Debates of Jan. 30th, 2024

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am growing more and more concerned about the confrontation with Speakers when they are occupying the chair. Even when you were standing up, Madam Speaker, the member did not sit down. Rather, he continued to chirp from his seat toward you. I think there—

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

I appreciate the hon. member's comments and they are duly noted, but we are not going to start a debate on this. There is no point of order.

We are resuming debate with the parliamentary secretary for northern affairs.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Madam Speaker, members have challenged the Chair, and we just bore witness to it right here in the House again. I am not raising a point of order. I am giving a speech on Bill C-59. It goes without saying that in the House there is a lot of tension. Members are really not very restful in their seats, and every single little word motivates them to jump to their feet and challenge someone else who is in the chair.

I want to speak today about Bill C-59, a wonderful piece of legislation crafted by the Government of Canada in response to the people of Canada, who have continuously raised with us, in very eloquent and fundamental ways, the issues confronting them every single day in their lives and their communities, how that impacts them, and suggestions on how we can make life easier. That is what we have been doing. While the opposition has been playing political games in the House and outside the House, we have been attentive to what Canadians are saying.

Even in my home riding in rural Canada, we know that the issues around affordability have become much more challenging for people. We know that families are working harder to meet the demands of continuing with the quality of life they have enjoyed and want to have, and we are helping them along the way.

However, it is unfortunate that, every time we have proposed good legislation, good, creative ideas in listening to the people of Canada, we have had Conservatives vote it down. In the fall economic statement, under Bill C-59, the supports for Canadians under affordability are very important. They are very important because they come at a time when Canadians need them.

We have talked a lot about the Canada child benefit here. I visit families every day, and I know that, without that Canada child benefit going into their accounts every month, they could not provide the quality of life they want for their children. That is why I am proud of what we are doing under the Canada child benefit, a benefit Conservatives want to get rid, have voted against, and have campaigned on saying that it is not adequate for Canadians. What we know is that, without this benefit, without that monthly income going to families all across Canada, there would be so many children still left in poverty. This benefit alone has lifted children and families out of poverty, and I can cite case by case, community by community, family name by family name, how it has benefited them over the time we have implemented that benefit.

I also want to talk about what we have done around affordability today because the key pillar of our fall economic statement is really built around boosting the economy, as well as making life more affordable for Canadians. We have seen the inflation rate in 2022 go from over 8% down to 3.2%, which I think were the last numbers. We know that, while the inflation rate has fallen, the cost of living has not really shifted downward. The price of goods is still higher than people would like it to be. There are many reasons for that. Conservatives will tell us that it is because of the Liberal government, but the world will tell us a very different narrative. That narrative is really about supply chains, wars that are ongoing in countries, the self-sufficiency of countries around the world and how they are trying to meet their needs at a very challenging time.

The other thing we have noticed is what has been happening with competitors. Canadians have been very strong about this. We need to make changes to the Competition Act. We are doing that in the fall economic statement. As members know, ministers have called together leading competitors in the grocery chains to talk about affordable groceries for Canadians and how, with the co-operation of the business community, they would be able to make better, more affordable choices.

Many in the opposition mock that idea. They did not see it as a generational change that could occur within the competition laws in Canada, that could make it more affordable for people across the country. They just mocked the idea of even having the conversation, because that is what happens when there is a far right-wing government agenda. It is about getting rid of laws, regulations and fairness. It is about the competitors and businesses reaching a higher model and greater profits.

That is not the direction the Liberal government is going in. We are going in a direction that is bringing costs down and making life more affordable and sustainable for Canadians. We are not looking at a far-right agenda that caters only to the wealthy, the business communities and large-scale businesses, and where profit is the driving feature of the day. We have seen it. We have seen it here in Canada, and we continue to see it today.

My colleague opposite can shout all he likes, but it is not going to stop me from saying what I have to say today. The truth hurts. We all know how much the truth hurts. He is over there squirming in his seat right now, because he knows that what I am saying is 100% factual, and—

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

I have to interrupt the hon. parliamentary secretary again for a point of order from the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

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

Madam Speaker, there was no squirming whatsoever. The member needs to understand that when the Speaker ignores the rules and when the Speaker invents new norms, it undermines the ability of the House to function. The Speaker—

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

I appreciate the hon. member's comments. I am not the one who has to address them, but they will be addressed by the Speaker.

The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay on the same point.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have been trying to listen to my hon. colleague, and all I have been hearing is this juvenile intimidation from the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan—

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

We are in a debate. Some things are going to provoke some reactions, and it is perfectly normal in this chamber.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

May I continue? This is perfectly normal behaviour, apparently, in this chamber.

I am going to allow the hon. parliamentary secretary to continue.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Madam Speaker, I really appreciate the opportunity. I guess my definition of squirming and the member opposite's definition are a little different. When I see someone trying to shift around in their seat, and their arms are moving, their legs are moving, their head is moving and their mouth is moving, I think they are squirming in their seat.

Let us get back to this very important speech that I am making on Bill C-59. What we are doing, in terms of competitiveness, is taking a historic step. We are cracking down on the abuses and the dominance of bigger companies and on predatory pricing. This is going to help so many families.

In the meantime, while we are introducing that legislation and making that crackdown to save money on grocery bills for Canadians, we are giving them an affordability allowance. A family with two children, for example, would have received about $430. That allowance can go up to $640 per family. While we are dealing with the Competition Act and making historic changes to regulate and ensure that there is fairer pricing and competition on groceries in Canada, we are paying out an affordability allowance to families to help them through this difficult time.

This is another incentive that the Conservatives voted down, yet they talk every single day about families that are out there struggling. We talk every single day about the same families that are out there struggling, but we are doing something about it. That is the difference. What they are doing is voting down every concrete initiative that we are bringing forward, whether it is the Canada child benefit, dental care for families who cannot afford it, an affordability allowance being paid out, or a rural rebate on carbon pollution to help people who are going through a difficult time to heat their homes in parts of Canada.

It does not matter how much the benefits are that are going to Canadians. The Conservatives vote them down because they have one strategy in mind: catering to the far right, catering to the wealthy and making sure that they slash good programs and good benefits, like the ones we are bringing to seniors and what we are doing under the Canada pension plan. These are concrete, fundamental programs for Canadians.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, I do believe we are talking about the Liberal government's economic statement. However, the speech I heard was more about criticizing the opposition, even though the topic is actually the government's economic statement.

They say they are taking care of people. It is shocking that, in their economic statement, they once again abandoned seniors by refusing to equitably index the OAS by 10%.

They are also abandoning workers. For the past eight years now, since 2015, then in 2017, 2019, 2021 and again now, the government has opted not to listen to workers or look at ways to strengthen the social safety net that is EI. These are urgent matters.

Can my colleague tell me how her government plans to sincerely address seniors' and workers' need for enhanced social programs?

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Madam Speaker, that is a very sensible question. I agree with my hon. colleague. Seniors deserve the very best quality of life that we can give them. That is why our party has upheld the ability for seniors to retire at 65 and not at the Conservatives' suggested age of 67.

There are other things we have done. We have increased the old age security. We have reformed the Canada pension plan. We have increased the guaranteed income supplement. We have also done things like bring in the workers benefit, which has helped so many workers across Canada who work in low-income jobs and has allowed them to have that additional $2000-plus per month in benefits to support their families.

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

Madam Speaker, the member opposite, in her speech, spoke a little about following rules, the rule of law and so forth.

I think that it has been interesting over the last few months. We have seen the incredible disregard that this government has for our institutions and for adherence to rules. We had the court rule, for example, that the government's imposition of the Emergencies Act was unlawful. We have seen, even today, how institutions are undermined when we have people in positions of authority, such as the Speaker, making outrageous rulings without any basis or precedent.

Can the member explain why her government and its partners in various positions consistently ignore precedent, ignore rules, ignore the law and think that they are somehow above the rules?

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question, because it gives me an opportunity to really talk about who is in favour of the rule of law. This is the same party that wants to withdraw from the United Nations and that wants to fire the head of the Bank of Canada. These are the kinds of things that we hear from the other side.

Let us talk about the Emergencies Act. Let us talk about the convoy on the streets of Ottawa in the absence of anyone dealing with that convoy. What would we have seen if the members opposite were in government? They would have walked away, ignored it and left the whole city in chaos, to implode. When there were people, radicals, camped out on the lawns of people's houses, when they had streets blocked and they were overtaking businesses, shutting down shopping centres, sending thousands of people in the city of Ottawa home and taking away their ability—

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

The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think the hon. member will agree that she and I have been in some good scraps over the years, but we come to this place for the betterment of Canada, so when I see the opportunity to create good-paying jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador being attacked by the Conservatives, and the Conservatives say they are going to stop jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador, I ask why. It is because they want to burn the planet.

What does it say to people in Newfoundland and Labrador that there are Conservative members who want to burn the planet and deny jobs and good, clean energy, while we see in America, on the Atlantic coast, that the Americans are getting thousands and thousands of jobs, clean jobs?

What does that say to the people in Newfoundland and Labrador?

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Madam Speaker, that is a good question. The Conservatives are voting against Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. They are voting against Nova Scotians. They are voting against the Atlantic accord. They are voting against 30,000 clean energy jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador. It is not only that, but the Conservatives do not have confidence in the governments to do the job that needs to be done. My colleague from Newfoundland and Labrador yesterday insinuated in committee that the premiers in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia were being hoodwinked by the federal government: hoodwinked into creating 30,000 new jobs in their province. They should give themselves some thought around that—

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

We have to resume debate.

The hon. member for Calgary Forest Lawn.

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

Madam Speaker, before I get started I would like to say that I am splitting my time with the hon. member from the soup-and-salad bowl of Canada, Mr. Lake Simcoe himself, the hon. member for York—Simcoe.

Thomas Jefferson reportedly said that democracy would cease to exist when you took away from those who were willing and able to work and gave to those who were not.

Speaking from my own experience, coming as an immigrant to this country, my family, like many, came here looking for that Canadian dream that so many are coming to Canada for still. However, after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, we know it is not worth the cost. We see now, more than ever, that it is harder, whether for a Canadian or for a newcomer, to survive in this country. It is so much so that more than 400,000 people left Canada just last year. That is not a good sign for any country to think that it can prosper when 400,000-plus people are leaving. I look at the reasons that people are leaving or wanting to leave, and the number one cause is the cost of living. Number two is that their credentials are not being recognized. Both are issues that Conservatives have plans for.

I do not believe that anyone moves to this country thinking that their government will work against them, but when they get here they are proven wrong, time and time again, by the Liberal-NDP government. Their paycheques are attacked; their civil liberties are attacked; their freedom is attacked, and their freedom of speech is attacked over and over again by the Liberal-NDP government. It makes them rethink why they came to this country in the first place.

This is because everything does feel like it is broken here. People are getting taxed more. Their paycheques do not go as far as they used to. They are working harder. They are working so much that many people I have talked to are working two or three jobs. If I talk to anyone in any riding, one thing I am seeing as being more and more of a trend is that more people are picking up Uber jobs or Uber Eats jobs or Skip the Dishes jobs on top of the jobs they are already working. I remember, when growing up, that people would pick up taxi jobs or a job on the side just to make extra money above and beyond whatever their savings were. However, it is sad to see that after eight years of the current Liberal-NDP government, that is a must now, even to pay for the basic necessities just to live here in Canada.

The inflation that was caused by all the spending by the Liberal-NDP government, which continues to spend, made interest rates go up in the last 19 months at the most rapid pace seen in the last 20 years. In fact, the intensity of those rate changes is actually the highest in Canadian history. Because the government spent and wasted so much money, the Governor of the Bank of Canada had to tackle that inflation by raising interest rates.

The government's own housing department officials say that they have no faith in the current government to build the homes that are needed today. In fact, CMHC said in a recent study that homebuilding was actually down 7%. When we look at some of the factors, we see that builders are not building and buyers are not buying, because of those high interest rates. They went up once again, because of the overspending of the Liberal-NDP government.

When we look at Bill C-59, we see that the only thing the government has included with respect to housing is that it changed the housing department's name and increased the funding for more photo ops. There is no concrete action that would be taken to help with housing affordability. After eight years, we have seen rents double and mortgages double, and even the down payment needed for a house has doubled in just eight years.

Canadians pay today over one-third of their income in taxes, and the rest goes to housing, with little or nothing left for groceries, gas and home heating. This is very concerning. People are making their shelter payments, but all the other payments are starting to go more and more onto Canadians' credit cards. Utilities and groceries are going up. Even though people are paying more for groceries, they are getting a lot less in groceries than they used to.

This is because of high taxes, like the carbon tax that made the cost of gas, groceries and home heating go up, which the Liberals plan on quadrupling this year. The household debt in Canada, in totality, is more than the Canadian economy. This is not a good sign for a country where we want people to come and be successful and prosper. We are missing out on a lot of talent that could come here, with new energy and new investment, because Canada is not affordable anymore. It is not a place where people can come and be successful.

Canadians have record credit card debt, and over half are only $200 or less away from going bankrupt. The fact is that more and more people are putting more onto their credit cards. We are hearing horrific stories where students are living under bridges. Working people are living in their cars because they cannot afford housing. Mothers are putting water in their children's milk and parents have to choose less nutritious food because they cannot afford groceries. We are hearing about seniors who are having to wear blankets inside their houses because they cannot afford heat them and have to turn down their heat. That is how they have to get by because of this punitive carbon tax the government continues to raise.

Bankruptcy and insolvency are up. All the increases for small businesses are crippling owners, who are the backbone of our country. The IMF also warns, because of the interest rate hikes, that Canada is most at risk in the G7 for a mortgage default crisis. More than 70,000 mortgages a month are now being renewed, sometimes at double the rate. That could mean anything from a $400 increase to a $1,200 increase. This is not sustainable. With the recent inflation numbers, where inflation is above the target rate, the Governor of the Bank of Canada has been clear that there is a fear of these rates staying higher for longer, which means the pain will be higher for longer. There is no hope in sight. There is no light at the end of this inflationary crisis tunnel we see right now.

When we look at the economy today, after eight years we are in a worse position than we have ever been before. In fact, Canada's economy has contracted, whereas our U.S. partner's has grown. This is because of the bad restrictive policies of the Liberal-NDP government, which have stifled any type of economic growth in our country, let alone productivity or any type of investment that should be made in Canada. Canada is a lot less competitive because of its tax regime, which has held back the country.

The GDP per person is a determining factor for how successful each person is in Canada, and it has been declining since September 2022. Canada is last in the OECD for GDP per capita. GDP per capita today is lower than it was in the last half of 2018, which means five years of the wealth of Canadians has been completely wiped out.

Taxes are high. The tax code is too complicated. Taxes have been taken from working Canadians and their families for Liberals to give to their insider friends, consultants, bankers, bondholders, Liberal Bay Street buddies, bureaucrats and woke multinational corporations to advance the Liberal virtue signalling and its unjust job-killing transition.

Canadians are being forced to go to food banks more than ever because of the productivity gap and more taxes. While the Liberal-NDP government thinks the government is the solution, we believe people are the solution, and we need to give them the freedom to spend and to earn the way they want to, not restrict them.

Once we have a strong Conservative government under our Conservative leader, we are going to bring home those powerful paycheques again and an economy that is strong like it once was before, where the GDP per capita works for more and more people and where powerful paycheques will become a reality, because what people earn, they will be able to keep more of it in their pockets. We are going to keep it simple by doing four things to bring it home. We are going to axe the tax, we are going to build the homes, we are going to fix the budget and we are going to stop the crime.

Business of Supply

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, President of the King’s Privy Council for Canada]

Madam Speaker, I would like to inform the House that Thursday, February 1, shall be an allotted day.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-59, An Act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 21, 2023 and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, 2023, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Madam Speaker, I always marvel when I hear speeches from the opposite side. The Conservatives paint themselves as these magnificent fiscal stewards. Pre-2015, the Conservative government ran nine out of 10 straight deficits.

I ask the member opposite to come clean with Canadians. What programs would he cut? Is he going to cut the Canada child benefit, the dental care program or the child care program? Is he going to raise the age of seniors from 65 back to 67?

He should come clean with Canadians and tell us what Liberal programs, which you did vote against, you will cut.

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

The member has to speak through me. I did not vote against anything.

The hon. member for Calgary Forest Lawn.

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

Madam Speaker, first, we are going to cut the number of Liberal seats and replace them with Conservative seats so we will have a strong Conservative government. We are also going to cut waste, waste like the $35-billion Infrastructure Bank that has built zero projects. The government have padded the pockets of Liberal cronies and insiders with that.

We are going to cut things like the arrive scam app that cost $45 million, which went to, once again, Liberal insiders, and the $1-billion slush fund that is under investigation for the same reasons. We are going to cut the woke policies. We are going to axe the carbon tax to bring down the cost of gas, groceries and home heating. The $20 billion that has gone to Liberal consultants to cover up the cabinet's incompetence will be cut as well. That is just the beginning.