Debates of May 3rd, 2022

Use of Props in the House

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I will certainly consider all of the information the hon. member has put before the House. I was not in the chair during Statements by Members. The Speaker who was here ruled on that, but we need to make it very clear that unless an item has been approved by the House, such as an item for the Moose Hide Campaign or the White Ribbon campaign that we wear in the House, no buttons or props should be used in the House.

I remind members that if they want to wear some type of button or ribbon, they should discuss it with others as well, but the issue will be addressed during the Speakers' meetings.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Abbotsford.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-19, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022 and other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Budget Implementation Act, 2022, No. 1

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, that was quite an introduction to my speech. It basically took all the oxygen out of the House.

Let me start by saying that this bill is effectively the budget implementation act, which would implement a portion of the last federal budget, budget 2022, which was tabled just over a month ago. Not surprisingly, after having given this much thought, considered it and looked at all the different elements of this particular bill, as well as the budget itself, we as the Conservative opposition have no choice but to oppose it. I will tell the reasons why.

When I spoke earlier to the budget itself, I highlighted the fact that there were a number of issues we took very seriously. One was that, contrary to expectations, it was not a growth budget. In fact, it was very much like the previous budget in 2021, which was panned by the Liberals' own former advisers, who said that the claims that that budget was a growth budget were actually profoundly wrong. In fact, it was a spending budget. It turns out this budget, budget 2022, is also a spending budget.

Why can I say that it is a spending budget? We know the figures, and the officials have confirmed them. There is somewhere in the order of $57 billion or $58 billion of new spending in this bill. That is not just carrying over from the previous year or established programs simply carrying those forward. This is, on top of that, $57 billion more that the government would spend.

I believe we need to place this all in context because the government took over some six and a half years ago in 2015, and over those six and a half years, and members will not believe this, spending has grown 53%. To put this into further perspective, just between 2019, so just before the COVID pandemic, and today, spending has increased by 25%, so by all measures this is a tax-and-spend Liberal government. Canadians should not be surprised. That is the reputation they have earned over many decades.

Is this a growth budget, which is what it was supposed to be? It was intended to be about fundamental changes that were going to improve the prospects for long-term growth for our country. About the growth we are seeing in the economy today, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has said that growth is actually “GDP inflation.” In other words, it is not organic or substantive growth that is generated by improving productivity within the economy that would improve our competitiveness on the world stage and the global marketplace.

For example, there was nothing in this budget about comprehensive tax reform, which would clearly position our tax system as being fairer, making sure the wealthy pay their share, and also position Canada to be competitive within the global marketplace. Such a tax system would attract investment from all around the world, because today Canada has a reputation of being a place people do not invest in. They shy away. It has too much regulation. Taxes are too high. There is no certainty that the investment will ever be approved, and it has a federal government that is not supportive of this investment, certainly not investment in our resource sector and certainly not investment in our oil and gas sector.

This is also not a growth budget because there is nothing in it about regulatory change or about regulatory reforms that would speed up the approval process for worthy projects. That just is not here.

There is nothing in this budget about interprovincial trade barriers, which have bedevilled governments for many, many decades. It is tougher to do trade among the provinces and territories than it is to do trade with some of our free trade partners around the world. What a sad comment on the performance of the government, which had nothing in the budget or in this bill that addresses that serious problem.

There is nothing in the budget that addresses Canada's lagging investment performance. In fact, Canada is at the bottom of the list of the 38 OECD countries when it comes to investment performance. Investors from around the world just do not see Canada as an attractive place to invest.

I want to hearken back to a comment that the finance minister just made. She made it seem like Canada's growth rate is the best in the world. There is nothing to see here. It is all great. “Don't worry, be happy.” In fact, she quoted the IMF, which said that Canada is going to have a good growth rate for a couple of years.

Do members know what the OECD has said? Canada ranks 38th of 38 countries when it comes to expected future growth of our economy over the next 30 to 35 years, between 2030 and 2060. Canada will be at the bottom of the list of the developed countries of this world. That is a failure on the part of the Liberal government. This is not a growth budget. The prospects under the government are bleak when it comes to future growth.

Second, let me address the issue of inflation. Inflation is the biggest challenge to Canadian families today. The affordability crisis stretches from coast to coast to coast. Yes, there are external influences that have driven inflation from around the world, supply chain challenges and spiking commodity prices, but the government has to take responsibility as well. Economist after economist notes that governments cannot keep spending and spending and pumping more money into our economy without paying a price, and that price is the inflation we see today, especially in our housing market. The housing affordability crisis is as severe as I have seen in my lifetime. It has never been so bad in this country. Right now, the government cannot give Canadians any hope that things are going to get better in the near to mid-term.

The problem is this. The Liberals had something in their budget called a housing plan. They said they were going to pump $10 billion into Canada to help ease the housing crisis, but $4 billion of that is simply a transfer from the federal government to municipalities across the country. It will not create one extra house in Canada. It will not build one extra house over the next few years. It is going to be used, purportedly, to help the municipalities improve their application processes, to make sure they are more efficient, more timely and speedier, so they can get more permit approvals out the door, but that is going to take years to manifest itself. I think we all in the House know that this is not a quick fix.

The other $6 billion from this $10-billion fund is going into a program that will allow first-time homebuyers to set up a savings plan where, over a period of five years, they can invest $8,000 per year for a total of $40,000 in an account that has tax-deductible investments into the fund and one can take money out tax-free. It sounds great, but it is only $40,000 and it is over five years.

Over five years, these families are going to be left far behind by a housing market that is raging out of control. To boot, that program is going to increase demand for housing in Canada even more as more Canadians take advantage of this. We are going to have a problem on the demand side and a problem on the supply side of housing in Canada.

The real challenge here in Canada is the housing crisis itself, and the inflationary aspect of it is a made-in-Canada crisis. Some of the elements that go into our home construction would be impacted by global forces, but for the most part, housing inflation in this country is a made-in-Canada crisis. We had the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, at our committee not long ago and we specifically asked him if it was possible that some of the inflationary spending that the federal Liberals had done, the borrowing and spending, with record deficits and record debt, could be contributing to housing inflation. He admitted that yes, that was true. Housing inflation can be driven by excess liquidity in the marketplace.

It is not available to the Liberal government to simply wash its hands of the inflation crisis besetting our country and afflicting homes across this country. It has to take some ownership and responsibility for a crisis of its own making. It is not solely of its own making, I will be the first to admit, but it is significantly of its own making.

That was the cost of living, and of course it is going to get worse because on one side we have inflation. How do the Bank of Canada and Mr. Macklem fight inflation? He now has to increase interest rates. At committee last week, he admitted he was going to have to do that quickly and that the increases in interest rates would be significant.

Now we are between scourges afflicting families across this country: on one side, we have skyrocketing inflation, and on the other side, we have rising interest rates. Canadians who have mortgages that are due for renewal are going to be paying higher mortgage rates. That means higher payments, which in turn mean less disposable income for those families. That is the story and the legacy of the Liberal government.

I will go to the third problem that we see with this budget and this bill. The finance minister was expressly directed by the Prime Minister, just over a year ago, not to engage in any more new permanent spending. That was in the middle of the COVID pandemic, and the government I thought had realized that we could not keep spending. We need to discipline spending because, at the end of the day, we also have a duty to future generations of Canadians who have to pay back this massive debt that has been incurred because of the COVID pandemic and because of the government's reckless spending.

Instead, after receiving that clear directive, a year later what did the Prime Minister do? He gave the finance minister another mandate letter in which he purged any reference to eliminating new permanent spending. I do not know. Maybe the Prime Minister already knew that he was cooking up a coalition between the NDP and the Liberals, that it would cost taxpayers a lot of money, and then the government would have to borrow a lot of money to satisfy the NDP. I do not know that, but I do know this.

Shortly after the finance minister received that mandate letter, she started crafting her 2022 budget, which introduced a massive amount of new permanent spending, including a dental care program. In the last budget, it was a child care program. In the next one, we expect there will be a pharmacare program.

What was shocking to me, as a member of the finance committee, was the process when all of these requests were pouring in as we did our pre-budget consultations. There were stakeholders from across Canada. Five hundred written submissions came in, and many more witnesses were basically asking the government to fund this program or that program or to give them this subsidy or that subsidy. We asked the other members of the committee if we could at least go through a process of prioritization and triage all the requests flooding in, so that we could bring a critical eye to them to determine which ones were actually affordable for Canadian taxpayers and future generations, who would have to pay the bill.

The Liberals, NDP and Bloc said that they were not interested in prioritization. They wanted to take all the recommendations and send them up to the minister to see what she would do with them. What a reckless way of doing business. That is not the kind of country I want to live in. I want to live in a country that is fiscally responsible. I want to have a Prime Minister who actually thinks about monetary policy, not who shuns it and says it is something that does not concern him.

It is the monetary policy of this country that is requiring interest rates to go up because of the reckless borrowing and spending of the Liberal government. That is the permanent spending part of it. There is $57 billion of new spending just in this budget alone, and that will saddle future generations with an albatross. It is a huge indebtedness that they are going to have to pay back with rising interest rates.

The last point is taxation. The Liberal government often talks about having Canadians' backs and being there for the middle class. “Hear, hear,” they say, yet the budget is tax after tax. It is unbelievable. Look at the escalator on wine excise taxes, for example. It is unbelievable. The escalators automatically drive up the taxes on goods that Canadians purchase every single day. It is tax after tax. What is worse is the fact that with the dramatic escalation in the price of gas at the pumps, Canadians who already had a tough time filling up their tanks are now realizing, because we Conservatives are telling them, that on top of that gas price, they are paying GST, which means more revenues for the federal government but less disposable income for them.

We, as Conservatives, brought forward a proposal, because we are solution-oriented. We are problem-solvers on this side. We came forward to the Prime Minister and said that we could at least temporarily suspend carbon taxes and temporarily suspend the GST on gas so we could give Canadians a break. The Liberals said no.

Let me close by saying that there is no way the Conservatives, the official opposition and the loyal opposition, can support a budget bill that is irresponsible. I have a motion that I would like to table in this House.

I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “that” and substituting the following: “the House decline to give second reading to Bill C-19, an Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022 and other measures, since the bill fails, among other things, to address inflation, provide tax relief for Canadians and take immediate action to increase housing supply.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The amendment is in order.

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, Fisheries and Oceans; the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship; the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill, Public Safety.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to go to the central, core point that the government is apparently entirely responsible for the inflationary aspect of our current economy.

[An hon. member]

Hear, hear!

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would say that my hon. friend from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan is a little premature in his enthusiasm.

Has the hon. member thought about how much the Putin war is contributing to the rate of inflation with respect to oil, gas and commodities in multiple trillions of dollars? Has he thought about how the clogged supply chains, created largely by COVID, have contributed multiple trillions of dollars to increased prices? Has he thought about the pent-up demand created by COVID that created multiple trillions of dollars? Has he thought about the U.S. economy, which has an inflation rate considerably in excess of Canada's, and that being our major trading partner? Also—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Unfortunately, I have to allow for other questions.

The hon. member for Abbotsford.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would be glad to answer the member's question. I do not know if he was in this House for the full speech I gave, because I acknowledged that supply chains do have an impact on inflation and that rising commodity prices around the world, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine of course, do have an impact, but I also mentioned that housing affordability and the housing inflation we are experiencing today in Canada are largely a made-in-Canada phenomenon. That is backed up by many economists, and I think he knows that.

Let us be fair here. I acknowledge that some of the inflation that we experience in Canada is a global phenomenon, but a lot of it is driven by the actions of the current government in borrowing and spending in a way that is irresponsible.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, earlier today the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands was bragging about the parliamentary system, about the debate and other debates that would take place in committee.

What does not help, as we know, with the implementation bill is to have a 500‑page bill that amends 37 acts and includes three bills that have already been introduced. If ever anyone wants to kill debate, that is exactly how to do it.

I would like my colleague to tell me whether he thinks the Liberals are using their deal with the NDP to ram all this down our throats. I would also like him to tell me whether the Conservatives are happy with the fact that this new coalition is using the Harper method to get everything they want through us.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is seldom that we Conservatives are on the same page with the Bloc, but in this case I have to agree with the member. This is an omnibus bill that the Prime Minister promised he was never going to table in this House. That is exactly what he did.

Do members know how ridiculous it became? This is a budget, a money bill. It is about money, but there is a provision in here that creates a new Criminal Code offence for activity that takes place on the moon. It is true. If we look at this bill, we will see that there is a specific provision that creates a new Criminal Code offence for activity that takes place on the moon or on a shuttle that is travelling to the moon. That is how crazy the current government has become.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am going to circle back to the hon. member's comments about housing and the housing market.

We have heard a lot of discussion, particularly from my Conservative colleagues, but also from elsewhere in committee, on the role that government expenditure may play in the housing market. Prior to the pandemic and prior to quantitative easing, we also saw astronomical increases in housing prices over a long period, including when the hon. member was around the cabinet table.

We know that private capital is also playing a significant role. There is a significant domestic investor presence in the Canadian market that is eating more and more of the housing stock, and after outbidding Canadians on their dream home or what they were hoping might be their starter home, they then rent it back to them at extraordinary high prices.

I wonder if the member might want to take some time, perhaps for the first time, to talk about the role of private capital and domestic investors in the housing market, and the affect they are having on prices in the housing market.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I think what my hon. colleague from the finance committee is signalling is a concern over the financialization of housing in Canada, where people see housing as simply being an investment to be profited from rather than a roof over a person's head. I do share his concern that, if we are not sensible about this, it is going to cost Canadians significantly.

However, I do take issue with his assertion that, under the Harper government, somehow housing prices also spiked. No, that is not true. Housing prices were very stable during the Harper years. We a had a slight appreciation in value over time, which is what Canadians expect. They want to see a return to stable house prices in Canada. We, as Conservatives, are capable of delivering that.

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

Madam Speaker, these Liberals continually promise the moon to millennials, especially when it comes to housing affordability, but their new savings account for first-time homebuyers is not in this bill. The things that are in it either make the problem worse, or they do not help at all.

In Bill C-19 itself there is an assignment of sale that would only give more revenue to the government, which would be allowed to charge GST on a second unit, and that is simply going to raise the price of housing. There is also a ban on foreign ownership. I thought that the original policy was so full of holes that it was like Swiss cheese, but they left the biggest loophole to the government. What was that? It would essentially allow the government to choose if and when the actual ban ever comes into place.

Can the member please comment on a few other things that are in the bill or the budget that the Liberals have promised but do not deliver on?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, the thing the Liberals do not deliver on is affordability. They do not deliver on their promise to fight inflation. In fact, do members know what happens with the Liberal government? The biggest beneficiary of inflation and the affordability crisis is government revenues. Every step along the way, it gets another piece of the action.

This new legislation would allow the government to now charge GST on the assignment of real estate contracts. Therefore, if somebody buys a house, but is doing it on spec, and finds another buyer who is prepared to pay more, they can say, “Hey would you like to buy this? I will sell you the contract.” Well, is the government not going to take a piece of the action on that as well?

It does on gas. It does on carbon taxes. It is all the GST layered on everything that Canadians buy. At the end of the day, Canadians are the ones who pay the price, and the big beneficiary is the Prime Minister, who continues to bring in more and more government tax revenues and then spends that money wildly. That is unacceptable, and Canadians are going to call him on it.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. friend for Abbotsford.

I wonder if he was disappointed, as I was, in reading the budget to see nothing additional for adaptation, particularly after what happened in his riding in Abbotsford. There is nothing additional on flooding. I wonder if the member has any thoughts on that.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind the parliamentary secretary that he should show some respect in the House and not heckle.

The hon. member for Abbotsford.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, that is one of the best questions I have ever heard from the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. It was a great question.

Abbotsford, and in fact southern British Columbia, suffered the most significant rain and flood event, certainly in my lifetime, this past November. It drove home the reality that our weather resiliency and climate change resiliency are not anywhere close to being up to snuff. Our dikes failed, we had massive flooding across the Sumas Prairie, and many other communities in southern British Columbia, such as Princeton, Keremeos and Merritt, were impacted by infrastructure that was not up to snuff. We need to invest more in adaptability to make sure that our country is climate resilient. She may be surprised to hear—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am sorry, but the time is up. I allowed a bit of extra time.

Before we start the time, I want to remind the hon. parliamentary secretaries, because there was quite a bit of back-and-forth, that they should wait until it is time to ask questions before they decide to have their voices heard in the House.

The hon. member for Thérèse-De Blainville.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would seek the consent of the House to share my time with my esteemed colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Does the hon. member have consent to share her time?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, I may not be able to say that I had time to study all 500 pages of Bill C-19, but I have a few comments.

There is a lot of talk about work, workers and the importance of employment. I wanted to know what the government had put forward for workers, whether it had an ambitious agenda and vision, and whether it was able to do something tangible to support workers and improve their conditions. After all, at the end of the day, labour is an important part of the economy.

Based on my analysis, I find that the sights are set too low when it comes to workers. I will provide a few examples. In the last budget and in the Minister of Labour’s mandate letter, the government promised legislation to prohibit the use of replacement workers under the fundamental right to associate and to bargain. There is nothing in this bill to indicate any intention or action in this area. What happened with that?

Another issue is fair employment. I do not know if anyone knows this, but the Employment Equity Act was passed in 2018. Currently, in federally regulated businesses, there is differential treatment based on employment status using “orphan clauses”. The Act was passed in 2018, but there is still no plan or vision to move forward with this. What is going on there?

Recently, we passed Bill C-3 here in the House to give workers 10 days of paid sick leave. That legislation will come into effect at a later date fixed by order-in-council, but we still have not found anything yet.

Climate change is one of the reasons we opposed the budget. We want to see an end to fossil fuel production and a just and fair transition to green or clean energy. What is there for workers?

Last week, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development said that Natural Resources Canada and Employment and Social Development Canada were not prepared to support a just transition to a low‑carbon economy for workers and communities. It is serious: There are more than 200,000 workers, and there are no plans or measures to support this just and necessary transition.

I would also say that the government is abandoning health care workers by firmly refusing to increase Canada health transfers, as Quebec and the other provinces are calling for. If we want quality health care, we must rely on these workers. To do this, Quebec needs the necessary subsidies to match the expenses so it can better support the health sector.

I looked everywhere in the budget and found only one paragraph on employment insurance. This is where workers are being totally abandoned, even though comprehensive EI reform had been promised. Once again, the government missed an opportunity to act. In one paragraph of the budget and in Bill C-19, the government announced the extension of pilot projects that provide up to five additional weeks of EI benefits to seasonal workers. That is it, nothing more.

The Minister of Employment's mandate letter clearly states that she is to work on modernizing employment insurance by the summer of 2022. The Prime Minister himself said that he asked the minister to focus her energy on building a more equitable system by June 2022. On January 1, she indicated that this was likely to happen.

Right now, workers everywhere, in all regions of Quebec and Canada, are struggling to qualify for fair and accessible benefits. There are serious shortcomings that need to be addressed. We know what the issues are, we know what it will take to fix them, yet there is still a delay in implementing the changes that are needed.

Surely we do not need to be reminded that the EI system is a social safety net that protects workers who lose their jobs. It also protects them in the aftermath of life events, as the minister said. For example, sickness benefits are still capped at 15 weeks when they promised to extend them to 26 weeks. We are being told that this may not happen in July, as first thought, because the computer system will not be ready. They are abandoning people.

I am quite surprised and disappointed that the orange team did not leave its mark in the budget when it comes to workers; it clearly lacks teeth.

All unemployed workers' groups and labour groups support employment insurance reform. More consultations are on the books. Consultations have been going on for years. When will the government get on with it? This is a broken promise at present.

EI reform is important for workers. I meet with workers, unemployed workers' groups, community groups and civil society groups to look at the economic and social realities in some regions. In regions where the seasonal industry holds a predominant place in the economy, five extra weeks in the event of job loss is not enough. There is the issue of the spring gap, which is when a worker does not have enough weeks of benefits to cover the period between the end of the job and when the job resumes. We could tell workers to go work somewhere else, but that is not the answer; rather, we have to support the seasonal industry when it comes to tourism, the fishery. We know that major sectors are affected. A region's economy depends on that. It is not by once again carrying forward a five- to 10-week pilot project that we are going to to give the regions the capacity to support their economy and give workers the capacity to maintain good jobs and experience. We need to protect the vitality of the regions.

The inequities in the EI system for women and young people are another example of needed reforms. The current rules are outdated and significantly discriminate against them. All kinds of criteria regarding hours of eligibility need to be changed. I think the government needs to send a clear message that EI reform is a priority. It is a priority for workers and for the economy. This program is a social safety net that is very much needed, but what the government is doing is very disappointing.

I want to mention the little note about reviewing the Social Security Tribunal and creating a multi-stakeholder tribunal. All the better, since workers have been calling for this for 10 years.

Since I have just 30 seconds left, I want to conclude by saying that workers are in dire need of support. The Liberal government must send a very clear message in its budgets and financial policies that we are counting on them. If we are counting on them, then they need support and they need it now.

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

Madam Speaker, I disagree with the overall assessment the member tries to portray regarding the image of the government. Virtually from day one, we have seen a government that is very supportive of workers in Canada. I can talk about things such as labour disputes, contracts that were signed shortly after we had taken government and changes in labour laws that were very well received. We have had changes in our EI program. We have provided literally hundreds of millions of dollars to training programs. We have seen legislative and budgetary measures in the past, including today, that are advancing workers, including in the area of the just transition.

I think the member is looking for a way to try to justify voting no on the legislation, from listening to the content of her speech. I am wondering if she would reflect on what I have just said. How can she advocate that the government has not been listening to and working for workers?