Madam Speaker, I would like to begin my speech by saying that I will be sharing my time with the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou. That is a rather long riding name. Many riding names are quite long. Mine certainly is, and so is hers.
Today we are debating Government Business No. 30. It is a government motion to shorten the debates on Bill C‑56, which seeks to implement a rebate of the GST on the construction of residential rental properties. The bill also seeks to give the Competition Bureau more power to conduct an inquiry. Notably, it could force the procurement of documents, which was not previously the case.
Unfortunately, we are debating government business instead of the bill because the government decided to impose closure yet again. We are faced with another gag order. Sadly, the current government seems to want to govern by gag order. It is one gag order after another. Obviously, the government will argue that it was meant to stop the Conservatives' filibustering. I am not saying that the Conservatives never filibuster, but we get a sense that this procedural device is being abused.
In the current case, we in the Bloc Québécois were open to speeding up debate. The government said that doing so might help build housing faster. It said that the measures in Bill C‑56 to strengthen the Competition Bureau's powers could make a difference. We were sensitive to all these things. We are very open to studying Bill C‑56, but we had other concerns too.
One of our concerns, and we have been repeating this for weeks, has to do with the emergency business account that was launched during the pandemic. It was meant to support small businesses by offering them a $40,000 loan. Twenty-five percent of that amount, or $10,000, was forgiven if the loans were paid back within three years. The problem was that, following the pandemic, there was a supply crisis and an inflation crisis, not to mention the fact that interest rates have gone up considerably. The economy is struggling even more now. Those businesses were already struggling during the pandemic, because many of them could no longer operate for health reasons. We must stand together as a society, which is why that program was put in place at the time, and we agreed on it.
However, the government did say that these businesses would have to pay back their loans. We agree that businesses should pay them back. A loan is meant to be repaid at some point, but it is important not to put Quebec businesses at risk. We have to use our brains a little and be somewhat flexible in how we do things.
I mention this while we are debating Government Business No. 30 regarding Bill C‑56, because we told the government that it should be giving Quebec businesses more flexibility. In return, we would have been prepared to fast-track the passage of Bill C‑56. Unfortunately, the government did not listen to the Bloc Québécois. It decided to let Quebec businesses fail. It will continue to leave them in jeopardy, even though people from my riding talk to me about this every week. When I am out and about in my riding, people tell me that things are not going well, that their sales are lower than expected, that things did not return to normal like they thought they would and that money does not grow on trees.
Unfortunately, the government has not been sensitive to that. We have been asking questions in the House about this for weeks. Members on the other side have responded by saying that they extended the deadline, but they extended the deadline by only 18 days.
I doubt that 18 days is enough time for a small or medium-sized business to rake in $40,000 in profit. There is no way. Unfortunately, that is what we are looking at with the Liberals.
Instead, the government decided to turn to the NDP. As we all know, the NDP can be bought quite easily. They give the government everything it wants. Unfortunately, we are stuck with the reality that Quebec businesses are going to pay because of the Liberals and the NDP.
The Bloc Québécois will continue to push for our companies to have more flexibility in repaying the Canada emergency business account so that, come January 18, the banks are not waiting for them. I can just picture them, big smiles on their faces, telling companies that they can get their $10,000 back by simply taking out a high-interest loan. Considering the significant jump in interest rates, we know full well that there are plenty of companies that will not make it through.
To come back more specifically to Bill C‑56, earlier I talked about getting rid of the tax on new rental housing construction. The government claims this is going to fix the housing crisis. Maybe not exactly, but it claims that it will make a big difference.
The Bloc Québécois has a few concerns. Will this make a difference? It may make a difference in making some projects more profitable than they were as a result of interest rate increases. It may help, but we would have liked to see a study done on this. Did the government do a study on the impact that this bill might have on the price of housing and on its availability? No, it pulled this bill out of its hat. Since we are in a housing crisis, it decided to make a quick announcement and that is what it did.
This will likely have a positive impact on housing construction, but we do not really know because we have no baseline data to confirm the result.
I have another point. In a supply and demand market, there is typically a going price for housing. Right now, that price is very high. Homes are being sold at a high price, but unfortunately, some people would benefit from lower prices. I say unfortunately, but that might be an exaggeration. What I mean is that this could have an unfortunate impact. There is absolutely no guarantee that this much-touted 5% cut to the GST on new housing construction will impact social or affordable housing. In fact, there is zero chance that it would be used for social housing because that type of housing does not qualify.
For example, if a city decides to build social housing, it is already exempt. The proposed measure will not work. The same thing applies to co-ops or non-profit organizations. There is already a type of exemption in place. This will not benefit them. Therefore, it will not result in social housing or low-cost housing. On the other hand, it will certainly help the construction of expensive housing.
The government says that it may take care of the specifics through regulations. We look forward to seeing those, but there is no guarantee. We have no guarantee that the exemptions that will be granted will be used to build reasonably priced new housing. They could be used to build units that rent for $3,000, $4,000 or $5,000 a month. I cannot even say $2,000 a month anymore because that is practically considered affordable housing nowadays. Unfortunately, the government thinks that it is going to fix the housing crisis, but this bill is no silver bullet. I find that unfortunate.
I also want to talk about the Competition Bureau. Not so long ago, the minister said in the House that he would fix the problem. He said that he had spoken with the grocers and that there would not be an issue anymore, that grocery prices would drop. The week after, he said that he had checked the flyers and seen some great discounts. He claimed to have fixed the inflation crisis by checking the flyers one week and speaking with grocery CEOs. He should have spoken with families instead. The inflation crisis is not over.
Some elements of this bill will give the Competition Bureau more oversight over large companies. This change will not necessarily happen overnight, however.
The same goes for this much-vaunted 5% rebate. It is not going to solve the problem in the short term. The effects of this measure will be felt more in the very long term. We therefore expect—