Debates of Nov. 27th, 2024

Resumption of Debate on Government Business No. 43

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

Which member was it? I could not hear anything, so I apologize to the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

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

Madam Speaker, I worked with people who are deaf, deafened and hard of hearing before coming into Parliament. There are certain acoustic weaknesses in the House of Commons, and one of them is that when people are talking under this roof, the sound carries quite heavily.

During COVID, the NDP provided a lot of supports. Members will recall that subsequent to that, whether talking about dental health, pharmacare, affordable housing or the red dress alert, we were ensuring that unionized people who go on strike are not undermined by replacement workers with the anti-scab legislation. The NDP did all of those things that made a real difference in the quality of life for people, particularly when we talk about dental care. This is a reality that is, effectively, changing the lives of so many Canadians.

A million Canadians, mainly seniors at this point, have already benefited from the NDP's dental care program. That means each and every Conservative MP, on average, has 3,000 or 3,200 people in their ridings who have benefited from the NDP dental care program. Members will recall that the Conservative members absolutely refused to adopt this. They were kicking and screaming to make sure they could block it at every opportunity. The NDP succeeded, procedurally, in getting dental care and pharmacare through, ensuring that people in the Conservatives' ridings, including in Barrie—Innisfil, benefit from what the NDP has succeeded in doing. Thousands of people in every single Conservative riding have benefited from the NDP's work.

We are not expecting Conservative MPs to thank New Democrats for helping their constituents when they refused to. However, it is important that, with this bill now, given how Conservatives acted in the past, blocking everything that benefits people—

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, the member said the NDP has done so much work for our ridings. I was just at a committee meeting where we heard that we have lost thousands of forest workers because—

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

That is debate. I would like to let the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby continue his speech.

The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot is rising on a point of order.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, I apologize. I did not want to interrupt the speech, but is there a party going on in the House that I have not been invited to and am not aware of?

There seems to be a lot of jabbering going on.

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

Yes, I am going to ask everyone to be as quiet as possible so we can hear the member's speech.

The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

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

Madam Speaker, just to follow up on the comment by my colleague from Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies about forestry, was he kidding? The Conservatives under Harper, with Harper's softwood sellout, lost a billion dollars, basically snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Not only that, but they closed 200 softwood plants across the country. That cost us 100,000 workers. There is a lot of resentment about Harper's softwood sellout and the lost jobs, not only in Prince George but also right across the country.

I am sorry, but when the Conservatives start talking about softwood workers, they should give me a break. Their policies were terrible. That was the worse, most corrupt government in Canadian history; it was incompetent in financial management and had many scandals, which were all covered up by the Conservatives. Now they have the audacity to say they took care of forestry workers. They sure did: They threw them out of work. That is not how an NDP government works. We make sure that people get good, unionized jobs. People have the wherewithal to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head.

I want to come back to what the NDP has accomplished. When we look at the bill that we will be voting on tomorrow, it is another example of the NDP putting pressure on the government to get it to actually do the right thing. The government does the wrong thing. It has followed what the Conservatives put into place far too many times, such as the massive overseas tax havens that cost us over $30 billion a year, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, courtesy of the Harper regime and every single Conservative MP. Their constituents cannot thank them for pharmacare, dental care, anti-scab legislation or affordable housing, but they can thank their Conservatives MPs for allowing the richest and most entitled people in Canada, as well as the most profitable corporations, to take over $30 billion in taxpayer money offshore every year. That is thanks to the Harper regime. Its most notable achievement was to hollow out and gut the federal budget.

It is because of those things that we have the current motion before us tonight. We simply cannot ever trust Conservatives to do the right thing. We cannot always trust the Liberals to do the right thing either, but when they accept NDP leadership, they do end up doing the right thing. As far as Conservatives are concerned, Conservatives simply do not. That is why we need a motion that actually gets us through all the gates and obstacles, so we can get this GST relief to Canadians.

Colleagues will recall, of course, that it was the member for Burnaby South who called for this, who said we needed to take the GST off family essentials. The NDP members think differently from the Liberals and the Conservatives, who are always just paying lip service. In the case of the Conservatives, they are badly damaging the country every time they get the reins of power.

The NDP called for taking the GST off all essentials. That includes the cellphones that we use, which are an essential service. We pay far too much for our cellphone bills. We are being gouged in this country. We also want to take the GST off home heating, children's clothing and a variety of other essentials. The government has done part of that, but certainly not all of it. We believe that, this Christmas season, we have a responsibility as parliamentarians to step up and actually get the GST relief adopted. Now, Conservatives do not feel that way. They prefer to be imposters. They would love never to do anything to help anybody. That is their modus operandi: They come into the House and pontificate but never accomplish a damn thing.

If we compare the leaders who will be contesting the next election, we know that the Liberals are not popular. There is no doubt that they have made a number of mistakes. I will take the member for Carleton and the member for Burnaby South and compare both of their accomplishments. I will take one for the last 20 years and the other one for the last 20 weeks. Let us take the member for Carleton over the last 20 years. What is his singular accomplishment? I have been in the House for that same period of time, and I can tell members that the one thing he did in 20—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Can we have order? I cannot hear the hon. member.

The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

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

Madam Speaker, I know it is difficult for Conservatives to hear the truth. I know that it pains them, because they live in a weird silo where everything they have done is good, but they have a terrible record.

If they do not want to listen, they can simply leave the House, as the Speaker pointed out. They certainly did not have any problem leaving the House yesterday. When we had the emergency debate on the Trump tariffs, every party was here. The Green Party was here the whole time. The Bloc Québécois was here the whole time. The NDP was here the whole time. The Liberals were here the whole time. The Conservatives showed up late to work and then booked off early because they do not give a damn about this country and certainly do not give a damn—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Can we please not use language that is not parliamentary? We also know that we cannot mention presences or absences in the House.

The hon. member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake is rising on a point of order.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Madam Speaker, not only did the member mention the presence or absence of a member, but he used very unparliamentary language. I would ask for him to retract it and apologize.

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

I will ask the hon. member to retract that expression.

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

Madam Speaker, I retract the expression that caused such offence.

I hope that Conservatives will take that as a lesson the next time they use blatantly insulting and unparliamentary language in the House and refuse to withdraw it. This is how adults work in the House of Commons. This is how we should work in Parliament. When the Speaker asks us to withdraw, we withdraw. Unfortunately, we have never seen a Conservative do that because they do not want to respect Parliament.

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

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, the rules of Parliament are clear. The retraction shall be short and to the point—

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

It was. The hon. member resumed his speech.

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

Madam Speaker, it cannot be a jumping off point to lecture us. That is not appropriate.

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

There is latitude.

The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

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

Madam Speaker, my goodness, the Conservatives are a sensitive group. They are just so sensitive to criticism. They are sensitive about their record and sensitive to criticism.

Let us continue the comparison. The member for Carleton, in 20 years, has accomplished one singular accomplishment: He managed, as housing minister, to build six homes. That is great. However, the Conservatives are right to point out that the housing prices have doubled under the Liberals, and they are right to point out that the food bank lineups, as tragic as they are, have doubled in size. What Conservatives will not admit is that the same thing happened under the Harper regime. Housing prices doubled under Harper, and the Conservatives have never admitted to that. They have never apologized for their role in that. Of course, as well, we know that food bank lineups doubled during the Harper regime. What Canadians are living through is half the responsibility of the Conservatives and half the responsibility of the Liberals.

Now, the Liberals, to their credit, will accept NDP leadership, and we get things done, such as dental care and pharmacare. We finally having investments in affordable housing. The member for Carleton thought it was cool to build six homes in his long tenure as minister of housing. The Liberals now have the wherewithal, because of the NDP pressure in the last budget, to build hundreds of thousands of homes over the next few years, and we take full credit for having made that advantage.

When we look at the member for Carleton, we see there were six homes built in 20 years. Now, let us look at what the member for Burnaby South has accomplished just in the last 20 weeks.

In the last 20 weeks, we have this GST relief, which we will be voting on tomorrow, that would take the GST off of family essentials. The GST, I have to mention, is a Conservative tax.

Conservative MPs can thank New Democrats for working on behalf of their constituents, but they will not, because Conservatives do not do that. They do not thank us. Each one of the MPs who are in the House has 3,000 constituents who are getting dental care. They have dental care because of the NDP, but I have never had a conservative MP come up and say, “Thank you, NDP, for fighting so hard for my constituents.”

For the GST, it would be similar. We are going to make sure that Conservatives' constituents are taken care of. We are going to take the Conservative GST off of family essentials, and that is going to make a difference. Does it go as far as the NDP would go? No, we would include home heating. We would include telecom, where we pay far too much, to ensure that Canadians have that, and we would make this permanent. However, we are not going to block a bill when we know that it would benefit Canadians right across the country. We are going to make sure that the bill gets through, and that is why we are coming back to this motion so that we can actually get it through.

If we ask Conservatives to do anything, they never will. It will take them years and years. They will offer a ton of excuses, but they will never get things done on behalf of their constituents. Their modus operandi is to make things as bad as possible. They certainly succeeded in the Harper regime in doubling housing prices and food bank lineups, and now the Liberals, unfortunately, saw that as an example and did the same thing. The reality is, in this corner of the House with the NDP, we actually believe in doing things that will benefit people, which is why we are going to be supporting the bill, and making sure that it is implemented tomorrow night.

Let us come back to this comparison. On the one hand, we have the member for Carleton, with 20 years and a fat pension. My goodness, it is a $20-million pension. The fattest pension in Parliament is for the member of Carleton. It is just a big, fat pension. Of course, in the 20 years it took to earn that pension, he built six houses.

Now, let us look at the member for Burnaby South over the last 20 weeks. A million Canadians have dental care because of the work done by the member for Burnaby South and the members of the NDP caucus over the last 20 weeks. In the last 20 weeks, we also got the pharmacare bill through the House and through the Senate. In just a matter of a few days, we are going to have agreements with provinces to start the flow of that medication. That means that everybody with diabetes, and there are four million people with diabetes in this country, will have their diabetes medication covered. Some of them are now paying $1,000 or $1,500 every month for their diabetes medication.

Constituents, like my constituent, Amber, paying $1,000 a month for her diabetes medication, will have that crushing financial burden taken off their shoulders. That is an important fundamental shift in how we treat health care and expand health care for four million Canadians. Provinces are signing on and have already expressed interest, except for Conservative provinces, which I will come back to in a moment. When they sign, what we will see is a fundamental relief in that crushing financial burden that comes from diabetes, and many families looking for contraception will not have to struggle to see whether they have enough money to pay for their contraception and family planning.

I will come back to the Conservative provinces. We have a couple of provinces that have the worst health outcomes in the country and they are Conservative. When we look at Conservative provinces, we see the highest crime rate and we see the poorest health outcomes. Those two are connected. Conservatives will say, “We are never going to sign on to pharmacare.” However, the reality is we saw the same opposition by Conservative provinces to universal health care, one of Canada's proudest achievements. In fact, when we ask Canadians what institution they admire most, they say it is universal health care in this country.

Tommy Douglas, the first leader of the NDP, was the founder of universal health care in this country and always believed that pharmacare was the next step. However, when we got universal health care through this House at that time, the Conservative provinces opposed it. What happened? First, the provinces that signed on saw how universal health care was a benefit and some of the Conservative provinces' leaders suddenly realized they had a political problem if they did not sign on, so they actually had the foresight to sign on to universal health care. There were some Conservative provinces that did not, run by very stubborn Conservative leaders who did not really care about their populations at all. What happened, and this is why it took three years to fully implement universal health care, is that those Conservative leaders were defeated. Their population said, “hell no; we are not going to allow this Conservative extremist to block our universal health care.”

I predict that the same thing will happen with universal pharmacare and what we are going to see is Canadians demanding pharmacare as the provinces sign on and people get the benefit. Why should somebody with diabetes in Alberta have to pay and pay, when in British Columbia, which has a progressive NDP government that is signing on to universal pharmacare, that person has their diabetes medication and devices covered?

When we look at the accomplishments of the member for Burnaby South over the last 20 weeks, which include things like anti-scab legislation, affordable housing, dental care, pharmacare and I could go on and on, we can see that the member for Burnaby South has done 10 times more, if not 20 times more, than the member for Carleton with his fat pension has done in 20 years. That is the comparison that people are going to see when we have our election in 2025. We know it is scheduled then, and that is when Canadians will make that comparison. Do we go with somebody who is all hot air, or do we go with somebody who has actually done things for us? I do caution Conservative MPs who have had 3,000 or 3,500 constituents in their ridings who already benefit from the NDP dental care plan. They might have to think a bit, when they are campaigning, about how they explain why they have opposed something that has benefited so many of their constituents.

The final thing that I want to mention is the issue that the member for Carleton has raised. I think he said that it is a “trick”. He likes to say that. He likes to say that programs do not exist. It is very Trumpian. It is sort of saying, “I am just going to pretend that there is a different reality”, with respect to dental care, for example. However, the reality is that there is a former Conservative leader who called for exactly this type of program of Christmas temporary GST relief. That was Erin O'Toole, and there is video on that, so I would encourage my Conservative colleagues to actually watch and educate themselves and see Erin O'Toole calling for exactly the same thing that the NDP is bringing to the House tonight.

The proposed GST relief on essentials would make a difference right across the country. The NDP would do it better and do it differently, but we are not going to stand in the way of something that is going to benefit people. It is for that reason we will be supporting the bill and supporting the motion tonight.

I am going to sit down now. I am going to be contacting my chair, and I just want to assure Conservatives that when I contact my chair, I am not going to change my mind and pretend I should still speak, or try to play some games. I am just going to sit down—

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

It is time for questions and comments.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader has the floor.

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

Madam Speaker, like my colleague across the way, I am a bit surprised that today's far right Conservatives have made the decision to vote against this legislation. It would appear as if the Bloc is going to do likewise. This legislation would at the very least, and I know the NDP will want to do more, provide some tax relief from the GST.

I want to pick up on the member's comments in regard to pharmacare. Like him, I am very passionate about it. Fortunately, between the Liberals and the New Democrats, we were able to come up with legislation. One of the fears I have is that a future Conservative government would get rid of the pharmacare program, when in fact we should be looking at ways we can expand it, to include things like shingles, for example.

I wonder if my colleague could provide his thoughts on the fear factor of the Conservatives' hidden agenda that would not only not support pharmacare but look at getting rid of it in some form or another.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to start off by saying the Liberals were not passionate about pharmacare when, three and a half years ago, they stood in the House and voted down the NDP's bill on the Canadian pharmacare act. They voted with the Conservatives. It was the evil coalition of Liberals and Conservatives, a corporate coalition, voting down pharmacare.

I am glad that three and a half years later we have put in place the rudiments of pharmacare. It is going to help people with diabetes and contraception, but yes, absolutely, we need to move beyond that to all classes of drugs. This is a no-brainer. It would save $4 billion for Canadians and save hundreds of lives every year.

I am hoping the Liberals have changed their heart from their previous mistakes and that they actually become passionate about what the NDP has brought to this country. Will the Conservatives cut it and scrap it? Absolutely. I would not trust anything in the hands of the member for Carleton. After 20 years, he has accomplished nothing.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, Tommy Douglas was from Saskatchewan. He was an amazing man, a man of God who valued people for the right reasons and did a good thing.

However, since then, I watched my province over the last years, prior to the current government forming power, being driven into the ground. There were no jobs. Out of six children on my side of the family and five on my husband's, everybody left the province but two because there was nothing there anymore. Now, fortunately, business is welcome and things are booming in spite of what is happening federally.

I would like to mention, and perhaps the member would like to comment on, the fact that in Saskatchewan, when the NDP had its convention, it requested that the federal NDP leader, in his lovely suits and lovely watches, not attend the convention.

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

Madam Speaker, I find it a bit disturbing that a member from Saskatchewan, where there are cases of scurvy, would say things are great in Saskatchewan.

The reality is there was a recent election. The people of Regina and the people of Saskatoon, the two principal cities in Saskatchewan, did not vote Conservative. They voted New Democrat. In fact, all of the ridings in Regina and all of the ridings except one in Saskatoon voted NDP. That shows people in Saskatchewan do not feel Saskatchewan is going in the right direction at all. They gave a warning to Scott Moe and to every single Conservative federal MP to not take them for granted anymore—