inflation caused by the Prime Minister and his government. Now, as temperatures are dropping below zero across northern Ontario and the Liberals are planning to triple the taxes on home heating, people are worried and are wondering if they are even going to be able to afford to heat their homes this winter.

Will the government do the right thing, finally recognize that home heating is not a luxury and support our plan to cancel the taxes on home heating, yes or no?

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, last week, every Canadian household between Grande Prairie, Alberta, and Cornwall, Ontario, received a cheque from the Government of Canada. This cheque was the climate action incentive. Thanks to that program, 80% of households have more money in their pockets. Now every Conservative politician in this House wants the government to go back and pick the pockets of every single one of those households. With the affordability challenges that Canadians are facing today, that is something we simply will not do.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, last night I spoke to Bonnie from a remote part of my riding, who lives with her retired husband. They paid $900 last year to heat their home with oil. That was double the year before. They just learned that their bill this year is going to be $2,400. On a combined income of $25,000 a year, that means they are going to have to eat crickets in order to eat and heat.

When will the government stop hurting Canadians and cancel its plan to triple the carbon tax?

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, it is very important to say to hon. members across the House that climate change is real and is an existential threat to the future of the human race. The Conservatives are proposing to make pollution free again, and now they are proposing to pick the pockets of the vast majority of Canadian families by taking away their quarterly rebate cheques. This will make the climate crisis worse. It will drive away investment and will make everything more expensive. Our government will oppose Conservative political efforts to rob Canadians of this important financial support.

Small Business

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Mr. Speaker, this week is Small Business Week. Small businesses are the backbone of our communities across the country, especially in the Northwest Territories. They create jobs and economic growth and are critical in postpandemic recovery.

Can the minister responsible for CanNor please update this House on the important work our government is doing to support small businesses in the Northwest Territories?

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Minister of Northern Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his hard work on behalf of small businesses in the Northwest Territories.

Through CanNor's economic programs, we have supported hundreds of businesses in the north, including 200 women-led enterprises, over 100 owned by indigenous people and over 320 in tourism. Today, I was pleased to announce $50,000 for the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce to support local business events in NWT.

Our government will continue to be there for small businesses to help them grow and create jobs.

Taxation

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Canadian families are struggling to keep up with the rising cost of groceries. The increase in food prices has hit a 41-year high, rising twice as quickly as people's wages. This week, we made the Liberals and the Conservatives admit that CEO corporate greed is driving up food prices. Now it is time for the government to take a stand and support families.

When will the Liberals finally close tax loopholes, forcing CEOs to pay what they owe?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to answer the question.

As I stated for an earlier question, we have been focused on reducing poverty in this country. In fact, we have lifted millions of Canadians out of poverty, including seniors and hundreds of thousands of children. We have done that through benefits such as the CCB, the OAS and the GIS. We have indexed those benefits to inflation so that as the cost of living goes up, those benefits go up as well.

We are continuing to look at programs like the recovery dividend and at a tax on excess profits for banks to make sure that everybody is paying their fair share.

The Environment

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, “’Establish and fully fund a Canada Water Agency in 2022” and “Modernize the 50-year-old Canada Water Act” are quotes from the Liberal platform. A fully independent and integrated Canada water agency is urgently needed. We lack the scientific capacity to monitor water quality and quantity, to predict impacts and to protect safe water.

The climate crisis is a water crisis. No more announcements. It is time to create the Canada water agency. Will the minister update us as to the plans to do it in 2022?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Mr. Speaker, we are, in fact, working to create an independent water agency for Canada. We need more information on water and better water management in Canada, because water, despite the fact that we have a lot of it in Canada, is also under threat because of climate change. We are working on this and we will have good news to announce to this House in the coming weeks.

Business of the House

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is Thursday, the time when the opposition asks the government what we can expect in the week ahead. We have reason to be optimistic that there may be a piece of legislation that would enshrine the Leader of the Opposition's principled approach to government financing, where any new spending item would have to be accompanied by a spending reduction. This is something that the opposition would entirely support if the government were going to introduce that next week.

I wonder if the government House leader would inform the House as to the business for the rest of this week and into next week. Can we expect legislation to enshrine permanently the brilliant idea the Leader of the Opposition has already proposed?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, what I can assure the member opposite, my hon. opposition House leader, is that the government will continue to be introducing legislation that helps Canadians with affordability and makes their lives easier in these globally difficult and conflicted times.

With respect to the immediate term, I can tell the House that tomorrow we will turn to Bill C-9, which concerns the Judges Act at second reading. On Monday, we will continue with the second reading debate on Bill S-5, an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Tuesday shall be an allotted day.

On Wednesday, we will commence with the second reading debate on Bill S-4, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Identification of Criminals Act, related to COVID-19 response and other measures. On Thursday, we will deal with the report stage and third reading of Bill C-31, with respect to dental care and rental housing.

We also hope to make progress next week on Bill C-20, an act establishing the public complaints and review commission and amending certain acts and statutory instruments.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Opposition Motion—Tax Exemption on Home Heating Fuel

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Resuming debate, the hon. parliamentary secretary has two minutes remaining.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Mr. Speaker, I spent the first eight minutes of my speech prior to question period talking at great length about how the Conservative Party of Canada today is nothing like the Conservative Party of Canada that cared about the environment under the leadership of Brian Mulroney, for example. What I found very interesting between that part of my speech and this part of my speech is this.

During an exchange during question period, one of the parliamentary secretaries on this side of the House talked about the Premier of Ontario Doug Ford being a Conservative. The member for St. Albert—Edmonton put in quotes “Conservative”, as if to suggest that Doug Ford, the Conservative Premier of Ontario, is not Conservative enough for this particular Conservative Party of Canada that we are stuck dealing with now.

It goes without saying that I will vote against this motion. It is the third time the Conservatives have brought it forward. We identify that they are doing things in threes these days. Therefore, I will once again, for a third time, vote against this ill-informed motion brought forward by the Conservatives.

I will reiterate what I said before, which is that pricing pollution is a smart, effective tool based on economic principles that we would assume the Conservatives could somehow wrap their heads around, yet here we are and they are reluctantly refusing to do that, despite the fact that even their former leader Stephen Harper agreed that pricing pollution was a—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are clapping for him. Great. Hopefully, they can clap for his principles too, which was to price pollution, because Stephen Harper certainly felt that way.

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

Mr. Speaker, as I listened to many of the speeches today given by especially Liberal members, I found it very interesting that they seem to be incredibly dismissive of the challenges facing Canadians. They are tying themselves into knots trying to figure out a creative way to somehow spin that this motion is not about providing real practical relief to a part of the country that does not benefit from their so-called federal backstop. However, I will leave the many criticisms I have about that and the fact that so many Canadians, in a country so rich in natural resources, are facing energy poverty.

My question for the member is very simple. Can he look past his partisanship, acknowledge the fact that many Canadians are simply asking for that bit of relief, come to the table and at least have a discussion about how we can get that relief to Atlantic Canadians who are facing unprecedented energy poverty?

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

Mr. Speaker, what I am dismissive about is when Conservatives come into the House and continually purport falsehoods, like earlier today when they said the federal government has imposed a price on pollution in all provinces, which is not the truth. Quebec and Ontario were doing it with California long before the federal government ever got involved in it.

The member seems to suggest that the particular motion before us today is the be-all and end-all to support Canadians. He is asking us just to provide a bit of support. I would remind him of the various different supports that have been introduced in this House just in the last several weeks, legislation that we know they are going to vote against. They changed their minds on increasing the GST rebate. They flip-flopped on that one. Maybe it is time for them to flip-flop on other supports, like providing dental care and housing supports for Canadians.

There are many different ways that we can support Canadians and it does not have to come at the expense of the environment, which is what the Conservatives want to do.