Debates of June 5th, 2023

Public Accounts

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question about the 20th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

The third recommendation in the report has to do with transparency in Crown corporations. I would like to hear his thoughts on this subject, specifically, the lack of transparency in Crown corporations, because no one knows how the money is spent, but it is public money, after all.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question from my colleague.

It is a generally a pleasure working together on the public accounts committee, although today we had to sit through extensive filibustering from the Liberals because they do not want to allow us to look at documents from the Trudeau Foundation. Nonetheless, it is usually a pleasure, and any lack of pleasure is not the fault of the hon. member.

The third recommendation, which the member points out, calls on the Government of Canada to consider requiring Crown corporations to divulge all expenditures in the same manner as federal departments, and it goes on from there. As the member would recall, sometimes we have to negotiate to break through filibusters with government members of the public accounts committee. If I remember right, I suspect that there was some negotiation required. I would have preferred a stronger recommendation there, but it points in the right direction.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, for a number of days now, the Conservatives have been blocking the budget that would bring in dental care, only because the NDP forced it. That would benefit about 11,000 people in the member's riding, on average. It would also bring in a grocery rebate that would benefit about 10,000 people in his riding, and affordable housing, which both governments, Conservative and Liberal, have been incredibly negligent on. The NDP brought that in.

More importantly, the member's motion, which is clearly a dilatory motion, is designed to block the request the NDP will be putting forward for an emergency debate tonight on the forest fires that have consumed British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario. They are right across the country. We want an emergency debate. The member knows full well that the emergency debate is coming forward, but he is trying to block the request that would surely be granted.

How could the member do that, given that in his province, and provinces across the country, Canadians are suffering and need this debate?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am surprised that the NDP House leader knows so little about the procedural workings of this place. I had no idea that New Democrats were planning to request an emergency debate.

Maybe it is on the member's Twitter. I do not follow him on Twitter, so I really had no idea, but—

[Peter Julien]

It is in the media. It is on TV and in the newspapers.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I would please ask members to listen to the answer the hon. member is giving to the question he was asked.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have raised a motion that is not a dilatory motion. It is a debatable motion. We are debating it. When the debate on this concludes, we will proceed with the daily routine of business, which will provide the member an opportunity to make his request for an emergency debate.

I suggest that, if he wants to learn more about these procedural issues, the Conservative House leader would probably be available to share a little more with him about what happens during a concurrence debate and what happens afterward.

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

Madam Speaker, I know the tactics behind concurrence debates, which push Routine Proceedings out a long time. Let me set that aside. The Conservative strategy on delay is also in the media.

I do want to take my friend up on the idea that government is responsible for the high prices of fuel and food price increases. It is very clear that Putin's attack on Ukraine created volatility and higher prices for fossil fuels globally. It is also very clear that the climate crisis interrupts food supply chains, as do other events. I would say to the hon. member that there are many things I would criticize the government for, and they are very different than what my hon. colleague would criticize them for, because the government has not done enough to address the climate crisis. It continues to think it makes sense to build a $30-billion pipeline.

However, is my hon. colleague's position really that all of the increased prices in Canada have nothing to do with Putin's attack on Ukraine, have nothing—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I have to give the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan some time to answer the hon. member's question.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, of course there is a wide variety of factors that impacts energy prices. There is a wide variety of factors that impacts prices for anything, but when we add a tax on top of energy prices, then we are saying that, whatever the market price would have been, we will make it higher by taxing it. It is inevitably true that, regardless of what the market price will be and the other factors influencing it, the carbon tax has, as its purpose, to increase the price of fuel.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, because he did it to me, I believe if you seek it, you would find unanimous consent to wish the member for Kingston and the Islands a very happy birthday today.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

That is hardly a point of order, although we do wish a happy birthday to the hon. parliamentary secretary.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Calgary Forest Lawn has the floor.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Madam Speaker, it was a scam all along, and Conservatives knew it from the beginning. The Liberals and the NDP sold this carbon tax as something that would fix the environment, and the higher it went, the better the environment would get. The weather would get better. They also said that Canadians would get more back in their pockets than what they would pay into the scam in the first place. Were they wrong? Boy, were they wrong. The Conservatives were right all along.

Now the Liberals and the NDP have nowhere to hide. This was a scam that made the cost of gas, groceries and home heating even more expensive. Remember that at first they sold it as a levy? They said it would be a levy for your Chevy. They said that the more one drove, the more one would have to pay, so maybe people would change their habits. Boy, was that wrong.

It does not take a government economist to see that Canadians were sold a bill of goods. The PBO says that low-income Canadians were hit the hardest by this scam. We are already seeing Canadians suffering today because the Liberal-NDP government spent and put Canadians further into debt than all governments before them combined. It made inflation go up.

We have seen 1.5 million Canadians visiting a food bank in a single month. We have seen one in five Canadians skipping meals in this country. One in four Canadians today are having to borrow money from their friends and family just to put food on their table, and now more and more Canadians who are being driven to food banks are asking for medical assistance in dying because they are hungry. This is the state of Canada today under the Liberal-NDP government.

When my family and I came here, we came here to live the Canadian dream. Under the Liberals and their costly coalition partners of the NDP, that Canadian dream is dead. Canadians are working harder than ever before, sometimes two or three jobs, and they are not getting anything back in return. They are paying higher taxes than ever before because the government continues to spend. It continues to break its promises. It promised a balanced budget in 2015. It said it would balance the budget, and by 2019, there would be no more deficit spending. It is 2023, and it still continues to break that promise. It is breaking that promise on the backs of hard-working, struggling Canadian families.

There are these continued failed experiments, such as carbon tax number 1, and now they are introducing another one, carbon tax scam number 2. That does not have any phony rebates with it. The first carbon tax scam is going to cost each and every Canadian household an average of $1,500. The second scam is going to cost every single Canadian household on average $537. That is more than $2,000 on the backs of hard-working Canadian families.

I talk to newcomers to this country all the time, and they have the same complaint. They ask us, “Why did we leave the country we came here from? We came to Canada looking for a better future. We were promised a lot. We were promised a better future. We were promised a safer future. We were promised that we could get ahead with the more work that we put in.” Now they feel like they were scammed.

They come here working harder than ever. At the end of the day, they have a Liberal-NDP government working against them and their hard work, so much so that now one in five newcomers are thinking about packing up and leaving this country. Most are only living here for about two years. They cannot afford the cost of living, and they have a government that is dead set on making sure that they take more from these newcomers than Canadians. With their carbon tax scam 1, they told Canadians they would get more back in their pockets. They promised, “We'll take some money from you, and we promise to give you more back.” Conservatives did not believe that in the first place. We knew it was a scam all along.

In my home province of Alberta, Albertans will be paying $2,500 more into this scam than what they get back. In Ontario, it is almost $2,000. This carbon tax scam was not as advertised from day one. Thank God the Parliamentary Budget Officer exposed the truth and the scam behind what the Liberals were selling for years. Do members remember when they promised that it would not go over $50 a tonne? They broke right through that promise, like they did when they said they would balance the budget.

More Canadians are finding it harder to eat and heat their homes. We hear about seniors having to cover themselves with blankets during the wintertime just so they do not have to pay the high heating bills they keep getting every single month. Heating bills have almost doubled across this country. Why? It is because the climate zealot, ideologically based Liberal-NDP government blocked and stopped any energy projects from being built in this country. They could have helped not only lower the price of energy in this country, but lower the cost of the fuel to heat our homes, of goods and even of food. However, the government continues to block them over and again. Why? It is because it wants to look woke. It seems like the more the Liberals go woke, the more Canadians go broke.

We have an environment minister who, as far as I know, is the only one in this House who has worn handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit at the same time. He is dead set on making sure our energy costs are the highest in the entire world. Not everyone has the luxury of having transit close to them or being able to ride a bike everywhere they go. We have hard-working Albertans and people who live in northern parts of Canada who have no other choice than to drive pickup trucks. What are the Liberals doing? They are punishing the people who are trying to make this country better, the people who are literally building this country with their hands and putting in hard work to make Canada the best place in the world. What is the government set on doing? It is punishing them. It is punishing our seniors and each and every worker in this country.

It is sad that newcomers to this country are not seeing the same opportunities that my family and I saw. We did not come from a really great background. We struggled for many years. There was a deal back then that Canada had: If someone put in the work, they would get something in return. However, with the government, the harder people work, the more they pay and the more they will be punished. Never before in my life have I seen people who used to volunteer their time and donate their money to food banks standing in those food bank lines themselves. That is the sad state of this country after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government.

It is sad to see people who do not want to stay in Canada and help contribute anymore because they do not see the point in that. Some people have risked their lives and have left everything behind to come to this country, and now they want to pack up and leave and take their talent, energy and entrepreneurial spirit because the government continues to attack them and make everything more expensive.

That is why the Conservatives will bring in a common-sense plan, cancel both these carbon tax scams and solve the problem using technology and not taxes.

With that, I move:

That the debate be now adjourned.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The question is on the motion.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is nice to see you again. I would ask for a recorded division.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #346

Committees of the House

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I declare the motion defeated.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, Housing; and the hon. member for Nunavut, Northern Affairs.

Bill C-35—Notice of Time Allocation Motion

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise that agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the following: report stage and third reading of Bill C-35, an act respecting early learning and child care in Canada.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the respective stages of the bill.

Bill C-47—Notice of Time Allocation Motion

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise that agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the following: report stage and third reading of Bill C-47, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, 2023.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the respective stages of the bill.

Business of the House

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I request that the ordinary hour of daily adjournment of the June 6, June 7 and June 8 sittings be 12 midnight, pursuant to the order made Tuesday, November 15, 2022.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Pursuant to order made Tuesday, November 15, 2022, the request to extend the said sittings is deemed adopted.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Public Accounts

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened at length to the interventions today by the member for Calgary Forest Lawn, as well as the Conservative who preceded him.

I could not help but reflect on the fact that both these members ran in the 2021 election on a carbon price, which they are so adamantly opposed to now. They are so opposed that they have introduced 10 opposition motions in this House in the last 18 months to that effect, none of which have gained the support of any colleague in this House outside of Conservative MPs.

Can the member reflect on the fact that he ran in an election where he promised to price pollution, but he is now actually speaking out against it and moving countless motions to that effect?