Debates of Nov. 28th, 2024

Carbon Pricing

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's radical environment minister is willing to drive Canada's economy into the ground with no remorse. The carbon tax will cost the Canadian economy $25 billion by 2030. In the face of 25% tariffs, the minister can do something. He can cancel his planned quadrupling of the carbon tax. If he is unwilling to protect our economy, will the Prime Minister at least allow Canadians to protect our economy and call a carbon tax election?

[Steven Guilbeault, Liberal, Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Party of Canada, when it comes to many things, including climate change, is extremely reckless. This is the party that has let the people of Jasper down. For four consecutive years, it invested nothing to protect Jasper from forest fires. From 2011 to 2015, there were zero hectares of fire removal and zero hectares of mechanical removals to prevent forest fires. The Conservative Party let Jasper down. Now it wants to let Canadians down in the face of climate change, but we will not do that on this side of the House.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, nine years of economic vandalism proves that the NDP-Liberals are not worth the cost. The radical environment minister's own department now admits the carbon tax will cut $25 billion from Canada's economy in the next six years, but he does not care. He said that the Liberals will quadruple it anyway.

Canadians already cannot afford to eat, heat, house or drive themselves, so with the threat of a 25% crushing tariff on Canadian goods, will the Liberals finally put Canada first and axe the tax for all goods so Canadians can actually afford to live?

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I am honestly not sure how Canadians can give any credence to anything the member and those folks over there say. The member on the other side of the House ran on a platform that included putting a price on pollution. It is the height of hypocrisy. At the same time, she and her colleagues are denying the science of climate change and condemning our children to a terrible future. From an economic perspective, they have no plan to build an economy that would create good jobs for our kids and our grandkids. It is absolutely shameful the positions that they take.

Housing

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, last year, we announced a $471-million federal investment in Toronto through the housing accelerator fund to unlock nearly 12,000 new homes over the next three years and over 53,000 over the next decade. A few weeks ago, the Conservative leader announced his plan to shut down homebuilding by making dangerous cuts to federal housing investments.

People in my riding of Scarborough—Agincourt cannot afford these kinds of Conservative housing cuts. Can the Minister of Housing update the House on how he is solving the housing crisis?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Minister of Housing]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her advocacy on behalf of the community she represents.

We are putting billions of dollars on the table to help cities cut red tape, change their zoning practices—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

I am going to ask the hon. member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo to please not participate if he is not recognized by the Chair.

I am going to ask the hon. minister to start from the top.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, we know that it takes investments to solve the housing crisis. We put billions of dollars on the table to help communities cut red tape, change their zoning practices and speed up permitting so they can build more homes faster. The Conservative response to this program, which is helping construction go up and rents come down, is to advocate for cuts to communities, including cuts in communities represented by 68 Conservative members of Parliament.

We are going to put money on the table to help cities build homes more quickly. It is a shame that Conservative members of Parliament will not even stand up for the communities they represent to get their fair share of this important funding.

Pensions

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the government's massive public sector pension plan surplus is so large that by law it has to be drawn on. This surplus was created by contributions from both employers and workers, yet the Liberals continue to leave workers out and follow the former Conservative two-tier pension plan, which forces 100,000 public service employees to work for five years longer than their colleagues.

When will the Liberals reverse this regressive plan and treat all workers fairly?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, we obviously recognize the very important work done by the federal public service. We want to make sure that we look into this matter very carefully. As to where this money will go, it will go into the general accounts for the moment.

We will be discussing this with different parts of the government, including the unions, and we will come to the right decision.

Justice

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to raise with the Minister of Justice Bill C-63. We finally see some movement. It has gone from prestudy to committee. Legal groups that have looked at it and the many people who have reached me say that this four-part bill would help protect children from sexual predation online. Parts 1 and 4 have large degrees of consensus; parts 2 and 3 remain problematic.

Can the minister tell us what he will do to improve and expedite passage of this bill to protect our children and other vulnerable people from online sexual predators?

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, who often acts as the conscience of this chamber.

I would simply appeal to all parliamentarians: The issue of protecting kids from child sex predators should not be a partisan issue. Getting this bill into committee is of paramount importance for all of us who want to combat online sex predation by people who take vulnerable children and spread revenge porn about them. If we all simply listen to Amanda Todd's mother and Rehtaeh Parsons's mother, we can get behind this bill, get it to committee, get it off to the Senate and protect children. That is what Bill C-63 is about. I hope everyone in this chamber can support it.

Business of the House

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, for the first time in nine weeks, the government House leader has taken control of the House agenda, and it has only cost taxpayers $2 billion, or $1 billion a day. I want to congratulate the leader.

Can she tell the House if she has any more deals with costly gimmicks up her sleeve for the rest of this week or next? If so, what will the House be debating? Perhaps the leader actually intends to do the right and inexpensive thing, which is to table the Liberal green fund scandal documents in the House?

After all, even Richard Nixon eventually tabled the incriminating tapes.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to thank my hon. colleague for his question because it was not exactly complimentary, but I am going to answer it anyway.

I am pleased to announce that later today, we will dispose of Bill C‑78, a very important government initiative that will provide Canadians with substantial savings through GST/HST relief across the country. Canadians will be able to buy necessities like groceries, snacks and children's clothing tax free.

Even if my hon. colleague does not not understand or appreciate how important this is for everyday Canadians, I can assure him that we do as a government. We are listening to Canadians, responding to their needs and helping them get through a tough economic time by providing a tax break as we move into the holidays, even if the Conservatives do not want that support to go to Canadians.

Furthermore, I would like to inform all hon. colleagues in the House that Monday, Tuesday and Thursday of next week shall be opposition days. Earlier this week, I shared a unanimous consent proposal with the opposition parties that would pause the privilege debate so the Conservatives and the NDP could have their opposition days next week. I hope we can find agreement on this motion so that the House can debate and vote on the billions of dollars needed to fund the programs and services that Canadians rely on, depend on and expect us, all parliamentarians, to deliver for them into the future.

The House resumed from November 27 consideration of the motion and of the amendment.

Government Business No. 43—Proceedings on Bill C‑78

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

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill.

It was an interesting question period today, to say the very least. As we understand, the Conservative caucus, led by its mighty leader, has done yet another flip-flop, one of great consequence, I would suggest. I want to take the opportunity to explain why we are here and why I say we have seen a flip-flop.

The reason there is a need for this motion is that the Conservatives have determined they want to enter an area that I would suggest is borderline contempt of Parliament, ultimately preventing the government from dealing with a wide spectrum of issues that would have a positive impact on Canadians. That is a direct result of their multi-million dollar game for the personal benefit of the leader of the Conservative Party.

The motion that we are debating is necessary for supporting Canadians. The recent announcement made by the Prime Minister deals in part with the issue of affordability, recognizing, with the holiday season approaching, that the appropriate action to take is to support Canadians with a GST tax holiday on numerous products. Ultimately, every member of the House should vote in favour of that. It would be a very powerful, collective message that every member could take to their constituents. I believe it is a wonderful idea. In fact, I have had the opportunity to express my thoughts on this issue for the last number of days.

An interesting fact came up today, and it is important to note it for people following the debate. Especially through social media, the leader of the Conservative Party has downplayed the tax break's significance and is very critical of what we are doing by providing it. The leader of the Conservative Party has made up his mind, and that is a powerful thing for the Conservative caucus, because as members will recall, what made national news last week was the manner in which he has absolute and total control over Conservative members of Parliament.

We can read what members of Parliament and Conservatives are saying about their leader. Let me recite a few of the statements. One is from a headline, which starts off by saying, “[the leader of the Conservative Party]'s office maintains tight control over what Conservative MPs say and do”. I will quote from the article, and keep in mind that these are Conservative MPs who are saying this—

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, do we have quorum?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I will check if we have quorum.

And the count having been taken:

We have quorum.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, my feelings are not hurt, because I realize that this particular member likes to call quorum when I am speaking. I do not think he likes hearing the truth. He needs to understand that members of the Conservative caucus are out there speaking. They are talking about a leader that goes around Canada saying that he is going to make Canada a free place, but that does not apply to the Conservative caucus.

Here is the story. Here is what Conservative members are saying: “After two years of Pierre Poilievre as their leader, many Conservative MPs say they are much less free now than they were before his arrival.” The man who—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I apologize. The hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes is rising on a point of order.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, no apologies to the parliamentary secretary are necessary. I think you will find, if you review his comments, that the member is intentionally and inappropriately using the proper names of elected members of the House, which, as you know, is a violation of the Standing Orders.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

I said “leader”.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, while he interrupts me, I will note that he repeated his name more than one time. He needs to withdraw it.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind members that, as all members know, they are not to address members by their first or last name, only by their title or riding.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.