Debates of Nov. 21st, 2023

Prostate Cancer

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, which we are marking with the Bowvember campaign.

Quebeckers are especially motivated this year, because it was prostate cancer that took the life of Karl Tremblay, the lead singer of Les Cowboys Fringants. He was not even 50 years old.

Growing a moustache or wearing the Procure bow tie is great, because it helps get information out there and it supports medical research. However, there is something even more important that all men can do to fight prostate cancer, and that is to get screened for it.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to extend a friendly invitation to you and to all my colleagues in government and in opposition that might, in other circumstances, be considered unparliamentary. My message is this: “Guys, go and get your prostate checked”.

The Economy

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

Mr. Speaker, eight years of the NDP-Liberal government have given Canada the worst economic growth since the Great Depression. The OECD predicts that GDP per capita growth will be a paltry 0.7% per annum over the next 10 years, putting us dead last among advanced economies. We are facing declines in investment, innovation and productivity. The Prime Minister is just not worth the cost.

This country is quickly approaching a fork in the road. Canadians can choose between the last eight years of record food bank usage, crime and chaos in our cities, and Canadians losing their houses because of high inflation and high interest rates or a Conservative plan that will empower Canadians to pursue their dreams unfettered by burdensome regulations, punitive tax rates and corrosive inflation.

It is time for a new direction. It is time that Canadians started winning.

Holodomor

[Yvan Baker, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the famine genocide in Ukraine known as the Holodomor, when Joseph Stalin closed Ukraine's borders and confiscated all food to destroy a Ukrainian population that was opposed to his rule. Nineteen people per minute, 1,200 per hour and 28,000 per day were dying of famine at the height of the Holodomor. The world was silent, and millions died as a result.

My grandmother, Olena, was a survivor of the Holodomor. She once told me that she hoped the victims of the Holodomor would not only be remembered, but that they would be honoured. Honouring them for her meant not just remembering them or commemorating them, but taking the steps to ensure that a crime like this never happens again.

Right now in Russian-occupied Ukraine it is happening again. Russia is killing, torturing and raping civilians. Russia is deporting Ukrainian children to Russia. Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine again.

The only way to stop this is for Canada and our allies to give Ukraine the support it needs to ensure that it recaptures all of its territory, to ensure that it achieves a decisive victory.

Let us do as my grandmother would have asked if she were here today. Let us remember the victims. Let us commemorate the victims. Let us honour them.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

There has been a request for unanimous consent to allow a member to make her statement again, because another member had walked in front of her at the time. Does the member have unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

The hon. member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we were very sad to hear about the death of Charly Washipabano, an important figure back home in my riding. He was a member of Hockey Abitibi‑Témiscamingue's board of directors and program coordinator with the Eeyou Istchee Sports and Recreation Association.

Charly Washipabano was a former player with the Amos Comètes midget AA and Amos Forestiers midget AAA teams in the late 1990s, and he later joined the U.S. college circuit in New Hampshire.

After his hockey career, he played a key role in developing hockey in James Bay as a coach trainer and coach of several minor hockey teams.

In 2022, he was invited as a guest coach to the Montreal Canadiens development camp for hockey hopefuls.

A charismatic and iconic figure within the Cree Nation, he left us far too soon.

I offer my deepest condolences to his family, his friends and Cree communities.

Housing

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, after eight years, this Prime Minister is not worth the cost.

A Scotiabank report indicates that government deficits, with the federal government deficit being the largest, have increased interest rates by 2%. That adds $700 a month to the average mortgage. For the average family, it means an additional $8,400 in interest because of this Prime Minister's deficits.

Is he going to table a plan today to balance the budget and lower interest rates so that Canadians can keep their homes?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we are well aware that the Conservative Party's approach is austerity and cuts.

We are investing in housing. We are investing to ensure that Canadians can live more affordably. We know that things are difficult for Canadians.

Austerity and cuts are not the answer. The answer is strategic investments to support families, create the jobs of tomorrow and build hundreds of thousands of new housing units in the years to come.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, austerity and cuts are exactly what Canadian families are living with today. Seven million of them are cutting meals because they cannot afford food prices after he has inflated them. Many are cutting homes and are forced to live in tents because mortgage rates have risen so fast under the Prime Minister's deficits.

Scotiabank now calculates that government deficits are adding two full percentage points to the rates. That is $700 per month in higher mortgage payments. In the next three years, $900 billion of new mortgages, or two-thirds, will come up for renewal. We risk a massive default crisis.

Will the Prime Minister announce a plan to balance the budget, to bring down mortgage rates, so Canadians can keep their homes?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we have seen this movie before. The Conservative politicians' approach to facing challenges is always cuts and austerity. He recognizes, as we all do, that Canadians are facing difficult times, and his solution is for the federal government to do less, to invest less in Canadians and to be there less to support Canadians.

That is not what we are going to do. Over the past number of months, we have announced the construction of over 200,000 homes across the country. We are delivering supports for people, for buying groceries, with greater competition, and we are moving forward with clean jobs into the future.

Whether it is manufacturing with Stellantis or Volkswagen, or whether it is resources, we are moving forward to support workers.

Carbon Pricing

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, what we are proposing is for the federal government to do less damage and cost less money, so that Canadians do not have to live in austerity and cuts as they do today.

Today, we found out that rent rose faster in October than in any month in 40 years. The Prime Minister's solution to that is to quadruple the carbon tax.

Will the Prime Minister announce in an hour, in his fall economic statement, that he has gotten a little bit of common sense, that he is going to cancel the quadrupling and cap the tax until the carbon tax election, when I will win and axe the tax altogether?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, our solution for Canadians who are having trouble affording housing is to build more housing. It is to invest in working with municipalities, to unlock more homes built and to bring down rents. These are the investments we are making.

It is interesting that the Leader of the Opposition talks about the damage we are doing to Canada by delivering $10-a-day child care, the damage we are doing to Canada by delivering dental care to kids who cannot afford it and the damage we are doing to Canada by continuing to step up for seniors and protecting their pensions.

If that is damage, then we really see what the Conservative leader is made of.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is forcing Canadians to give $15 billion to one battery plant. We now learn that it is going to employ 1,600 foreign workers with Canadian tax dollars. Now, $15 billion works out to $1,000 in federal taxes for every single family in Canada. One would think he would have read the contract he signed with this multinational company.

If he did, can he tell us what section in the contract limits the number of foreign workers who get Canadian tax dollars?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, even having watched the Leader of the Opposition in his almost 20-year political career, it is still astonishing to see the way he chooses to use any misinformation to score political points.

The fact of the matter is that he opposes the investments in manufacturing in Canada. He opposes the Stellantis deal to create EV batteries. He opposes the Volkswagen deal that is going to create up to 30,000 direct and indirect jobs in St. Thomas.

He continues to stand against a plan to grow great jobs into a net zero future, and he will use any fake excuse to try to advance that cause.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has spread nothing but disinformation on these very projects.

He was billions of dollars under in estimating the original cost, before the shovels were even in the ground. He claimed the thing would pay itself back in five years. Now we know it is 20 years.

Now we have learned that the majority of the jobs are going to go to foreign workers. That is right: Struggling single moms and seniors will pay $1,000 in taxes, mostly to pay the wages of foreign workers who will not even keep the money here.

Why does the Prime Minister so thoroughly disdain and disrespect Canadian workers that he wants to send their money to another country?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, that is, flat out, false. It is the kind of fearmongering from the Leader of the Opposition that Canadians are seeing almost every single day.

These are thousands of good jobs for Canadians, because this Liberal government has stepped up to reinvest in manufacturing. After years of neglect under a Conservative government, we are stepping up to deliver for Canadians. We are delivering a strong future into a net zero world. The Leader of the Opposition wants to take us back to the Stone Age.

Finance

[Yves-François Blanchet, Bloc, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the economic stakes are high for Quebec and Canada, and that certainly justifies an economic update. However, before I go back to talk to Quebec's seniors in the coming days, or before I go back to talk to Quebec's chambers of commerce in the coming days, can the Prime Minister confirm that the economic update explicitly contains an increase in the old age pension for seniors, and that it explicitly contains an extension of the repayment deadline for the COVID loans granted to small and medium-sized businesses?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, for the past eight years, we have been there for seniors with investments to increase their pensions. We have been there for the most vulnerable seniors with programs that have given them help and support in their communities. We have invested in housing for seniors. We will continue to be there for seniors.

During COVID-19, we were there to support small business and help entrepreneurs, and we are going to continue to be there. I look forward to sharing the contents of the fall economic statement with my hon. colleague, but he will have to wait a few more hours.

[Yves-François Blanchet, Bloc, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if maybe I should send my questions to the Prime Minister ahead of time, so that the answer might have something to do with the question. I understand that there will be no extra money for seniors. I understand that there will be no money for the tens of thousands of businesses that are at risk of closing as a result of the pandemic.

Maybe the government is afraid of running out of money, but I have an idea for the government. Why does it not just eliminate the oil subsidies so it can support seniors and businesses?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to send the appropriate schedule to the leader of the Bloc Québécois to point out that the economic statement will be presented to the House and to Canadians at four o'clock this afternoon. This will give members a chance to ask any questions they may have about it.

I will say that help for seniors and for Canadians, investments in housing, investments to help people with the cost of living and investments to build a more prosperous economy in a changing world are all things that will be included in this statement. I look forward to seeing it presented to my colleagues here in the House.

Automotive Industry

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, when the Prime Minister announced the Stellantis battery plant in Windsor, he said there would be good jobs for a generation of Canadians. Now we are learning that there is potentially a secret deal for 1,600 foreign workers.

When the Prime Minister made this announcement, was it just a photo announcement or was it really a plan to create jobs for Canadians? Will the Prime Minister make this deal public so that Canadians can find out whether he broke yet another promise?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I know that nobody in this House was surprised that the leader of the official opposition fell prey to disinformation and chose to attack the Stellantis deal, but it is disappointing to see the NDP leader, anchored in the community of Windsor, speaking out against the Stellantis deal based on nothing but rumours and disinformation. The reality is this means thousands upon thousands of good jobs for Canadians, good jobs that will grow the local economy and contribute to the battery and manufacturing supply chain in Canada

This is a good deal for Canada. Everyone should get behind it, especially people who care about Windsor.

Grocery Industry

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, if the Prime Minister has nothing to hide, then he should just make the deal public.

Loblaws and Metro just reported much higher profits than last year. Meanwhile, one in 10 Quebeckers is using food banks. This morning, we learned that grocery inflation outpaced headline inflation for the 23rd month in a row.

Will the Prime Minister announce today the measures we have been calling for to lower the cost of groceries?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we have long been concerned about the price of groceries. That is why the parliamentary committee and the minister convened the heads of the grocery chains to work with them to stabilize the price of groceries. We know how important it is to be there to support Canadians.

I can assure hon. members that in the fall economic statement that we are presenting in a few hours, there will be measures to further enhance competition in the grocery sector in order to help people buy groceries and support their families during these difficult times.