Debates of March 22nd, 2023

Taxation

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we all recognize the important contribution that Canadian wine, beer and spirit producers make to the Canadian economy. That is why we lowered small business taxes and eliminated excise duty on low-alcohol beer.

We will always be there for our small businesses, and we will always promote the excellent quality of Canadian wine, beer and spirits.

Diversity and Inclusion

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, once again, we need to talk about Amira Elghawaby, whom the Prime Minister appointed despite opposition from Quebeckers and who began her first tour this week as special representative on combatting Islamophobia.

Right away on her first stop in Ontario, she began attacking Quebec's Bill 21 on secularism. In her own words, her job is to attack legislation like that. This is how she chose to use her first official appearance.

I would ask the Prime Minister to clarify Ms. Elghawaby's mandate. Is it to build bridges between communities or is it to tour Canada to fight Quebec legislation?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House, we will always stand up for minority rights.

As a Quebecker, I know how important it is to defend our beautiful French language, to defend our minority cultures, to defend our official languages and, yes, to defend religious freedom in this country.

That is why we are always going to be there to defend individual rights. That is why we oppose pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause, which suspends the fundamental rights of Canadians before they can even go to court to defend those rights.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is exactly what the National Assembly feared when it unanimously criticized Ms. Elghawaby's appointment.

She is not using her position to build bridges, to foster understanding between Muslim and non-Muslim communities, or to fight racism. Ms. Elghawaby is using her position to rally Canada against Quebec's Bill 21 and to feed assumptions that a secular state is a discriminatory one.

Is she straying from her mandate, or was this exactly what the Prime Minister intended when he created the position?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, it always amazes me that the Bloc Québécois seems to be willing to pick and choose which minorities it would like to defend.

The reality is that defending minority voices, defending official languages, defending culture, defending everything in a minority situation—including freedom of conscience—is important in a free society.

I hope his party does not continue to attack this idea of defending minority rights across the country.

International Trade

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, it took the Harper government only three months to get the Americans to back down and pay back and stop collecting illegal tariffs on softwood. When the Prime Minister took office, the Americans smelled weakness and they slapped those tariffs right back on, and then what happened? He backed down.

The Harper government got an exemption to buy America laws. Within months of the Prime Minister taking office, the Americans slapped it right back on again, and he backed down again. He is now even saying that he cannot protect our borders against illegal border crossing without the permission of the United States president.

Will he announce resolutions to these problems tomorrow, or will he just back down again?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, when Canadians faced one of the most significant threats to our jobs, growth and prosperity in the threat of cancellation of NAFTA, the recommendation from Mr. Harper and the Conservatives was, “Oh, we need to capitulate”.

That is not what Canadians or what this government did. We stood strongly. We got them to lift tariffs on steel and aluminum. We renegotiated NAFTA in our favour. We continue to stand up for Canadians and Canadian workers right across the country.

We will take no lessons in capitulation to the Americans from the Conservatives.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, we knew that the Prime Minister would back down, and that is exactly what he did.

He signed an agreement that allowed the Americans to maintain illegal tariffs on our softwood lumber, hurting our forestry workers. He capitulated again on buy America, which gives an exemption to Mexico but not to Canada.

He also said that we need the Americans' permission to protect our border. That is something that we never needed before.

Will he finally stand up for Canada, yes or no?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we all remember when Canadians and Canadian workers faced the greatest threat to our economy that we had ever seen: President Trump was going to cancel NAFTA. We stood firm and pushed back against the Americans, even though Mr. Harper and the Conservatives were urging us to capitulate, to avoid upsetting Trump and to accept what he was offering.

We stood up for Canadian workers, we revisited the tariffs on steel and aluminum, and we renegotiated NAFTA in our favour.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, he is the one who accepted all of Mr. Trump's demands.

Mr. Trump signed an agreement with the Mexicans. The Prime Minister accepted it as it was presented to him, without any changes, including tariffs on our forest products. When the Conservatives were in power, we were able to fix that problem in three months. He has had eight years to fix the problem, but so far, no luck.

After eight years, will he finally be able to do what the Conservatives managed to do in three months?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I understand how badly the Conservatives need to take partisan shots, but they do not have the right to rewrite history.

When we renegotiated NAFTA, we stood up for the Canadian cultural industry, Canadian workers, our dairy industry and supply management. We were there for Canadian workers, and we will continue to be there.

While the Conservatives urged us to capitulate, we stood up for Canadians. That is what we will continue to do, but we will do it in partnership with the Americans.

Foreign Affairs

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, since 2021, the situation in Afghanistan has been very difficult, especially for women and girls, who face daily persecution. According to the United Nations, the number of Afghans who need humanitarian aid is unprecedented.

Can the Prime Minister tell us about Canada's efforts to support the Afghan people?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Yukon for his excellent question and his hard work. We introduced Bill C‑41 to enable Canadian humanitarian organizations to provide vital aid to the Afghan people, while maintaining our strong anti-terrorism laws.

This is in addition to the $156 million we have allocated to international organizations since August 2021. I hope that my colleagues across the way will support the quick passage of Bill C‑41 and support quick aid for the Afghan people.

International Trade

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, a former Conservative government obtained an exemption to the buy America policy under the Obama administration.

The Americans slapped it right back on again when this Prime Minister took over. He then signed a deal that allowed the expansion of buy America from being just projects at the state level to projects at the federal level.

The Mexicans got an exemption. Will the Prime Minister finally do what the Mexicans and Prime Minister Harper did and try to get an exemption from buy America tomorrow?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we saw the extent to which Americans wanted to create an electric vehicle industry in the U.S. by excluding Canada, but in our work with our American partners, we stressed just how integrated the auto manufacturing sector is on both sides of the border.

We got a carve-in for electric vehicles and batteries in the U.S. inflation reduction act.

We will continue to work hand in hand with our American partners to offer good jobs to Canadians, economic growth and productive competition around the world.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, it is hard to really fathom how badly the Prime Minister has capitulated on buy America.

Let us get it straight: Harper got an exemption to buy America in the Obama era to protect our construction workers and their paycheques. This Prime Minister allowed Trump to slap buy America on, and then he signed a deal that would allow the expansion of buy America from being just at the state level to the federal level. Now, the Mexicans have an exemption from buy America, and we do not.

This is a catastrophic failure for our construction workers as a result of the Prime Minister's weakness. Will he get a deal to end buy America for Canadians tomorrow?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the issue of protecting Canadian jobs and ensuring growth for the future is a deeply serious issue that must be taken seriously, which is why people really should not be just making stuff up as the Leader of the Opposition is.

The fact of the matter is, we will continue to stand up for Canadian jobs and work closely with the Americans on making sure we are competitive with the world. This is the approach we have always taken with our partners to the south. We will continue to take this seriously, instead of looking for venal partisan advantage.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, it is a fact that buy America remains in place today on Canada and that it has been expanded under the Prime Minister to include the federal government, something that was specifically exempted from the earlier NAFTA. However, Trump demanded it and the Prime Minister was in the habit of backing down to everything Trump demanded.

We thought that when Trump was gone, the Prime Minister would have an easier time, but now Biden is pushing him around. Putting partisanship aside, I think we as Conservatives can all agree that we do not like any Prime Minister, including the Liberal Prime Minister, to be pushed around like this by an American president.

Will he end it tomorrow?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we have consistently stood up for Canadians, whether it was Canadian auto workers and Canadian steelworkers, whether it was making sure we renegotiated NAFTA in strong ways, or whether we stood up for inclusion of Canadian electric vehicle production in the new IRA.

We will continue to work constructively with our partners to the south. We will continue to defend Canadian interests. We will continue to grow our economies together at a time when the world needs North America to be working together as allies to project our success and our values to the world. That is what we will do while the Leader of the Opposition plays partisan games.

The Environment

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Mr. Speaker, my constituents in the Northwest Territories are very troubled by the recent news that millions of litres of oil sands tailings in northern Alberta were leaked without notifying communities at risk for nine months. It is unacceptable that neither Imperial Oil nor the Alberta regulator bothered to let northerners know about this potential threat to our water quality.

Could the Prime Minister share what the Government of Canada is doing to address the concerns of my constituents on this matter?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, as always, I thank the member for the Northwest Territories for his advocacy on behalf of his constituents in a very serious situation.

We are deeply concerned about the health and well-being of the affected communities. Ministers have been in regular contact with the impacted communities, quickly providing supplies and conducting water testing.

We need to understand why the company and the regulator were so slow to notify. We expect to see a clear remediation plan from the company so that communities can get the answers they deserve and so that this never happens again.

Foreign Affairs

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Indian government has suspended cellphone service, Internet service and social media accounts, on top of blocking journalists from covering what is happening while a heavy military presence rolls into Punjab.

Why has the Prime Minister remained silent on this? Will he accept and commit to the NDP demands to boycott the G20 events in Chandigarh and Kashmir, to ban BJP officials from entering Canada who have uttered death threats against Canadians, and to do everything possible to ensure the safety of Canadians abroad?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, obviously Canada is monitoring the situation in Punjab closely. We are looking forward to a swift return to a more stable situation.

Climate Change

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

Mr. Speaker, the IPCC report of this week is sobering reading. It requires of all of us that we be prepared to do more, be braver and be bolder, because nothing less than our children's future is at stake. It is a ticking time bomb, as it has been described. The report finds that deep emissions reductions are required in the near term, before 2025 at the latest. For Canada, that means banning fracking. It means reversing Bay du Nord and cancelling the $30-billion boondoggle Trans Mountain pipeline now.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, since 2015 we have taken concrete actions to address climate change. Our government has committed over $120 billion and introduced over 100 measures, including a price on pollution, to support environmental action and climate mitigation. As the Minister of Environment and Climate Change said this week, we will be looking very closely at that report.