Debates of May 19th, 2022

Public Works and Government Services—Main Estimates, 2022-23

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Mr. Chair, does the minister think the government can instruct the banks I mentioned earlier to operate in indigenous communities and rural communities?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Chair, with respect to Canada Post, we are carrying on conversations and discussions. I have met with Canada Post. I have met with the workers union, CUPW, and we will continue to have conversations in order to assist Canada Post to get to a place where it is self-sustaining.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Mr. Chair, will the minister work with me to at least develop a pilot project in Nunavut to check the viability of developing a postal banking system for the rest of Canada?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Chair, I would be honoured, and I welcome working with the member and listening to the concerns and issues she has. I look forward to that engagement.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Mr. Chair, does the minister recall this quote from her mandate letter?

Ensure that Canada Post provides a high quality of service that Canadians expect at a reasonable price and better reaches Canadians in rural and remote areas. You will be supported in this work by the Minister of Rural Economic Development.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Chair, yes. In fact, I have had conversations with the Minister of Rural Economic Development. I recognize that that is in my mandate letter. It is one of the reasons why we have conducted surveys in order to get information from the public to determine what services are important to them and assist Canada Post to deliver those services.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Mr. Chair, I will quote another sentence in the mandate letter:

You will also leverage the government's purchasing power to increase access to economic opportunity for a greater diversity of Canadians.

Does the minister recall that as well?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Chair, yes, I do. I was very pleased to see that in my mandate letter.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Mr. Chair, will the minister work with me on the viability of a postal banking system in Nunavut?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Chair, I will work with the member, take the input that she has, learn from her experiences and work collaboratively as we move forward with Canada Post.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Mr. Chair, I will now turn to another aspect.

Last year, polling conducted by Canada around postal services raised concerns about cuts to services and jobs. What are the government's plans for Canada Post to ensure that transparency is happening?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Chair, we absolutely want to work with Canada Post. We actually did that survey in order to hear from Canadians. The member read from my mandate letter. It talks about the services that are important to Canadians. We need to know what those services are. That was the reason for the survey. We want to get that information so that as we move forward, Canada Post is able to deliver services that Canadians value and need.

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

Mr. Chair, if the provinces and the territories came to the government and asked to procure safer pharmaceutical alternatives to the toxic drugs that are killing Canadians, would it act with the same urgency that it did to procure COVID-19 vaccines and supplies?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Minister of Public Services and Procurement]

Mr. Chair, if we go back to March 2020, when COVID descended upon us, we were in a very different situation. We did not have one vaccine that was approved. The provinces and territories needed the assistance, which is why the federal government got into that procurement business. This is generally not what the federal government would do. Health care is provided by provinces and territories.

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

Mr. Chair, the government keeps touting a safer supply as how it is going to respond to this crisis. Has the government looked into whether bulk buying harm reduction supplies or a safer supply could help reduce costs for supervised consumption sites, which often face funding challenges?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Chair, the government has made significant investments in terms of the crisis that we have at hand with opioids, and the vaccines that we have procured were procured because we knew that we needed those vaccines across the country.

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

Mr. Chair, people are dying in the minister's own community. Parents are losing their children. The drug supply in this country has never been more toxic. We need a paradigm shift in our drug policy and we need a crisis-level response. We can save lives by procuring a safer supply.

Will the minister raise this issue at her cabinet table and urge the government to act, and act now?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Chair, as I have said, I am happy to work with the member. I appreciate his advocacy. Our government has made significant investments. The Prime Minister has appointed the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions. She is working very hard on this.

We have made investments, as I said, of $800 million to support community-led harm reduction, treatment and prevention projects since 2015.

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

Mr. Chair, the government created an expert task force on substance use. It included police chiefs, top medical health professionals, people who work on the front lines, people who use drugs, family members who have lost loved ones and experts on substance use. The minister has not even read the executive summary of its report, which she admitted earlier.

My question is this. Will the minister do the right thing and at least read the report? It does include a safer supply. Will she support my bill, and at least getting it to committee, to listen to the experts and to see if there is a way that her cabinet post and her department can contribute to saving lives?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Chair, I appreciate the impact that this is having. I am, as a part of this government, always willing to work to address this crisis. However, we have made investments and taken measures, and these investments are making a significant difference. There is more that is going to be done, and I know that the minister responsible is taking strong action. I look forward to the future steps we are going to take, but significant investments have been made, with $800 million since 2015 in this regard.

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

Mr. Chair, does the minister think that her government is doing a good job in responding to the toxic drug supply crisis?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Chair, I think that our government is seized with this, and we are going to continue to implement further measures in addition to the $800 million that we have committed. I know that the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions is working very hard on this matter.

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

Mr. Chair, Canada's target of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 requires substantial carbon reductions across all economic sectors. Changing how we look at public infrastructure can unlock previously overlooked pollution-reduction opportunities while supporting Canadian manufacturers and creating the conditions for them to thrive in the low-carbon global marketplace.

This government committed to buy clean in the last election, and creating a buy clean strategy was identified as a priority in the mandate letters of three ministers. However, creating a buy clean strategy is not mentioned in the minister's departmental plan for 2022-23. Can she speak to that?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Chair, as I have said, we have taken significant steps in procurement. We know that there is work that we can do, and we are undertaking that work.

The work has led to a 57.6% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, a 19% reduction in the remaining emissions expected by 2025 with our national clean electricity initiative, and an additional decrease of 40% by 2025 by modernizing the heating and cooling systems of buildings in the national capital region through the energy services acquisition program.

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

Mr. Chair, when can we see buy clean policies that build climate considerations into public infrastructure and spending that rewards Canadian climate leaders and supports the transition of Canada's industries? I am not talking about TMX here.