Debates of Dec. 16th, 2024

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Before I go to questions and comments, I want to recognize it is the birthday of one of our colleagues: the hon. member for Humber River—Black Creek. I will not say her age, but for the length of time she has been here and her age, I think it is quite an honour and a privilege to have her as an MP here in the House.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for South Shore—St. Margarets.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the member's speech. I believe we are debating the privilege motion on the Liberal green slush fund. I did not hear the Liberal green slush fund or SDTC mentioned in his speech. I heard a lot of other things that seemed more like a budget speech.

I would ask the hon. member why his party continues to vote for the government when the former deputy prime minister will not even support the Prime Minister. In this case, the Auditor General found that almost $400 million was funnelled to companies of Liberal insiders, yet the member did not speak to that issue at all or say whether he will support the motion the House passed, which is paramount, that all documents be unredacted and released, otherwise the government is in total disregard of the role of Parliament and the 600-year history of our power to request documents.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member raised the question of what we are voting for. I can give a little sample of what I and my New Democratic colleagues have voted for. We voted to bring dental care to nine million Canadians. We voted to bring diabetes medications and devices and contraceptives to 10 million Canadians. We voted to bring a school nutrition program to schools in this country. We voted to permanently remove the GST from life essentials, monthly expenses that Canadians have to pay and cannot avoid. We voted to have 10 paid sick days for every Canadian working in this country.

The question I have for my hon. colleague is, why did the Conservatives vote against those things?

[An hon. member]

Why did you vote for the corruption?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order. The hon. member had an opportunity to ask a question. If he has another one, he needs to stand at the proper time.

The hon. member for Fleetwood—Port Kells has the floor.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Madam Speaker, some of us reach an age where we express our age in Celsius. It works for us.

I appreciate the latitude the member took with his comments. We have heard an awful lot from the opposition about the carbon tax and the horrible burden it is placing on the cost of everything, and yet every reasonable economist in the land says that it is simply not the case.

Perhaps the member could explain where the NDP is on that specific issue.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, if we are speaking of latitude, in my 16 years in this place, I have never seen such latitude given to a government in presenting a fall economic statement, which was basically to table it outside, run for the hills and not be in the House to present the document. That is showing latitude to a government.

In terms of the carbon tax, New Democrats have for many decades been very concerned about the climate crisis. We were warning about this decades ago. We have always called for an effective price on pollution and supported effective policies, whether that is a carbon tax, a cap-and-trade system, regulation of industries or, frankly, incentivizing the production of renewable energy in this country. Our record, in terms of dealing seriously and responsibly with the climate crisis, is second to none.

My disappointment is that after nine years of the government, I have not seen meaningful progress in reducing Canada's carbon emissions. The question the member has to answer is, why is that? Why has his government failed so terribly in meeting our international commitments, whether it is Kyoto or Paris? We have a whole generation of Canadians—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Shefford.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am a bit disturbed by everything I am hearing in the House today.

The NDP had an opportunity to help people who really needed it by continuing to support us on Bill C‑319 to increase pensions. Instead, the New Democrats have continued to support this spendthrift government with measures that do not really help people. Our leader even said that, at some point, someone would get tired of this marriage. Clearly, the former finance minister started to find this marriage with the NDP a little too onerous, because of its demands. As a result, we are stuck and we cannot help people. For example, we could continue to talk about the bill to help seniors. It was a much cheaper measure. My colleague from Joliette talked about it in his speech. The New Democrats like to brag about the dental care program when, just last Friday, people came to my office to complain about it.

Why did the NDP continue to support a government that is now completely dysfunctional, only to suddenly call for the Prime Minister's resignation?

It makes no sense.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will join issue with her on one thing, which is that we also believe the Prime Minister should resign. Our leader called for that very thing today. The New Democratic Party has 25 MPs in the House. My hon. colleague is a member of the Bloc Québécois and it has, I think, 33 seats. It has more seats than we do.

What have the New Democrats accomplished in this Parliament since 2021? Again, as of today, three million Canadians have signed up for and are receiving dental care in this country because of the efforts of the NDP. Agreements with British Columbia, Manitoba and, I understand, almost every other province are well under way to ensure people can walk into a pharmacy and walk out with contraception and diabetes medications that they need. That is what the NDP did. We worked to obtain a billion dollars to help kids across this country get access to a nutritious school meal every day. That makes a difference.

After we withdrew from our confidence and supply agreement, the Bloc Québécois attempted to make a deal with the government, which failed. The Bloc Québécois has achieved nothing in this Parliament for anybody. I would stack the New Democrats' record of accomplishment and achievement in the House, in this Parliament, against anybody's. We have helped millions of Canadians in a practical and pragmatic way, including millions of people in Quebec.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Vancouver Kingsway for the amount of his speech that he dedicated to addressing the housing crisis. It is clear that he and the NDP are serious when it comes to addressing the housing crisis. He talked about the need to double social housing across the country. He likely knows that one of the reasons the government has been unable to do so is that the CMHC has a definition of housing that is not actually being used in the various programs it operates. In fact, in today's fall economic statement, there are accelerated funds for a program of which only 3% delivers anything that helps those who are in core housing need.

I would appreciate understanding from him the extent to which he is similarly concerned with CMHC not using the right definition of housing and how addressing that could help address the need to get more affordable housing built.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, the housing crisis that we experienced in 2024 did not develop yesterday. It did not develop in the last five years. This has developed over decades of successive Conservative and Liberal governments, beginning in the early 1990s when the Liberals and Conservatives cut CMHC's investments in social housing in this country. That was the start of the long slide. That is why Canada today is so far below the OECD's averages of the percentage of our housing that is social housing. We can blame CMHC, but to me, the buck stops with the government. The policies of the government are the ones that should be driving the CMHC.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is a Crown corporation that should be fully driven toward producing a house for every single Canadian in this country who needs one. We all represent ridings in this country and we deal with thousands of issues, but some are foundational. In my view, housing is a foundational issue. It anchors people in community. It is what makes their ability to work and access schools and connect with community possible. When people do not have access to a secure, affordable, decent house, their rights as a citizen are seriously abridged. Only New Democrats are capable of making sure the CMHC—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I just want to add one more question here.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Port Moody—Coquitlam.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway for really sharing with the House all of the fantastic work the NDP has done for Canadians, all of those programs for Canadians.

I wonder if the member would not mind letting Canadians know what the Conservatives have not delivered in the House in three years.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for all of her work. She has been a crusading force in the House fighting for people with disabilities, including getting a meaningful Canada disability benefit. She continues to fight for that. In a word, I guess, the shorter list is to explain what the Conservative opposition has obtained for Canadians in the House, in this Parliament. The answer to that would be nothing.

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

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise at this moment and to debate in the ongoing motion of privilege. I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Kitchener Centre.

Being a stickler for the rules, I am aware as I begin this that today seems to be a day when all the rules are going right out the window. I noticed that the hon. member for South Shore—St. Margarets noted that the member for Vancouver Kingsway did not speak to the motion that is before us. That is consistent with the 20 minutes that the leader of the official opposition took to give his speech, which also made no reference to Sustainable Development Technology Canada nor the motion of privilege nor the return of documents.

Through a series of, I have to say, ill-considered, not necessarily ill-intentioned but certainly disrespectful decisions that were occasioned by the unanticipated and I am sure shocking events of the day in terms of how they affected the Liberal caucus, the planned tabling of the fall economic statement, the planned opportunity to hear the former minister of finance and deputy prime minister explain what was in that document, explain to us how the guardrails of deficits above $40 billion had been breached, explain to us what was in there and what was not in there, and then to allow each party in this place, including the Green Party, to have a right of response, to take questions and so on, all went out the window.

I am a stickler for the rules, so before turning the floor over to my hon. colleague, I am going to say that nothing I am about to say is relevant to the matter that is before the House for Orders of the Day. I apologize, but this is my one opportunity to say some things that I think need saying.

I want to say on the floor of this place, as we normally would in a circumstance where someone who has served on the front benches of this place as a cabinet minister since 2015, who has now left that cabinet suddenly and unexpectedly, that I do not agree with much of what that member for University—Rosedale put forward over the years, but I respect her enormously and it is a really lousy thing. I do not know what word to use. It is graceless, it is crass and it is unbecoming to our tradition as parliamentarians that someone as fine as the member for University—Rosedale would leave the cabinet, leave being deputy prime minister and leave being minister of finance.

The member had previously been minister of international trade and played a really large role in getting this country through our first encounter with a Trump presidency. She played a rather large role in negotiating and renegotiating NAFTA, now CUSMA, so that Canada ended up whole and in fact better because we got rid of the energy clause and what were then chapter 11 investor-state provisions of what was NAFTA and is now CUSMA.

In terms of good or bad luck for a government to have an expert, the member for University—Rosedale was, as far as I know, the first Canadian banned from Russia by Vladimir Putin because, before entering politics, she had a job. She was a journalist and was based in Moscow and she did not write flattering puff pieces about Mr. Putin. She told the truth and, as a result, she risked her life and certainly did not earn any bonus points. Mr. Putin decided to name her specifically as someone not welcome in Russia. I have had that honour since that time. Since Russia invaded Ukraine and since Greens have stood up with the rest of this Parliament in defending Ukraine and in urging that we do everything we can to stop the brutality of the Russian invasion, I eventually got listed as one of those not welcome in Russia, but I am a johnny-come-lately to the honour. The member for University—Rosedale has it hands down regarding the bravery of living in Moscow and doing that work as a journalist.

The member for University—Rosedale played a large role in navigating us through COVID. Much of Canada emerged from the COVID pandemic a different country, fractured, so I would love a group of psychiatrists, psychologists and experts to figure it out. We are more divided than we used to be and yet we got through COVID with half the death rate of our neighbours south of the border and we got through it using benefits that actually, for the first time in the history of this country, reduced childhood poverty.

There is much to be said about the hon. member for University—Rosedale, and I just wanted to, publicly in this place, thank the hon. member. I have argued with her many times about climate policy, but she is a fine public servant, sitting as the member of Parliament for University—Rosedale, and today was not a good day for any kind of gracious acknowledgement of a role that somebody played across the aisle.

I want to thank the member for University—Rosedale very much for the incredible work she did during very difficult times and during several crises. I am thinking about Russia and its war against Ukraine, and there was also the COVID‑19 pandemic.

Today was not a good day for us in this place, because I think it was a contempt that, without any “by your leave”, the fall economic statement was dropped. I have a lot of respect for the government House leader. She was not prepared to deliver a speech nor to take questions, but I think it was, again, classless and disrespectful that we were not allowed to give a round of speeches on what we thought of the document, having been briefly exposed to it in the shortest lock-up in history over any budgetary document.

Usually we are given the better part of a day for time to ask questions. We got the document at about 1:30 or 1:45 this afternoon. I had to run back here for question period. I am not looking for sympathy about how quickly we had to work and how hard we had to read, because there was so little there, but that does not matter.

The exemption on props, Madam Speaker, is if we are speaking to the document itself, so this document itself—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member is not to point to a document that she is holding. She can reference it, but she cannot be pointing at it.

The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands has the floor.

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

Madam Speaker, we learn something new every day. I understood that there is an exemption to the rule on props if we are actually speaking to a document and holding it in our hand for reference. I thought that was acceptable, but perhaps we had better check the rules.

The document has very little in it, despite its bulk, and there is almost nothing new. There is a pittance on housing and less than a pittance on climate. There is recognition for the first time, which is good, that there should be some transparency rules around climate finance. There is a suggestion that the government is going to work with the insurance industry, there is an idea, to try to get flood insurance for Canadians in flood plains and to keep them out of “harm's way”.

That is not going to be a solution to the galloping climate crisis and the number of Canadians whose life and limb are at risk from the variety of climate crises that are upon us, whether they are extreme flooding events; atmospheric rivers; heat domes such as the one that killed 619 British Columbians in four days in the summer of 2021; extreme events like hurricane Fiona or the derechos that devastated parts of Ottawa, storms that we did not even know had names; or increased tornadoes, floods, droughts or extreme weather events of all kinds.

However, very little is said for Canadians to make us feel safer in our homes or to make us think that the government understands what the crisis really looks like when we live through it. We live through more all the time. Wildfire events are extremely bad for our health. It is extremely hard to have to breathe the smoke from fires that come at all times of the year.

While the fall economic statement in its substance was extremely disappointing, the way in which it was dropped on us, with the lack of accountability for fiscal promises made and broken, is a low ebb for the Government of Canada. I wish the best to the new minister of finance. I hope someone will take responsibility.

Accountability is sorely lacking in all corners of our institutions, across Canada and into provinces. We need to take responsibility for our actions, be accountable, say when we have made a mistake and be honest with Canadians about how we plan to do better and what we plan to do.

It is not enough to have rhyming slogans. We need policies and programs, and we need to be serious about the work at hand, because Canadians are serious, honest, hard-working people, and they need to know that their members of Parliament are working for them, not just to prop up one colour-coded team against another.

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

Madam Speaker, since 10 o'clock this morning, I have been hearing a great deal of discussion about the fall economic statement, and as the member herself admits, even with the question of privilege that is before us, virtually all speeches, whether they were pre-2 o'clock or post-tabling of the document, have been on the fall economic statement. That is not necessarily my question, however.

One of the slogans the Conservatives have is that they are going to fix the budget. “Fixing the budget”, for many Canadians, including myself, would mean a Conservative government would in fact look at cutting things that we put into place, such as the national disability program, the national child care program, the national pharmacare program, the national dental care program and the national school food program.

Whenever the Conservatives use the slogan, “fix the budget”, does the member have any concerns in regard to what is actually meant when they say that?

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

Madam Speaker, we actually do not know what is meant by that, because to me, fixing the budget is to get a balanced budget. We know it will take some time, but the Greens have been advocating that if we want to balance our spending with our revenues, we should go for where the money is, which is the billionaire class, big banks, big oil and big grocery chains. They have been reaping excess profits over the last number of years.

It is true that, when I asked this in question period last week, the former minister of finance said that the Liberal government introduced an excess profit tax on banks and insurance companies, but it is a very small one. It did not apply to oil and gas or to grocery chains, and it did not apply to a wealth tax, because we have seen a massive increase in the number of billionaires in this country. They are very nice people, I am sure. However, I would like to see them taxed not enough that it would be cruel, but enough that it would reduce them to mere millionaires.

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

Madam Speaker, one thing I hear a lot about in my riding, from constituents and from people who are following this, is security clearance. I know the leader of the Green Party got her security clearance, and duly so. The leader of the NDP got his security clearance. The leader of the Bloc got his security clearance, and of course the Prime Minister has his security clearance. There is one leader who does not have a security clearance. That is the Leader of the Opposition. A lot of my constituents are simply asking, “Why not just get it?” Put out that fire and move on. However, he continues to avoid getting it.

My question to the leader of the Green Party is this: Why?

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

Madam Speaker, I have one small factoid correction. It is true that the Prime Minister of this country has his security clearance, but he got it by right when he became Prime Minister. He never actually had to go through the process that I, or the leader of the New Democratic Party or the leader of the Bloc Québécois, had to go through.

That is a good question, and a very important one. Why did the leader of the official opposition refuse to initiate the process?

The only reason that I can think of is that the Conservative leader is worried he would not get it, because we do not get it by right. I urge the leader of the official opposition to remove the doubt for Canadians that there is something about his history, potentially with foreign interference or something else, which means he worries that he would not get top secret security clearance if he were to ask for it.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, in the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands' speech, she talked about what we could do if we were to really tax the wealthiest. I know she believes one of the things we could do would be to lift folks with disabilities out of poverty. I used to say that the government was going to do this vote-buying scheme, and maybe it is just the Prime Minister who is planning on doing it. That vote-buying scheme left out folks with disabilities, just as this fall economic statement did.

Can the member comment on how important it is to lift folks with disabilities out of poverty and how this statement could have been a place to do it?

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

Madam Speaker, we are a rich country. Thanks to my hon. friend for Kitchener Centre for reminding us that we have an obligation as a country to have essential fairness. People with disabilities have a disproportionate rate of poverty, but why do we have people living in tent cities? Why are we allowing people to live in conditions that are inhumane in a country that could afford a guaranteed livable income for all?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to correct my record on the previous point I brought forward about the document. I checked on that, and Speaker Milliken ruled on this in the past. If it is a document that has just been tabled in the House, it can be referenced; members can have it in hand while referencing it.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Kitchener Centre.