Debates of Oct. 20th, 2022

Public Accounts

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 20th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, entitled “Public Accounts of Canada 2021”.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

There will be another presentation dealing with the report right away.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to table the Conservatives' dissenting report on the 2021 public accounts report.

The government misleadingly states that the carbon tax is revenue-neutral. The 2021 public accounts, though, showed that $100 million of the carbon tax was diverted to spending programs and not returned to Canadians. We therefore recommend that the PBO present an independent and true analysis of the carbon tax, its effect on inflation and the GDP and the claim of revenue neutrality.

Furthermore, for the public accounts, the government for the first time ever ordered the Auditor General to reopen the audited and finalized financial statements in order to stuff in billions of dollars of added spending. Our recommendation would provide the confidence in the public accounts that Canadians and this Parliament deserve.

Should the government again revise the public accounts after they are finalized, we recommend that the secretary of the Treasury Board and the comptroller general report their rationale for doing so to the public accounts committee, that the Auditor General present her or his views to the committee and that all three appear at the public accounts committee to discuss the matter.

Customs Act

[Diane Lebouthillier, Liberal, Minister of National Revenue]

moved that Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Customs Act and the Preclearance Act, 2016, be read the first time.

(Motion deemed adopted, bill read the first time)

Fisheries Licences

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I stand here this morning to present a petition on behalf of the non-core fishing enterprise owners of Newfoundland and Labrador to allow transfer of their licences. At last count, the DFO put the number of these licence-holders at 454. Half of these people live in my riding of Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame. They are people like Roy Morey in La Scie, Bobby Gillingham in Seal Cove, Joe Legge in Twillingate and Bob Jacobs and Perry Sacrey of Baie Verte.

Last year, the federal court ruled that similar class B licences in Nova Scotia be made transferrable. The non-core licence-holders of Newfoundland and Labrador must be treated the same.

I thank Ryan Cleary and SEA-NL for their work in gathering names for this petition.

Biodiversity

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on the Island of Montreal, there is an extraordinary place known as TechnoparcOiseaux or Champ des monarques. A site rich in biodiversity, it is home to 193,000 species of birds and an essential feeding ground for the monarch butterfly, which has been declared an endangered species. This site is also at risk because the Montreal airports authority, Aéroports de Montréal, wants to use and develop the space.

However, Aéroports de Montréal does not own the land; Transport Canada does. It is public land that belongs to us. Hundreds of citizens, along with a dozen municipalities on the Island of Montreal, are asking the federal government to modify the lease with Aéroports de Montréal in order to create a national park. We need to protect this highly biodiverse natural space, one of the rare wetlands on the Island of Montreal, and preserve it for future generations.

Railway Safety

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am deeply honoured to present two petitions this morning on behalf of the families and loved ones of three men killed in a tragic rail accident near Field, B.C., in February 2019. The three men were Dylan Paradis, Andrew Dockrell and Daniel Waldenberger-Bulmer.

The petitioners draw attention to the archaic practice in Canada of allowing rail corporations to use private corporate police forces to administer investigations of a criminal nature. This is a practice that the petitioners point out is long past its due date and should be abolished. They call on the Government of Canada to repeal sections 44 and 44.1 of the Railway Safety Act and legislate a new federal independent public railway police of Canada, funded by the railway companies but answerable to an independent civilian oversight commission.

The second petition I present is on the same topic. It calls for the establishment of a royal commission to inquire into the nature and extent of the damage that corporate railway policing has had on the criminal investigation of numerous railway fatalities and injuries, plus the political and diplomatic implications of Canadian companies exercising police powers in the United States.

Indigenous Affairs

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

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House to present a petition that deals with the ongoing and all-too-slow effort to implement the recommendations and calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The report, of course, was from an in-depth inquiry, and the petitioners reference that in 2013, the Hon. Frank Iacobucci issued his report on first nations representation on Ontario's juries.

The petitioners, recognizing that this place does not instruct things to the provinces, have called on the House of Commons to immediately undertake to encourage the provinces to reform their jury selection systems and make other reforms that are required in order to enact calls to action 25 to 42 to ensure that justice is done and seen to be done for indigenous people going through the criminal justice system.

Electoral Reform

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

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to table petition e-3881, signed by 676 constituents.

They cite that Canada's electoral system, from its very inception, has been a first-past-the-post system, unfairly resulting in either a Liberal or Conservative government. Proportional representation is a principle that says the percentage of seats a party has in the legislature should reflect the percentage of people who voted for that party. They cite that if a party gets 40% of the popular vote, it should get 40% of the seats. They also cite that under a first-past-the-post system, the current system in Canada, a party can win a majority of seats and all the power with less than half the popular vote.

They are calling on the government to move to a proportional system to bring credible representation to Canadians.

Health

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, today I table a petition signed by many residents of Winnipeg North that deals with the issue of health care. They are looking at the federal government's important role of ensuring that the health care system is there to support Canadians no matter where they live and, in particular, that we focus attention on issues such as long-term care and pharmaceuticals, along with other issues related to health care, including mental health.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Opposition Motion—Tax Exemption on Home Heating Fuel

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

moved:

That, given that,

(i) one-tenth of Canadians heat their homes during Canada's cold winter months with heating oil or propane heat because there are no alternatives,

(ii) Canada is the only G7 country to have raised fuel taxes during this period of record high global fuel prices,

(iii) energy analysts have predicted that Canadians could see their home heating bills rise by 50 to 100 percent on average this winter,

(iv) the Liberal Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador wrote to the federal Liberal government on September 2, 2022, asking for a carbon tax exemption on home heating fuels and stated: "A year ago today, the maximum price of furnace oil in the Province was 97.91 cents per litre. Today's price is 155.70, which is an increase of nearly 60 per cent. Your proposed federal carbon tax increase on furnace oil would result in an additional 17.38 cents plus HST. Added to today's price, [the carbon tax] would result in a total cost increase of 80 per cent compared to one year ago", punishing rural people in Newfoundland and Labrador forced to heat with furnace oil,

the House express its agreement with the comments of the Liberal Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, and call on the government to exempt all forms of home heating fuel from the carbon tax for all Canadians.

Mr. Speaker, the cost of living is rising because of the cost of government. The $500-billion inflationary deficit is increasing the cost of the goods we buy and the interest we pay. Inflationary taxes further increase the cost to produce those goods and services. The more the government spends, the more things cost. It is just inflation, as my hon. colleague, the member for Calgary Forest Lawn, will explain because I will be sharing my time with him.

The Liberals will say that they had no choice but to add these enormous deficits. However, I will remind them that they had added $100 billion to our national debt even before COVID-19. That is four times more than the Prime Minister had promised. He had already set out a plan for deficits over 30 years, after saying it would only be three years. Even before the Russians invaded Ukraine, the Prime Minister had already added $500 billion to the deficit, and the inflation rate was over 5%.

He cannot simply blame the external effects of the current crises, especially since I had warned the government that there would be inflation and, as a result, interest rate hikes. However, the Liberals continued to spend, tax and fuel the crisis we are facing today.

Clearly, much of the money has been wasted. The Liberals spent billions of dollars to send benefits to inmates, employed public servants and people who could have been working because there were a million jobs available. The government was paying people to stay home. It did all of that.

I would add that, during COVID-19, that is to say, in the past two years, the Liberals added $200 billion in non-COVID-related debt. That means unnecessary expenditures that the government did not have to incur. That was a choice they made.

I had warned them that that would lead to inflation, but they said no, that was not a problem, the Bank of Canada would simply print more money. Now we can see the effects, the same effects we have seen over and over throughout history.

Too much money spent on too few products makes prices go up. That has been true for thousands of years. History does not change. Every time a king, queen, emperor, president, prime minister or anyone at all prints money to pay their bills, the result is always the same: inflation. After inflation come rising interest rates, which is what we are seeing today.

Suddenly, the government is surprised by the consequences of its decisions. No one forced the Prime Minister to add $100 billion to the national debt before COVID-19 and $500 billion to the national debt before the war in Ukraine. No one forced the Prime Minister to curb the production of affordable energy here in Canada. The Liberals did that. These were decisions made here in Canada and not imposed by external forces.

Now we are in the middle of an inflationary crisis. The cost of food has gone up 11%, and we are now seeing a crisis in energy costs.

The government likes to blame the entire world for inflation in Canada, but it is interesting to see that the products with the fastest-rising prices are those we can produce here in Canada, namely food, gasoline and natural gas. We have an abundant supply of these products here in Canada.

The price increases on these products would have helped our economy if the government had not prevented our farmers from producing more food and our energy workers from producing more energy. Instead of printing more money, we could have produced more of what money buys, like more food and more energy, and we could have built more houses.

We need to get rid of the gatekeepers. That is another word we should find a good French word for, but, since we are going to get rid of the gatekeepers when the Conservatives come to power, we will not even need the English word. We will no longer have gatekeepers, who prevent us from building affordable housing units, block our energy production and make it difficult for our farmers to feed us.

The policies of mayors on the far left, New Democrats and Liberals, are preventing us from building houses. As a result, it takes far longer to get a construction permit here in Canada than in any other OECD country except Slovakia. Here, getting any kind of construction permit takes an average of 250 days. In North Korea, you can get a permit in 28 days.

What has this meant? It has meant higher costs to produce energy, higher costs for our farmers and higher costs for home building. More money chasing fewer goods always means higher prices, so instead of creating cash, we need to create more of what cash buys.

Now, though, in the time when energy prices are rising, the last thing we need is a new tax increase on our people. Look at what is happening in Newfoundland. The Newfoundland premier, and he is a Liberal, said that a year ago today, the maximum price of furnace oil in the province was 97¢ per litre. Today it is a buck fifty-five, which is an increase of nearly 60%. The proposed federal carbon tax increase would mean an extra 17¢, plus HST. He also said, “Added to today's price, [the carbon tax] would result in a total cost increase of 80 per cent compared to one year ago.” That is from a Liberal premier.

Similar problems are raging right across Atlantic Canada, where 40% of people are living in energy poverty. This is in Canada, a G7 energy-producing country. That is the result of seven years of the Liberal government. Similar crises are emerging across the country. One energy analyst said that Canadians can expect price increases on their home heating of 100%, all to pay for a plan to triple the carbon tax on Canadians.

By the way, the carbon tax has not worked to reduce emissions. The government has failed to hit a single solitary climate target with its tax so far. Yesterday, the Prime Minister was saying that he knows he has not hit any of his promises, but he promises to hit them in the future and this time he promises not to break that promise.

I can tell members one thing. I am not prepared to gamble on that. I am not prepared to watch Canadian seniors living in rural Newfoundland and Labrador or Nova Scotia, who are forced to heat with oil and propane, pay a 100% increase in their home heating bill because the Prime Minister is promising not to break his promise, a promise he has broken every time he has ever made it before. That is not a bet I am prepared to make.

Therefore, I am calling on the government to allow its members from these rural communities to vote with us on this motion, to put aside the centralized control of the tax-hungry Prime Minister and vote with us in favour of this motion. If they cannot be disabused of their ideological obsession with taxing Canadians to punish them with the carbon tax, at the very least will they, in the spirit of non-partisanship and compromise, take the tax off of home heating as winter is coming? The cold will soon be upon us, and Canadians will soon be forced into the decision between heating and eating.

Will they at least have the compassion to side with this common sense coalition? Will they break off from their costly coalition with the NDP, stop punishing Canadians and finally end the high-carbon hypocrisy, which sees a Prime Minister jetting around the country in a private aircraft, including flying down to Costa Rica for a sunny vacation right in the middle of the summer?

When the winter is upon us, when people are not even worried about being on beaches, let us not tax them. Let us allow them to heat their homes here in our country.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I would like to remind the leader of the Conservative Party, today's leader anyway, that it was not that long ago, about a year ago, when 338 Conservative candidates were knocking on doors with an election platform that made it very clear to Canadians that the Conservative Party of Canada supported a price on pollution. I am sure today's leader of the Conservative Party would remember that commitment, the promise Conservatives made to Canadians as part of their election platform.

Today we now see the leader of the Conservative Party breaking that promise. He is now telling Canadians that the Conservative Party is going back on that, siding with the climate deniers, and not supporting a price on pollution. Could he explain the flip-flop on this policy?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I can hear other members trying to answer the question, and I would ask them to hold back. I know the hon. leader of the official opposition is well able to respond to the question being asked.

The hon. leader of the official opposition has the floor.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, of course the question is based on a totally false premise, but worse than that, it is based on the worst of Liberal elitist snobbery.

For them to look down on the little old lady in rural Newfoundland or rural Nova Scotia because she is heating her home in February and call her a polluter, while the Prime Minister has forced that same little old lady to pay, through her taxes, for him to get on a gas-guzzling private jet, fly around the country for photo ops, burn more fuel in a single month than 20 Canadians burn all year, and go to Costa Rica on that same jet, is the worst high-carbon hypocrisy. It is an insult to Canadians.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am always amazed—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I have to interrupt the hon. member, because it seems that some other members are under the false impression that it is their turn to speak. I would ask them to stop talking.

The hon. member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am rather amazed to see how much my Conservative friends are off the mark when it comes to the economy. They are telling us that lowering the carbon tax will help Canadians live better. However, the opposite is true. The carbon tax is meant to fight climate change. It is not a perfect tool, but it is one of the best tools we have right now, according to the experts.

I would like to inform the leader of the Conservatives of what the UN says about the carbon tax. According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, the number of climate-related natural disasters has more than doubled in the past decade compared with the 1980s. According to the World Meteorological Organization, between 2000 and 2019, 6,700 disasters cost the lives of more than 1 million people and affected 4.2 million more. In addition, they caused almost $3 trillion in global economic losses. That is why the carbon tax exists.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, first, I find it funny that the Bloc Québécois, which is supposed to be separatist, is now in favour of a federal government that is imposing a triple tax on the provinces. It is true. Every day, the Bloc Québécois stands in the House of Commons to ask for a stronger federal government. We are the ones who want to give Quebeckers the opportunity to be masters of their own house.

Second, the hon. member says that climate change is important. Yes, that is true, and that is why we need to put an end to policies that are not really working. It is not by increasing the cost of traditional energies that we will fight climate change, it is by reducing the cost of alternative energies. That is what we will do by encouraging hydroelectricity, nuclear power and the production of electric batteries here in Canada.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

We seem to be having some back and forth. The Bloc Québécois had a chance to ask a question. There was no reason to keep shouting while the hon. Leader of the Opposition was answering.

The hon. member for Hamilton Centre.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, indeed, 40% of people in Canada are living in energy poverty, yet the oil and gas sector made $147 billion last year. This second quarter alone, profits for the national resources went up by $3.5 billion. Suncor Energy shows the same trend, with another $3.9 billion in the second quarter.

Does the leader of the official opposition have the courage to actually tackle the real root causes of this impending recession and the high cost of living?

It is impossible for me to speak with those guys continuing to chirp, Madam Speaker.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I do want to again remind the members to please hold off on speaking when someone else has the floor.

I would ask the hon. member to please wrap up, because we are out of time.