Debates of Dec. 16th, 2024

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will start by saying that I want to recognize, as my friend from Saanich—Gulf Islands did on the point of relevance, that I will be focusing my speech on the fall economic statement. This is as opposed to what we really should be doing if we were to follow the orders of the day exactly, which is focusing on the amendment. I recognize that it has been about three months of talking about this particular motion. In fact, I have shared a few times about how we have had a number of speakers on this. The number of Conservative speakers alone is 223 or so. I have spoken quite a bit to this motion already. To make it clear, Green supported the precedent to the motion back in June. That continues to be the case.

My second apology is that things have been so last minute and disjointed today. I would usually even send notes for such a speech to translators. My apologies to them; I have not actually done that tonight either. However, it is important to take every opportunity I can to speak out for the concerns and the priorities of folks in my community. This is an important moment to do so because, of course, as many in this place and across the country are, I am troubled by the events of today. More so, I am troubled by the statement we were provided just this afternoon: the fall economic statement.

The reality is that folks in my community are in a time of crisis. Forty per cent of those living in poverty are folks with disabilities. This should not be the case in a country as wealthy as ours. I have spoken quite a bit about the number of people in my community who have been living unsheltered in recent years, at a time when rents have doubled. The number of people living unsheltered tripled from 2018 to 2021, from just over 300 to over a thousand. In the most recent point-and-count study, it nearly tripled again, to over 2,300.

Meanwhile, we continue to be the only country in the G7 with emissions that have risen since 1990. We are in a closing window of opportunity to act on the climate crisis. It is because of the significant crises that folks in my community and across the country are facing that Greens proposed a number of constructive solutions, which could have been in the fall economic statement. I will go over a few of those now with the time I have.

First, we could start with fixing the Canada disability benefit and following through on the promise the government made to lift hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities out of poverty. This was another moment missed for the government to follow through on doing so. This is also a moment at which it could have addressed the housing crisis we are in. Greens have been calling for the government to get towards a plan to double social housing across the country. If it did so, we would go from the bottom to just the middle of the pack in the G7.

One way we have proposed to do this is in a new motion I have put forward to require the CMHC to have two income-based definitions of affordable housing. This would ensure that, when it talks about such funds as the affordable housing fund, the money is actually going to build affordable housing. This housing would support people who are in core housing need. The proposal relies on research by housing experts, such as Dr. Carolyn Whitzman and others across the country. We have been calling on it to address the loopholes for large corporate landlords that are buying up housing in my community, raising rents and profiteering off the homes.

With those funds, we could turn and address a gap in HST that was exempted for for-profit developers of rental housing to ensure that non-profit builders of affordable home ownership, such as Habitat for Humanity, are HST exempt. We can pay for it, as I mentioned, by taxing real estate investment trusts as we do other corporations, for example. These are the kinds of housing solutions we would put forward to be in the fall economic statement.

We have also been calling for the government to get serious about funds to support harm reduction and other programs to support people who are using drugs, who are dying from poisoned drugs. I have not looked at numbers today in my community, but when I last checked, at least 72 people had died in Waterloo region from poisoned drugs. There is a federal funding mechanism called the substance use and addictions program. Greens had been calling for that program to be better funded so that communities such as Waterloo region would get their fair share of funding.

To date, we have received zero dollars in Waterloo region from this critical program to support organizations such as Sanguen and Community Healthcaring to provide supports that keep people alive because, while treatment is important, a person who is dead cannot get treatment. We need to provide a suite of supports that includes mental health, housing, treatment and harm reduction, along with safe supply. That is part of what Greens had been calling for.

Greens had also been talking about revenue tools to fund solutions. One of those revenue tools is a windfall profit tax. While there is a lot of talk in this place about the carbon tax going up two cents a litre in 2022 and in the years since 2022, the profits of the oil and gas industry went from some 26¢ a litre to around 44¢ or so, which is an increase of 18¢ a litre, all of which went to their profits. It ended up being around $66 billion or so for the top five oil and gas companies operating in Canada.

It is clear those companies are gouging Canadians while their emissions go up. They are responsible for the largest share of emissions while we are in a climate crisis. The government put in place a windfall profit tax and called it the Canada recovery dividend. It was applied on banks and life insurance companies in the midst of the pandemic.

As Greens, we have been saying, now do oil and gas. I put forward a motion to propose doing so. The PBO has costed it. With a windfall profit tax on profits above a billion, even just a 15% tax on profits above a billion, the government could generate $4.2 billion a year.

Those are the funds that could be used to invest in public transit, for example. Rather than seeing local councils, such as that of the Region of Waterloo, talking about cutting public transit routes or increasing fares, the federal government could be showing up with the dollars to help them make sure that high school students, for example, could get lower or no fares. We could also see the federal government step up for the permanent public transit fund to be put in place sooner than 2026, after the next election, to provide not only infrastructure, but also maintenance, for example, money for mechanics.

This is what we had called for. That windfall profit tax could be used for that, along with retrofit funding to help Canadians who want to look at installing retrofits in their homes. It would reduce their emissions and save them money. That program expired in February of this year. We had put forward for them to renew that program in a significant way, to look at $50,000 for Canadians who want to look at retrofitting their homes.

We had been calling for the government to invest in closing the infrastructure gap. At Six Nations of the Grand River, for example, it continues to be the case that 70% of those living on reserve do not have access to clean drinking water, and their infrastructure gap is around $1.6 billion. This was an opportunity to close that infrastructure gap.

We have also been calling for more equity in federal arts funding because, in communities like mine and many others across the country, while the Canada Council for the Arts has lost about $140 million in funding since the pandemic, communities like mine have continued to be historically underfunded. We get about three dollars per person, whereas places like Montreal, Vancouver and Winnipeg average around $18 dollars or so a person. The Greens had been calling for this fall economic statement to provide a new mechanism to ensure funding is more equitable across the country and for those funds to be restored to previous levels.

What do we get instead, after all these calls had been made? Well, when it comes to home retrofits, rather than actually delivering funds, the government talks about interest-free loans. Apparently, all the money was gone, the tens of billions they are sending to carbon capture. It is so much that I cannot even keep track. Environmental Defence has been doing their best to do so. They know it is about $18 billion or so in fossil fuel subsidies. It is certainly not always the case that they get loans, but when it comes to Canadians who want to retrofit their homes, I guess loans are going to have to continue to do.

On housing, the government is talking about accelerating more funds into the apartment construction loan program. This is a program for which only 3% of the funds are actually going to those in core housing need. Again, if the government does not actually address the underlying definitions of these funds, accelerating more dollars to them is not going to help address the housing crisis in a substantial way.

When it comes to the Canada disability benefit, rather than actually addressing the core issue, the government is talking about ensuring that it is tax-free. For many, the assumption was that would always be the case.

What we need is to see the government recognize that, for so many across the country, like folks in my community, the promise of what Canada could be is being lost. The Liberals need to step up to restore hope so that we can get back to that sense of what is possible for young Canadians and others across the country.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

Carbon Pricing

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak again on a very important topic: carbon tax and the policies that affect agriculture.

The carbon tax is a huge one. The capital gains tax was supposedly for some kind of elite businesses, but it really does affect businesses such as family farms. The capital gains tax is another one that is a very significant challenge. It goes along with the GST tax break, which the Liberals found is not getting them any bump because it is not one that works either.

However, there is some information on the carbon tax. The average 5,000-acre farm in Canada is paying about $150,000 every single year in carbon taxes. For an irrigation company, that multiplies at least to another $100,000. I know that my colleague will suggest other forms of energy, but natural gas and propane, and natural gas in particular, create power, and this is what is used in our part of the world.

For greenhouses, and I have significant ones in my riding for tomatoes, green peppers, lettuce and strawberries, they are facing huge costs, at $22 million a year in carbon taxes. By 2030, it will be $82 million to $100 million, which is a huge cost on greenhouse produce in our country. We have 44% of fresh fruit and vegetable growers already telling us that they are selling at a loss, and their statements show it. We have 77% who cannot cover their production costs, and we have 77% of produce growers in Canada close to going under.

Alberta farmers paid $17 million in carbon tax last year just on natural gas and propane to dry their grain and to heat and cool their barns. Bill C-234 would have eliminated the carbon tax on natural gas and propane, saving farmers that billion a year, but the senators gutted that bill.

However, we have ways that we can work on this. Some people do not get that we have institutions. This is from the president of the University of Alberta. He said:

...we understand energy, and we understand innovation. After more than a century of energy breakthroughs, we have learned the key to success: when you bring together the right people, you push the boundaries of innovation.

...This Alberta-based project brings together academia, industry, and government to advance the solutions that will reduce carbon dioxide emissions and diversify the economy.

We have ways that we can work with the energy sector and work with emissions. We have great academic institutions, like the University of Alberta, who can bring people together to work on this.

However, there are some other costs that are really interesting. At the ag committee recently, CN Rail representatives were there and they were asked about the carbon tax. For Saskatchewan, CN said that the carbon tax bill was $36 million just for transporting produce out of Saskatchewan, and then we can multiply that by Alberta and Manitoba. They were asked whether CN pays the carbon tax, and they said, of course not; we just download it to the farmers. This is the problem, which is that the carbon tax will be downloaded.

These are not rebate operations. There is no rebate for these large farm operations. They are the ones who do a great job of producing great food, food security produced in Canada, but they are being taxed severely. This is the challenge with the carbon tax, and it needs to be stopped.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and to the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity]

Madam Speaker, it is nice to be here in adjournment debate with my colleague from Bow River. Unfortunately, once again tonight, my colleague over there is spreading misinformation about carbon pricing to discredit the system, and that is misleading Canadians. Just recently, the Agriculture Producers Association of Saskatchewan estimated that a large, 5,000-acre farm spends around $10,000 a year on carbon pricing, but the member just said it is $150,000. APAS goes on to suggest that these costs can be mitigated with changes to some of the fuels used. As APAS knows, the vast majority, about 90% of on-farm fuels, are exempt from carbon pricing.

I come from a family of apple farmers. Obviously, there is no grain drying involved in apple farming, but I am a member of Parliament for a semi-rural riding. There are poultry farms, two mushroom farms, very large egg operations, beef farms and cattle, equine facilities and a huge horse community. Actually, just 25 years ago, Milton had more horses than humans.

The raw data the member shared is in stark contrast to what the Agriculture Producers Association of Saskatchewan said. In fact, the number that he used was more than 15 times greater than these farmers stated the costs were. Those farmers also very clearly said that every farmer's goal, no matter their political stripe or commodity, is to leave the land we all have in a better condition for the next generation. They also added that they are not anti-carbon tax by any means.

We have a collective responsibility and obligation to ensure that food is affordable in Canada, and every time Conservatives stand up in the House and blame carbon pricing for elevated food costs, they are straight-up lying to Canadians. The evidence is very clear. Time after time, we see the facts come out that if we were to eliminate carbon pricing entirely in Canada, we would see less money in the pockets of lower- and middle-income Canadians, and we might see a grocery cart valued at $100 come down in cost by 50 cents. It is not the cause of the affordability crisis that Canadians are experiencing. In fact, the number one cause that scientists, economists and farmers have collectively identified as the cause for elevated food prices is climate change itself.

The impacts of climate change and extreme weather through floods, wildfires, drought and all of the challenges we are facing as we continue to burn more and more fossil fuels and emit more greenhouse gases into our atmosphere are causing extreme weather. The hottest year on record is 2024. The record it broke was from 2023. The record 2023 broke was from 2022.

Wheat yields in Canada went down last year and the number one cause was climate change, not carbon pricing. The member makes it very clear that he is proud of our energy sector; he wears his “I love Canadian oil and gas” tie in the House on a frequent basis. We ought to be proud of our energy sector and support it and the workers within it. It has enhanced the wealth of our country, and that is a very important thing.

At the same time, we need to make sure that our oil and gas sector and our energy workers are innovating and providing solutions to lower their emissions so that we are not contributing to climate change.

I would ask once again that the member opposite cut with the misinformation. The number one cause of food inflation in the world is climate change, not carbon pricing. Carbon pricing is one of the best solutions for it.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, at this time, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all those people in my riding who have supported me over the years. I really appreciate it. It is the Christmas season, and I would like to wish all of those families, as they celebrate together and gather in communities, a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would also like to wish my colleague and friend from Bow River a merry Christmas. He used to be a teacher and taught one of my former colleagues, my friend Sherraine, and she always asks me how the member is doing. I tell her we have lively debates into the wee hours sometimes, but I do genuinely appreciate the opportunity.

I also appreciate the opportunity to say merry Christmas to my friend and to everybody in Calgary and around the Bow River area, of course. I would also like to wish everybody in Canada a merry Christmas at this time. I know that times can be tough, but we have solutions in Canada, and the member from Bow River and I can agree to disagree, but we are still friends. As we gather around tables and have meals and celebrate together, let us put our differences aside, enjoy one another's company and realize that we are better together than we are apart.

Democratic Institutions

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Madam Speaker, for 54 days the then minister of public safety and current Minister of National Defence slow-walked a CSIS warrant. The subject of the warrant was none other than a former Ontario Liberal cabinet minister and top organizer and fundraiser for the Prime Minister in the GTA. This same former Liberal cabinet minister has also been someone long suspected of being involved in Beijing's interference activities on Canadian soil.

At the public inquiry, national security officials testified that warrants of this kind are typically signed off by the minister in four to 10 days. Consistent with that, during the same time as this warrant, the minister signed off on two other warrants within four to eight days, but when it came to a warrant involving a former Liberal cabinet minister, top organizer and fundraiser for the Prime Minister, it took 54 long days.

We know, based on the evidence at the inquiry, that this was no accident. It is not as though the warrant application fell through the cracks on the minister's desk, which in and of itself would raise serious questions about the minister's competence. What happened was much more serious. There was a concerted effort within the government to slow-walk the warrant for a Liberal kingpin.

Here are the facts. The minister's chief of staff was given notice by CSIS that it intended to bring forward the warrant application in respect to the former Ontario Liberal minister. Two weeks after the warrant sat on the minister's desk, CSIS followed up with the minister's chief of staff. The warrant continued to languish on the minister's desk for 30 more days. Indeed, not until the director of CSIS personally intervened did the minister finally sign off on the warrant.

The question is why. What took so long? When I raised this question in the House during question period, I received a non-answer from the minister. The minister and his chief of staff testified at the public inquiry, where they provided no credible explanation for the delay. Canadians deserve answers about why it took 54 days, during which national security may have been compromised, so I put it to the government: What is the explanation?

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Rural Economic Development and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak about the important issue of combatting foreign interference in our democratic institutions. It is a little ironic for my colleague to talk about political interests in matters of national security when his leader still will not get his security clearance to learn more about foreign interference taking place in his party.

Since coming to office, our government has taken a range of measures to address the threats of foreign interference, such as amending the Canada Elections Act in 2018; creating both the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency and the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians; standing up a range of initiatives to strengthen our electoral system against cyber and other threats through the plan to protect Canada's democracy in advance of the 2019 election; and building upon and further strengthening that plan in the advance of the 2021 election.

Bill C-65 would ensure key protections against foreign interference are not limited to the election period; ban intentionally false and misleading statements about election activities or the voting process to disrupt an election or its results; prohibit contributions through money orders, prepaid gift cards or cryptoassets, the source of which can be difficult to trace; and introduce new third party contribution rules to increase transparency and mitigate the so-called dark or foreign funds from entering the system. If passed, these amendments would continue the cycle of continuous improvements to Canada's electoral process. Members will have a chance to study the amendments proposed in Bill C-65 and we look forward to the discussions that will follow.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary acts as if the Liberals are bystanders and yet we are talking about a specific warrant that sat on the minister's desk for 54 days, despite repeated attempts by CSIS to have the minister sign off on the warrant.

I simply asked for an explanation. Why did it happen? Is it not because it was about protecting a Liberal kingpin? It was about protecting someone the Prime Minister saw as benefiting him, as a Liberal organizer and fundraiser for the Prime Minister. Is it not the case that, once again, the current government put the partisan interests of the Liberal Party and the Prime Minister ahead of national security?

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Madam Speaker, the government is committed to protecting and strengthening Canada's democracy. We look forward to the ongoing work of the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions, including the commissioner's final report in December. The government will review the report in due course. In the meantime, the government continues to take steps to counter foreign interference. This includes proposed amendments to the Canada Elections Act, recently introduced through Bill C-65. I look forward to the ongoing engagement with members of the House as we consider potential changes to further protect and strengthen our Canadian democracy.

I want to wish my colleagues and everybody in the House happy holidays. We will see them in the new year.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6:48 p.m.)