Debates of Sept. 29th, 2022

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Opposition Motion—Moratorium on New Taxes

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Resuming debate, the hon. parliamentary secretary has two minutes left for his allocution.

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

Mr. Speaker, I spent eight minutes prior to question period trying to inform the Conservatives that inflation was a global issue. However, it did not seem to resonate with them, because they spent the entire question period talking about “Liberal” inflation and inflation as though it were a problem unique to Canada.

The reality of the situation, which I honestly believe the vast majority of Canadians understand, is that inflation is a problem happening throughout the world right now. It is not going to be dealt with by using cheap antics, like the Leader of the Opposition buying a shawarma with Bitcoin, which would have cost him the equivalent of $10 Canadian in March and would cost him $22.35 today. The reality of the situation is that we are going to deal with inflation and the effects it is having on Canadians by working with Canadians, by bringing supports to Canadians and by introducing numerous pieces of legislation. As the House leader indicated just moments ago, we will be focused on them next week and in the weeks to come.

The Conservatives have an opportunity here. They can be onside with the rest of the House and work together with us to support Canadians, or they can continue the games and antics that we have been seeing up to this point.

I think it goes without saying that I certainly will not be supporting the motion put forward by the Conservatives today. I really hope they have an opportunity to reflect on their role in this House and will start bringing forward issues, policies, ideas and motions that will genuinely have an impact on the lives of Canadians.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, does the member believe that there are initiatives being proposed by the government that will help mitigate the rising daily costs for people in his community and for Canadians as a whole? What types of initiatives can we offer Canadians to help mitigate some of those costs?

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

Mr. Speaker, I absolutely do. We can look at the initiative that this government has brought forward with respect to increasing the GST rebate for six months. On that issue, I heard Conservative members early on in the debate talk about the inflationary impacts, yet if we talk to any economist out there, they will report back that the inflationary impacts of that particular program are next to nil. It will not have an impact on inflation.

While the Conservatives continue to try to scare Canadians into trying to support them, as we have seen day after day, we will be focused on providing supports for Canadians that will have a genuine impact on their lives so that we can help them get through this time of inflationary impacts we are seeing throughout the world.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy join in the debate.

Does the member not realize that tripling the carbon tax will have a disastrous effect on the most vulnerable in our society? I get emails from people all the time who are now going to food banks. Food bank use has more than tripled in many cities across the country. With this carbon tax increasing by three times to $170 a tonne by 2030, does he really not think that it is going to have a cascading effect on the affordability crisis, which has been created by inflation and by the Liberals?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Regina—Lewvan for taking one for the team, because it appears as though no other Conservative wanted to get up to ask me a question. I appreciate him doing that.

Nonetheless, once again, he referred to it as “Liberal” inflation. It is global inflation, and out of the G7 countries, we are the third lowest in terms of the inflationary measure.

How the Conservatives can get up time and time again to talk about inflation as though it is a problem unique to Canada absolutely gets me. By the way, as a piece of advice for them, the vast majority of Canadians realize this. I do not know who they think they are speaking to when they continually repeat that over and over, but Canadians do not believe what they are saying.

The member asked me specifically about the price on pollution, or the carbon tax, as he refers to it. What the Conservatives continually leave out of that discussion is the fact that Canadians get back, through the climate action incentive rebate, the price they pay into it. By the way, the only provinces that are impacted by that price on pollution are the provinces that have not stepped up to do their part. Unfortunately, the province I live in, Ontario, is one of them. However, members can look at British Columbia, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, which all have programs in place and as a result do not have a price on pollution.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think we agree on the fact that the Conservatives' motion is completely out of touch with reality. The Conservatives are conflating premiums, social programs, retirement investments and taxes.

On the subject of taxes, is it not true that the Liberals are lagging behind and that they are not getting on with taxing the superrich, billionaires, CEOs, all the major oil companies and grocery chains that are using global inflation as a pretext to hike prices and line their pockets?

When will the Liberals do something about this?

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

Mr. Speaker, I do not disagree with the sentiment of the comment. As a matter of fact, I had a great conversation with the member for Kitchener Centre earlier today about this exact issue and about the fact that perhaps we should be looking toward oil companies, which are receiving record-high profits right now, as an opportunity to bring in taxes, similar to what we did for big banks and other organizations.

I respect the question by the member from the NDP. He suggests that perhaps it is taking too long. I will not necessarily disagree with him on that, but I hope that the NDP and the Liberals can work together, because it is clear that some of the other parties are not interested in making sure that policies like that are put in place.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it will be my absolute pleasure to split my time with the great member for Thornhill.

It an honour to be in the House today to address the affordability crisis that is gripping Canadians across our land, from coast to coast to coast, including in my great riding of Northumberland—Peterborough South.

Milton Friedman once said, “Many people want the government to protect the consumer [but the] much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.”

This is particularly true today, as the Liberal government is driving up the cost of living. For two years now, the Conservative leader has been pushing the government to put people first and to start fighting inflation. However, inflation continues to rise, at this point, over 7%. Canadians are feeling that pain.

Today, I am honoured to call on the government, along with the rest of my colleagues, to scrap its planned tax increases, including the payroll tax hikes slated for January 1, and the tax hike on gas, groceries and home heating scheduled for this April.

To give some context to the opposition motion, I think it is important to understand the relationship between the government and the economy.

A fundamental principle, which must be the bedrock of all political discussions of the economy, is the indisputable fact that wealth or prosperity is created by the businesses and workers of our communities. It is through the production of goods and the delivery of services that a country adds value to the economy. When the country increases its ability to produce goods or to deliver a service, or, in other words, enhances its productivity, that country, by definition, becomes wealthier and its people more prosperous.

A country can temporarily and artificially increase its economic performance through the printing of money or quantitative easing. However, this is always short-lived, and the consequences are nearly always worse than the initial increase in improvement in the economic times.

What happens with this government spending, is that some of it wasted, of course, but some of it hits Canadians' bank accounts. When this money hits the bank accounts, what happens to that money is that, by the time it is available to be spent, the cost of everything has increased. The illusion of the windfall is quickly taken away, and we see we are left with nothing but inflation.

The true path to a more prosperous nation, a wealthier Canada, a more successful Canada, is through productivity. In fact, enhancing productivity is really the only way that this affordability crisis will be cured. When we improve productivity, we increase real wages. We increase real profits, and we create jobs. Unfortunately, the government appears to be doing everything it can to reduce the productivity of Canadians.

There are at least three significant policy directions that the government must reverse course on if it really is serious about tackling the affordability crisis. The government must cap its spending. Excessive spending is eventually paid for either through taxation or inflation, which reduces the ability of our productive sector to make things competitively, be profitable and be prosperous. Worse yet, it continues to drive inflation.

Who ultimately pays the cost of inflation? It is not the wealthy in our communities. It is not the super rich. It is not the government. It is our workers, our workers who are going out there.

I ask members to think of the worker who is earning $50,000 a year. They are already subject to a high rate of taxation. Now, they have seen inflation eat thousands of dollars away from their real buying power. These are people who are already struggling to get by. Thomas Sowell famously wrote that inflation is one of the biggest and oldest forms of taxation.

The effect of our government's overspending is to starve the productive sector, or the private sector, of resources. Those resources are needed.

If one listens to my friends in the NDP, one will hear them say that those monies are just wasted on yachts and wealthy billionaires, and I am sure there is probably some of that. The reality is that the majority of that money is invested back into businesses.

Right now we are starving Canadian businesses of the ability to reinvest. We are dead last in the OECD in capital investment. For every dollar that the U.S. invests in capital investments, we are investing 43¢.

That is the money that is building our businesses in the future. These are the dollars that will make us competitive in the future. We are losing ground at a tremendous rate every single day. That will make our economy less productive and every worker less effective. It will impoverish our country today, as well as tomorrow.

The government must commit to no further tax increases. Tax increases, and it is simple and as plain as day, by very definition, increase costs for workers and for consumers. That will drive inflation. In fact, do not take my word for it.

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to ask questions of the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem. I asked him if the carbon tax was a driver of inflation and he unequivocally agreed. In fact, he said that it was a significant driver of inflation. I think all sides of the House would acknowledge that we are in an affordability crisis. We are at really high rate of inflation and that is making life more difficult for Canadians.

We would think the Liberal government would understand that the carbon tax at its current rate is driving inflation, so it should pause the carbon tax or maybe reduce it, but the government is taking the unthinkable action of tripling the carbon tax, which the Governor of the Bank of Canada has already said is fuelling the fire of inflation. Now it is going to triple it. It is really unthinkable.

Further, with every new tax increase, we are taking away the rewards and incentives of hard work. When entrepreneurs go out and put their whole lives on the line, risking their homes and families' futures, they need to be rewarded. When those workers work 20 out of 24 hours to ensure their families are fed at the end of the month, they should be rewarded for it, and they need to be incentivized. Because of our progressive tax systems and the clawbacks that exist in our current system, middle-class wage earners, and even low-income Canadians, are facing income tax rates of 30%, 40% or 50%. It is not fair that Canadians who are working the hardest should have to pay an exorbitant amount of taxes. This is really unconscionable.

Once again, what has been our Liberal government's response to that? It is going to increase taxes. The Liberals are going to dramatically increase the payroll taxes. This is not fair to Canadians. It also is detrimental to our economy. If we take away the rewards, the very dollars that people have worked so hard for, we reduce the incentive and the rewards for which these people have worked so hard.

Finally, we need to invest in those sectors of the economy that are extremely productive. We have a huge productivity gap. Productivity is measured by the contribution to the GDP per hour worked. Currently, Canada is at $50. Contrast that to Switzerland at $60; the United States at $65; and Ireland at $85. However, we do have sectors in the economy that are doing exceptionally well. In the oil and gas extraction sector it is at $664 per hour. To make life more affordable for Canadians, we need Canadian energy.

It is inescapable that we are all dealing with the consequences of these failed Liberal economic policies. Perhaps no problem is as pressing as food inflation. This is creating challenges for Canadians from coast to coast. According to Statistics Canada, 20% of Canadians are utilizing food banks. Life is getting more challenging for Canadians. Many are experiencing these incredibly difficult economic challenges: inflation is at near highs, rising interest rates and punitive rates of taxation. The government, however, has the opportunity to reduce people's pain, to give them some hope by cancelling their proposed and planned tax increases on gas, home heating and groceries as well as on paycheques.

It is time that the government stops blindly following its ideology and actually help Canadians by cancelling its proposed tax hikes.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives consistently talk about getting rid of the price on pollution. In Winnipeg North, 80% of the constituents who I represent have a net gain. They are receiving more money because of the price on pollution and the credit that follows, yet the Conservatives try to give the impression that the residents of Winnipeg North are being financially penalized.

How would the member justify telling this to Canadians who are affected by the price on pollution, such as in Ontario and the prairie provinces? Those are the provinces where there is the federal price on pollution, yet they are receiving 80% more money than they are contributing. How would he square that?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would not take a politician's word for it, but I would take that of the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer, who has said that 60% of Canadians pay more in carbon tax than they receive in rebates. Quite frankly, that is the experience of those in my riding.

I can tell the residents of Winnipeg North that, if we were to form government, we would reduce their burdens. We would truly have their backs and get the Liberals' hands out of their pockets.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I would appreciate an answer to my question. As I said in my speech this morning, I am surprised that the Conservative Party does not have more to say about the free market. We know that businesses are charging way too much and that the existence of oligopolies and monopolies has a huge impact on consumers. We know that this is a problem.

Yes, inflation is having an impact on the marketplace, but why target taxes when we could address free market issues directly and strengthen the Competition Bureau?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I very much enjoyed working on the public accounts committee with the member. I always found her thoughtful.

I will say that, from Milton Friedman to Thomas Sowell, it is clear from history that, throughout the numerous inflation crises this world has experienced, including the last one under Pierre Elliott Trudeau, it is nearly always a government issue, either because it was printing too much money or taxing too much money. In this case, the government is doing both.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South is quite concerned with the carbon tax. It is recognized by leading economists as the most efficient way to act on the climate crisis. It went up by just 2.2¢ this past year.

Meanwhile, the federal government has announced a new $8.6-billion tax credit for carbon capture and storage, a technology that has led to increased emissions 32 of the 40 times it has been implemented around the world. Is the member not similarly concerned about this amount of public funding going to carbon capture? Would he not want to see that go toward proven climate solutions?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am mindful of the public accounts committee where I asked the environment commissioner if the government had hit one single emissions target. The answer was a clear no. What is the signature policy of the Liberals to get emissions down? It is the carbon tax. The proof is that this policy is failing.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I find it very amusing that the member from the Green Party would say that they can solve a crisis by creating another crisis, a financial crisis. I would ask my colleague what his thoughts are on the tripling of the carbon tax when, on top of that tax, most people are also paying GST. What would he say about that?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the government's punitive policies, particularly on farmers and agriculture, are going to worsen a food crisis that is around the corner. Whether it is restrictions on fertilizer or increases to the carbon tax, life is getting tougher for farmers, which means food is going to get more expensive. The world needs Canada's food. We need to enable and empower our farmers.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, across the country, Canadians are struggling. They are struggling with 40-year highs in inflation. They are struggling with the highest interest rates in the G7. They are struggling with the highest housing prices on record. Gas, groceries and home heating are not luxuries. They never have been, but they are getting further and further out of reach for Canadians, and that is an indictment of a government that stands in this place every day, claiming to understand the pain of Canadians while simultaneously raising taxes on them.

Over and over again in this House we have called for the government to cancel all planned tax increases, including the payroll tax hikes planned for January 1 and the tax hikes on gas, groceries and home heating planned for April 1. Today we do it again, as I stand in this House on behalf of those in Thornhill and Canadians across the country to support the motion that would commit to no new taxes on gas, groceries, home heating and paycheques.

I hope this is a wake-up call to a government that continues to tell Canadians that they have never had it better and that this is an entirely global problem. Imagine that in 2008, during the last financial crisis, anyone in the House had risen in their seats and told Canadians that there was no problem here and that the whole world was facing the issue, so we should not be all that concerned. They would then give some platitudes and say something arbitrary. Imagine the backlash. The good news back then was that we were better positioned to be able to bring forward an economic action plan that had Canada last into the recession and first out, and that is not going to be the case.

Talking more about statistics on debt-to-GDP ratio and credit ratings, which we have heard as a justification for these tax increases, is simply out of touch. Credit ratings do not buy gas. Credit ratings do not buy winter jackets. Credit ratings do not buy workboots. Credit ratings do not buy the things Canadians need, and now Liberals want to add to that struggle. They want to take more of Canadians’ hard-earned money. They want to ignore the well-being of everyday people who desperately need relief.

I hear it. I am sure they do too. The Liberals want to divide people and call them names, and perhaps the Liberals might understand that those actions have consequences, but given today's debate I am not sure they do. I do not know how to classify the Liberal tax plan as anything other than a tax plan, although I think we have heard countless references to words like contributions, funds or taxes by another name.

Like almost all members in this House, I hear from constituents every day whose kids cannot afford a home, who cannot afford to get to work and who cannot afford to feed their families nutritious diets. We need to ask ourselves whether more taxes are the real solution to this affordability crisis. Is doubling down on the same approach that got us into this mess the way to get us out?

The Liberals and the NDP say yes. The Conservatives say no. Canadians pay a vast amount of their income taxes to the government, and only the Liberals, and the NDP as their dance partners, would think that this number needs to go higher rather than lower. If the government was at all in touch with the economic reality, it would know we cannot tax our way to balanced budgets, we cannot tax our way to prosperity, and more spending is not going to get inflation under control.

If the debate in the House is about what is or is not a tax, I thought I would share a few ways the government is actually taxing Canadians, making life harder, because that seems unclear to the other side today.

On paycheques, the finance minister admitted that she wants to raise EI premiums by $2.5 billion and not even fund EI. CPP premiums are on the rise, and payroll taxes on the average Canadian worker are about $700 higher than they were when Conservatives left office.

In the energy sector, Liberals imposed a carbon tax. It started at $30 a tonne. Then it was $40. Now it is $50. They promised Canadians before the election that it would never go higher, but we should have known better, because the environment minister’s plan is to triple the carbon tax to $170 a tonne. The Liberals are tripling the carbon tax. That is times three. We will pay three times more than we do now. The Liberals want to add an extra 40¢ a litre to gas to go with the 40-year high in inflation. They tell Canadians they get more than they pay, and that is not true. The Parliamentary Budget Officer agrees.

Worse, emissions in this country have risen every single year, except for the year the country was shut down. Tripling the price without even making a dent in emissions and presenting that they are returning that money to Canadians does not make a whole lot of sense.

On tax credits, the Liberals promised a rebate for all consumers forced to pay their punitive carbon tax. However, this year the average household in Ontario, where I am from, pays $360 more in carbon taxes than it gets back. There really is no justification. It does not work. They pay more than they get back, and it is going up by three times.

On food, the Prime Minister has increased the taxes farmers pay and decreased the output they produce. Let us not forget it comes at a time when the world is hurting for crops and agricultural products, and now struggling families across Canada are paying record prices for staples like bread, meat and vegetables. Tripling that carbon tax makes everything that needs to be transported even more expensive.

Let us not forget about the inflation tax, the invisible tax eating away at Canadians' paycheques that was brought on by seven years of inflationary deficits and reckless spending. The government knew this would happen. It is not like there was not a warning. We knew that creating cash and running deficits causes inflation. The Leader of the Opposition, the member for Carleton, has been saying so since 2020. The Liberals told us that interest rates would stay low. They told us that the carbon tax would not go up. They told us that the problem was deflation, not inflation.

Do we not have record inflation? Do we not have a plan to triple the carbon tax? Are we not experiencing some of the highest interest rate hikes since the 1990s? This has confirmed what we knew all along, that we cannot rely on the government to manage the nation's economy, and we cannot trust it with workers' paycheques.

Canadians need relief, but it is clear that the government, once again, is going to keep us on the wrong path, and that it has no plan to take us off it to put us on the right one. I have actually been a part of federal budgets before, at a time when they were balanced, the last one that was balanced actually.

What the Liberals proposed last spring was a book of words. It did not have a plan. It did not even have a vision for the future of our nation. Then they voted down our plan to scrap the carbon tax. They nixed the motion to scrap the GST on gas and diesel to help struggling Canadians, and they refused to act to bring down the price to buy a home, or frankly commit to any meaningful housing stock to build more. To this day, Liberals refuse to rein in the inflationary federal spending, driving that number up and not down.

Like I said at the beginning of my speech, Canadians are struggling, and judging by the debate in this place, it seems like Conservatives are the only ones listening. I am sure Liberal members are having the same conversations in their ridings as I am in mine. Our job is to turn that struggle into hope. Whether it is about travel restrictions, punitive vaccine mandates, taxes, the economy or anything else, we are the ones proposing solutions, unlike what the government accused this side of the House of not doing, and we are fighting for Canadians.

Our motion on the table addresses inflation at its core by putting a stop to the out-of-control tax hikes and reckless spending. It is not just me asking for this motion to pass, but also Canadians from coast to coast. Seven out of 10 people say that money is a major issue for them, and 53% of people say they are within $1,000 of insolvency. Canadians are using food banks, 51% of them, and students are living in homeless shelters while they study. Those are facts.

To bring back optimism, to again make Canada the economic engine it could be in the world, Canadians can be assured that we will be here every day to ask the hard questions about why this is happening in this country, to put our ideas forward and to advocate for the millions left behind. We are laser focused on the economy and taxes, because it is too important to the country not to be.

It is time for the Liberals to put people back into their plans when they think about tripling the carbon tax or when they think about raising taxes on Canadians. It is time to let Canadians finally keep their hard-earned money. It is time for the Liberals to answer the millions of Canadians calling for relief, and supporting this motion would give Canadians the relief they are asking for. I hope members of this House agree.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will ask the deputy leader of the Conservative Party the same question I have repeatedly asked the leader of the Conservative Party. What is the Conservative Party's position on cryptocurrency?

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, 40-year highs in inflation and taxes that are going up on January 1 and on April 1, and this is what the member opposite is talking about. His constituents ought to see this. Instead of voting for tax relief, instead of voting to cancel the tripling of the carbon tax, he is talking about cryptocurrency. That is a shame.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we heard the Conservatives go on and on and on about the cost of everything, but it is clear they know the value of nothing in this House. If they did, if they were really serious about workers, they would not be trying to attack pensions, employment contributions and in particular the co-pays. If they were truly concerned about putting money in the pockets of everyday people, they would be supporting our efforts to raise the actual wages.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Demand the workers' unions.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we hear them heckling across the way, but does the hon. member not agree that the quickest, best and most sustainable way of putting money into the pockets of everyday workers is by improving their wages and not taking away their employer co-payments?

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it must be a rude awakening that the leader of the member's party is not invited to their own convention for people his party used to represent in Saskatchewan. It used to be the party of workers.

Taxes on Canadians' paycheques have gone from $3,400 to $4,100. It is a $700 increase. If the member does not understand that is too high and Canadians cannot afford it, I am not sure what his party represents.