Debates of Dec. 7th, 2023

Government Response to Petitions

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8)(a), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 22 petitions. These returns will be tabled in an electronic format.

The Environment

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and to the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, “2022-2023 Reports by Federal Authorities with Obligations under Section 71 of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012”.

Furthermore, as required by subsection 14(1.1) of the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, I would also like to table, in both official languages, “2023 Progress Report on the 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan”.

We are lowering our emissions and fighting climate change on this side of the House.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

I want to remind members to simply table documents.

Agriculture and Agri-Food

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 14th report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, entitled “Supplementary Estimates (B), 2023-24: Votes 1b, 5b and 10b under Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food”.

Bringing Home Justice for Victims of Serious Crimes Act

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-370, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (unlocking of electronic device).

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo for seconding my bill today. I am honoured to rise to introduce the bringing home justice for victims of serious crimes act.

There are few things more frustrating to law enforcement than to have the legal right to access potential evidence but the inability to get that evidence. That evidence is often locked behind a virtual locked door of encryption. This can impede the investigation of critical files, such as for child sexual exploitation and human trafficking. It denies justice to the victims of these serious crimes, many of whom are children.

This bill would allow a judge to make an order to compel a person to unlock their device in a narrow range of specific serious offences where law enforcement has already received a warrant to access the information on that device. As technology continues to progress, Parliament must ensure that law enforcement has the tools it needs.

This legislation would give law enforcement a previously unavailable tool to ensure critical evidence for serious crimes by unlocking electronic devices. When I have spoken to members of law enforcement and child protection organizations, they have made it clear that this tool would be a game-changer when it comes to securing justice for child victims of serious crimes.

I want to thank the individuals from both the justice community and child advocacy community who have helped draft this bill. The work they do every day is so important. Let us bring home justice for victims of serious crimes.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Health Care Workers

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, very quickly, I have five petitions to table on behalf of my constituents.

The first one calls for a blue seal program, modelled after the Red Seal program, for medical professionals.

Justice

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, the second petition calls for the government to ensure that hate crimes are prosecuted in Canada when they target certain religious groups.

Democratic Institutions

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, the third petition asks for an inquiry to be called into the foreign interference in our elections by the People's Republic of China.

Climate Change

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, the fourth petition from my constituents calls for Bill C-50 to be abandoned, as the unjust transition act targets them specifically.

Employment Insurance

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, my fifth petition calls for the Government of Canada, and the Speaker specifically, to give royal recommendation to Bill C-318 so that adoptive and intended parents are able to better support their families.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind members who are having conversations to please take them outside. They may not think it is loud, but I have my speakers on and I can still hear the conversations.

Food Security

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

Madam Speaker, it is a huge honour and privilege to table this petition today on behalf of constituents in my riding.

Farmers' markets are a key tool for COVID–19 recovery as small business incubators, domestic system and food security builders and local economy community builders. These coupon programs are a key support for new market development and for existing markets and their provincial associations. In B.C., the Association of Farmers' Markets, with its 135 member markets and 4,000-plus vendors, helps 16,000 vulnerable families, seniors and pregnant women to access weekly coupons.

The petitioners call for a national matching program that would support all provincial market coupon programs and would match provinces that already have contributing programs. This would help tackle poverty, support local farmers and help provide healthy food to the most vulnerable.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today to present a petition on behalf of the community around Enterprise Public School in Kingston.

The petitioners call on the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to prioritize funding for a national school food program through budget 2024, for implementation in schools in the fall of 2024.

The petitioners bring to the government's attention the new Statistics Canada data from 2022 that indicates one in four children in Canada lives in a food insecure household. They remind us that Canada is the only G7 country without a national school food program and that school food programs are recognized around the world as essential to the health, well-being and education of students, with over 388 million children in at least 161 countries receiving food or subsidized school meals at their school.

Employment Insurance

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to present a petition recognizing that maternity and parental benefits provide parents with critical financial supports and that adoptive and intended parents are currently at a disadvantage under the EI system.

The petitioners are calling on the government to support the adoption of a common-sense Conservative bill, Bill C-318, which would deliver equitable parental leave for adoptive and intended parents. This must be done by way of royal recommendation.

Health Care Workers

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to table a petition today signed by Manitobans regarding the important issue of health care.

The petitioners amplify the importance of recognizing the credentials that immigrants bring to the country with respect to health care and recognizing our post-secondary facilities and the need to better support our health care providers, who are really the backbone of our health care system.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Again, I want to remind members that if they wish to have conversations while somebody else has the floor, they should take them outside. I just mentioned that. I think we need to afford the same type of respect to other members that we afford our own members.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order. There is no chance for debate on this matter. I am asking members on both the government side and the official opposition side to respect each other and respect this House to ensure that we maintain decorum and that the House can function properly.

Questions on the Order Paper

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

Madam Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand, please.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Opposition Motion—Carbon Tax on Farmers, First Nations and Families

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

moved:

That the House call on the Liberal government to immediately repeal the carbon tax on farmers, First Nations and families.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Today being the last allotted day in the supply period ending December 10, the House will proceed as usual to the consideration and passage of the appropriation bill. In view of recent practices, do hon. members agree that the bill be distributed now?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, Canadians are hungry for Parliament to pass today's common-sense Conservative motion that the House call on the government to immediately repeal the carbon tax on farmers, first nations and families. When I say they are hungry for us to pass this motion, I mean it literally.

Here are the facts: Two million Canadians used a food bank in a single month in Canada. Since 2016, there has been an 82% increase in the number of workers in Ontario using food banks. A single mother of two in Sydney, Nova Scotia, said this: “Well, this month, I had to choose between eating and having heat. My kids are getting fed, but my house is freezing.”

For the first time in 60 years, according to the Bank of Montreal, rents in Canada are outpacing income. Halifax now has 35 homeless encampments. Ironically, this is in the province of the Prime Minister's own housing minister.

According to an article, Dalhousie University's Agri-Food Analytics Lab says that buying holiday foods this year will be “an expensive proposition”. A growing number of Canadians are forced to work two jobs. Rafid Khan is a full-time student who works full-time for a not-for-profit and has a second job at a car rental company. He said, “You can just hear your body scream for more rest”.

As I travel this country, I see the young, emaciated working-class people who clearly have lost weight and have black bags under their eyes from fatigue. I bump into them in airport lobbies at 11 p.m.; they tell me they are entering their 16th or 17th hour of work that day. It is not because they are squirrelling away for a down payment on a home; they have long given up on that. It is because they must work non-stop just to feed themselves and to pay their rent to avoid becoming homeless. In the meantime, they are hopeless; they see no light at the end of the tunnel.

Trevor Moss, CEO of the Central Okanagan Food Bank, talked about food bank usage in his community. He said that they are projecting another 100% increase in the next three or four months because of inflation.

Cynthia Boulter, chief operating officer of the Greater Vancouver Food Bank, said, “We see parents who are skipping meals so that their children can eat. We see people who haven't eaten in days. We see seniors who haven't had produce in months”.

Christine MacCallum, a resident of Marshfield, P.E.I., said that they do not buy orange juice as often as they used to; that is a luxury after eight years under the Prime Minister.

Patrick Gallagher is a part-time worker living in a homeless shelter. He said, “‘I lived in my car six, seven months and then came here,’ adding that he is not sure how he will ever afford his own place.” He said, “The rents are really high. It’s hard to find places”. This is someone who still works part time.

I have met carpenters who live in parking lots. When we have an economy where the people who build our homes cannot afford to live in them, it is a fundamentally unjust system; something must change. Indeed, Canadians are literally hungering for that change.

This is life after eight years under the Prime Minister and the Liberal government. This is the misery that Canadians are living. This is eight years after he promised he would help the middle class and those working hard to join them. Do members remember those people? We do not hear about them anymore. Now that he has their votes, he does not need to worry about them.

The reason he would never mention the middle class and those working hard to join it is, obviously, that the whole nation would break down into simultaneous laughter and tears. The irony that this man would talk about the middle class after he robbed people of their birthright in Canada, to own a home if they worked hard and nourish their family with good food, would be both hilarious and tragic. These are things we took for granted eight years ago. Now, Canadians are forced to desperately cling to these things. What is the Prime Minister's promise now? It is to quadruple the carbon tax on the farmers who feed our people.

Let us talk about the impact this is having. Just today, we have a new report from Canada's “food professor”. Professor Charlebois of Dalhousie University produced a report indicating that, next year, Canadians will spend 701 more dollars to feed their families. This is on top of the 20% food price inflation we have had just in the last couple of years. Next year, the average family of four will need to spend $16,297 to feed their children and themselves. Projections from this report indicate that, for the coming year, food inflation will be between 2.5% and 4.5%, on top of the pre-existing food price increases.

Liberals will say inflation is coming down. Prices are going up. The 20% increase in the cost of food is not going away. The 2% to 4% increase that will come this year will be compounded on top of the previous increases. The Prime Minister said he might be quadrupling the carbon tax on farmers and truckers who bring us our food, but we should not worry. He is having meetings with CEOs of grocery chains. That clearly has not worked, because food prices continue to go up again after the dozens of promises that he would make food more affordable.

The report reads:

In 2024, it is probable that Canadians will continue to experience the strain of food inflation, compounded by increasing costs of housing, energy, and various other expenditures....

Canadians are facing stricter budgets as they contend with higher costs of living as rent continues to increase, interest rates have risen, and household debt is up. Food and beverage retail data shows that between 2022 and 2023, Canadians reduced the amount they spend in food and beverage retail by 3.26%.

They are paying more to eat less; they are cutting back on their nutritional budgets, buying less-nutritional food. They are buying smaller portions, where the nutrition is literally stripped out of it and replaced with manufactured oils, artificial sweeteners and flavours, so they can trick their palate into thinking that they are nourishing their bodies.

The Agri-food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie further notes, “A recent report by TransUnion found that the average Canadian has a credit card bill of $4,000 and a 4.2% increase in household debt compared to last year”. The problem is getting worse. That increase in household debt is on top of the fact that Canada already has the highest household debt in the G7 by a country mile. No one else is even close. We now have approximately $1.80 in debt for every dollar in household income. That is all rolling over into higher interest rates, which the Prime Minister's deficits have caused.

The report continues:

Food prices are not the only increase in expense that Canadians are facing as other commodities are still feeling the effects of inflation, and household expenses like rent and utilities are also increasing year over year.

The last two months have been the fastest months of increase in rent.

I will be sharing my time with the member for Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, who comes from a farming community

The Prime Minister proposes to quadruple the carbon tax on the farmers who make the food and the truckers who ship the food. Conservatives are going to fight tooth and nail to stop the Prime Minister from getting on his surfboard and leaving this place until he agrees to pass our common-sense proposal to axe the tax on farmers, first nations and families heating their homes.

Can the Prime Minister put his ego and his ideological obsessions aside, so Canadians can feed themselves this Christmas? It is the common sense of the common people, united for our common home.