Mr. Speaker, there are certainly some items that the finance minister has mentioned that are very familiar to us New Democrats because they are the things we have been pressuring the government into doing, whether it is dental care, the Canada housing benefit, child care or many other things we could go on about, including the GST rebate that is coming to Canadians tomorrow. However, today was an opportunity to go above and beyond those things, to address the real challenges that people are facing as we come into the fall, as they are worried about home heating costs and the cost of groceries, and as we learn that Loblaws is making a million dollars a day more in profit above their latest banner year.
What we thought we might have seen in addition to things that the NDP has required of the government to move on were things like more serious consequences for price fixing in the grocery industry. We wanted to see a windfall profit tax, so that companies that are making extraordinary profits in the pandemic context are required to pay more in order for there to be assistance for Canadians. We want to see the GST on home heating removed, a measure that would apply across the country and not just in provinces that are subject to the federal carbon tax.
The government is now starting to indicate there may be a recession coming, except that it just reverted to the prepandemic, broken EI system just as people are starting to worry about looking for work. Where is the promised EI modernization reform the government has been talking about forever?
I also want to say I was very disappointed to note that the only reference to health care in this document is about dental care. That is a good thing and we should be moving forward on that, but at a time when most Canadians do not trust that if they go to the emergency room they are going to be seen and helped, we need way more investment in health care, working collaboratively, of course, with the provinces. We need to see that the federal government is willing to come to the table with those dollars.
On all of these many things that this was an opportunity to take action on, why have we not seen any action on those important issues?