Debates of April 18th, 2024

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my hon. colleague and friend, the member for Simcoe North who we actually meet out in the middle of Lake Simcoe in rural Ontario.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to the 2024 budget on behalf of the hard-working residents of Bradford West Gwillimbury, the soup and salad bowl of Canada; East Gwillimbury; Georgina; and the Chippewas of Georgina Island.

After nine years of the Liberal government, Canadians are worse off than ever before. Sadly, this failure of a budget will only make things even worse. The Prime Minister and finance minister have refused to listen to common sense and have presided over a shrinking middle class and record-low levels of national productivity.

Prior to releasing this budget, the finance minister promised it would be a plan to unlock pathways to the middle class for the next generation. Wow, can members believe that? The Liberal government used to brag about its ambition to grow the middle class. The first chapter of the Liberal Party's 2015 platform was entitled “Growth for the Middle Class”. The 2019 platform emphasized “Forward: A Real Plan for the Middle Class”. Now, here we are in 2024, and instead of looking to grow the middle class, the Liberals are admitting that because of them, the middle-class lifestyle, which used to be a reasonable and attainable expectation for living life in this country, is now something that few Canadians will ever enjoy. It seems that, over nine years, the promise of Canada is gone.

This is the day-to-day reality facing Canadians. Two-thirds of young Canadians have resigned themselves to being worse off than their parents. Can members imagine that? With this budget, instead of restoring that promise for our citizens, the Liberals are sending a clear message to millennials, to zoomers and to everyone else left behind, saying that it's tough luck and that they should have been born sooner or in better circumstances. However, Canadians, both young and old, are well aware that it is the punishing taxes and the high-spending agenda of the Liberal government that are to blame, and the policies have locked Canadians out of so many of those pathways that people used to join the middle class.

The cost of living is out of control. It has left half of Canadians living paycheque to paycheque. After paying for their everyday expenses, Canadians just do not have money left over to save, and others are resorting to charities and food banks just to get by. It did not need to be this way. Common-sense Conservatives have been calling on the Liberal government to restore the promise of Canada and to bring home lower costs by axing the tax, building the homes and fixing the budget. Unfortunately, the Liberals did not axe the tax. In fact, the Prime Minister increased it by 23% on the first of the month, making it so that families, rural residents, farmers and small businesses suffer even more.

For months, I have been calling on the Liberal government to address the unfairness that has excluded rural communities, like York—Simcoe, from the rural top-up. The Liberals insist on classifying them as Toronto, making them pay more in carbon taxes than other Canadians. After ignoring this problem for years, budget 2024 finally says that the government will look to better define rural areas, but it only commits to put forward a proposal to do so later in the year. Let us talk about a day late and a dollar short. This is just further proof of why we have to axe the tax for everyone everywhere.

The Liberals also have not built the homes, after nine years of the Liberal government. The government promised to lower the price of housing, but now rents and mortgages in Canada have doubled, and middle-class Canadians are forced to live in tent encampments in nearly every city across Canada. Even small towns like mine are seeing the impacts, as all forms of shelter have become unavailable and unaffordable.

Budget 2024 will not make things any better. It will certainly give more opportunities to Liberal ministers to pose for photo ops, but it will not help Canadians who cannot buy a home or who cannot afford to renew their mortgage.

With $40 billion in new spending in budget 2024, it is obvious that the Liberal government has failed to fix the budget. The Prime Minister has failed to put a stop to the inflationary deficits and has failed to rein in spending. He will continue to make life worse for Canadians. The Liberals are now spending more on interest and more on the debt than on health care. There is more money for bankers than for nurses. It is no wonder there is still no hospital in York—Simcoe.

To protect our social programs and to lower costs, Conservatives have called on the government to cap the spending with a dollar-for-dollar rule to bring down interest rates and inflation. That would require the government to find a dollar in savings for every new dollar in spending.

Instead, the Liberals are misleading Canadians, pretending that the rich would pay for the Prime Minister's spending. We all know that it is the everyday Canadians, the extraordinary Canadians, not the Liberal bigwigs and Bay Street billionaires, who have been paying the price. The government even admitted in its response to Order Paper question 2407 this week that it does not even know how many wealthy Canadians have fled the country and no longer paying taxes.

When Canadians look around at what this country has become, they see abysmal failures of the Liberals to address the problems that the Liberal government created. It is more clear now than ever that the Prime Minister is just not worth the cost.

I recently received a letter from a constituent of mine, Laura. I will read it into the record so that the government can finally understand the pain it is inflicting on Canadians.

She wrote that her family lives in Pefferlaw in a small bungalow. They are a single-income family. She is a stay-at-home mom of two, and her husband works 60 hours a week, just so they can survive financially. They received their gas bill, and over the months, the carbon tax has steadily increased up and up. Now, it has officially become more than their actual usage. They, like so many others, are struggling after the bills are paid and the groceries are purchased. Her grocery shop one day was $167 for just four bags of groceries. They have nothing left over.

She does not pretend to know the intricacies of big government, but she is also not a fool. She really feels like they, and everyone else, are being cheated by the Liberals, who rob from the poor to feed the rich because they lack the ability to budget taxpayers' money. They do not go on vacations. They do not eat out or take their kids to the movies. They live like that, apparently, because the Liberals need their money more than her family does.

The Liberals can choose to keep ignoring the common-sense proposals put forward by Conservatives, but it is shameful that they continue to ignore the plight of everyday Canadians like Laura. Every Canadian knows what a budget is and what it is supposed to do. By definition, it is a means to determine financial goals. With budget 2024, it is evident that the Liberals have no financial goals, no vision, no plan to bring back balanced budgets to our country and affordability to the people. Their only objective is to spend as much of Canadians' money as they can before they are sent packing. The needs of ordinary Canadians be damned.

Canada is broken. Canadians are broke. I will be voting, alongside my common-sense Conservative colleagues, against this budget.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I am going to work my way backwards because I know the NDP have a couple of questions.

The hon. member for London—Fanshawe.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was really quite happy to hear the member talk about the fact that the government is not actually making the ultrarich pay their fair share. That is fascinating. I do agree that in terms of what we are seeing in this budget, it certainly does not go far enough. The increase of the inclusion rate for capital gains simply is not enough. New Democrats have been calling for an increase of the excess profits tax, the corporate book tax and other taxes.

Would the member be willing to work with New Democrats, and maybe put forward an amendment, to ensure that the government, within this budget, would actually increase the corporate tax rate, like what we are seeing in the states, so that we are competitive as opposed to being the lowest in the OECD?

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, to bring this back to York—Simcoe, it is the farmers, the working class and the middle-class people who are paying for these deficits. Let us look at this. There is $50 billion in new spending. That is more than we bring in through GST alone. I alluded to the fact that York—Simcoe does not have a hospital. We still do not have a hospital. To my NDP colleagues, I would say that we are spending more on the debt than we are on health care. It is unbelievable.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from York-Simcoe belongs to a party that has been saying for weeks that the Liberal government is corrupt, that it is mismanaging the public purse and that it is managing everything all wrong.

Yesterday, in an interview with Le Téléjournal on housing, the member's own leader said that he wants to use federal public funds to give money for housing to Trois‑Rivières and Victoriaville, where his party hopes to win seats. Meanwhile, he plans to penalize Montreal, where he will likely not win any.

Does my colleague think it is right that his leader is already starting to buy votes with public funds, even before taking office? Does he not think that his leader should wait until he is in power before he starts using public money for partisan purposes?

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we can talk about the housing accelerator fund. Interestingly enough, I am a York Region and Simcoe County MP. The northern six municipalities in my riding applied for the housing accelerator fund, and guess what? They got no money. Apparently, in York—Simcoe, we are “too Toronto” for the rural top-up and actually “not Toronto enough” for any housing funds.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition was in Hamilton several weeks ago as part of his “make Canada great again” tour, and he talked about dismantling the national housing strategy, which is a strategy that has built units in the member's riding. In fact, I know that there were 18 transitional units constructed in his riding. Passage House in East Gwillimbury provides shelter services for people who are in encampments. There was also a youth shelter constructed in Sutton. It provided services by Blue Door.

I wonder why the Leader of the Opposition is so intent on cutting supports for not-for-profit organizations as well as cutting supports for those most vulnerable Canadians who need the services and the facilities in the member's riding. Can I ask him why?

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am trying to make the Liberal government understand. Let us take York—Simcoe, for example, which we are talking about tonight. I want to again talk about the rural top-up of the carbon tax because the government members love to divide Canadians. They are dividing Canadians based on geography now; that is what they are doing. I went atop the CN Tower with binoculars, and I still could not see my riding of York—Simcoe, with binoculars, yet the government chooses to classify us, the soup and salad bowl of Canada, as Toronto. It is actually unbelievable.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Before proceeding, I just want to apologize to the House because I did miss that the hon. member for Mirabel was not wearing a tie, and we all know that we should be wearing ties in the House when we are speaking, so just an apology to hon. members for missing that.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in this space on behalf of the people of Simcoe North. To those watching at home, “hello, Alice”.

Before I start my comments today on the budget, I just want to take a moment, with the Chair's indulgence, to make a tribute a former staff member in my office who passed away a couple of weeks ago.

Diane Bell had been a staff member of mine since I was elected. She was a fabulous woman, the first person I talked to in my circle of friends when I decided to run for office. She was a wonderful human; she cared a lot about kids and her small communities. In fact, the mayor of Ramara said, “On the school board, when there was a busing issue, she was always there for the kids.... She was a very strong advocate for the small schools in Ramara, that they don't get closed and that they stay open.”

To her husband, Rob, and her son, John, I want to say that we are going to miss Diane very much. We look forward to celebrating her life on the weekend with all her friends and family.

On the budget, it is a shell game of accounting, and I will get back to that later. However, one of the smartest people I worked with was named Fabrice, and he said that we cannot make a house bigger by thinning the walls. That is exactly what the government is trying to do. It has no vision and no plan. It is at the end of all its ideas, and to grow the economy, or make the house bigger, it is resorting to thinning the walls.

I looked through the budget very carefully. Everyone says we are in a productivity crisis. The government acknowledges it. I went through the budget, and there is no GDP per capita chart. We are in a productivity crisis, and the government does not care to tell Canadians how we are doing in GDP per capita.

One of my mentors, Hugh Moncrieff, said that what gets measured, gets done. Obviously, the government does not care about making Canadians wealthier every year.

I do not expect anyone to just take my word for it. Let us go to some experts.

Don Drummond, a former senior civil servant and a very smart man, said that he would grade this budget as a D, but that it is very close to an F. He said, “I actually thought given the lead-up there were going to be more tax gimmicks”. Maybe we dodged that a bit, but he would leave it on a D.

Bill Morneau said, “This was very clearly something that while I was there, we resisted.” He was referring to the capital gains changes. He said, “We resisted it for a very specific reason: [We were] concerned about the growth of the country”.

Robert Asselin, another very smart individual and someone who has written a lot about fiscal policy and government spending, said, “I'm worried the government is overspending again, in a pre-election setup, [with] higher interest rates and debt servicing cost being very high already and rising fast”.

Andrew Coyne of The Globe and Mail wrote,

Indeed, there is not a single measure in the budget aimed at boosting investment generally.... Having spread itself so thin, budget after budget, on less urgent matters, the government finds itself without the capacity to act on the two or three things that really demand its attention. Assuming it even had any intention of doing so [in the first place].

Sahir Khan says the government is high on “aspiration” and low on “perspiration”. I could not agree more.

Let us talk about a few measures in the budget. On housing, the government wants to increase demand measures by helping individuals take more money out of their RRSP. It is also helping wealthy developers. I am surprised to learn that my NDP colleagues will be supporting the budget, because the only people who can max out their RRSPs are very wealthy individuals. The NDP is going to end up voting for a budget that supports the most wealthy in the country and wealthy developers, except that the government vastly under-delivered on its disability benefit.

Let us talk a little about the accounting tricks, shall we? The Bank of Canada has been losing money, lots of money, billions and billions of dollars a year. Last year the government told us it was a few billion dollars. This year, we do not actually know. The government is trying to hide that from Canadians; it does not actually disclose it in the budget. It actually buries it in another line with the Canada mortgage bond program and consolidates the two together.

The truth is that interest rates have not come down, because government spending has gone up. Therefore, Bank of Canada losses are higher this year than the government thought they would be last year.

I want to spend a minute on the capital gains trick, an accounting facade. The government expects it will get $7 billion in new revenues because of those who transact between now and January 25. This is very convenient. It sets a date in the future to change the capital gains tax, it forces a bunch of people to transact, and it gets a bunch of revenue that goes to the bottom line.

If the government did not get that revenue, it would be offside its debt-to-GDP ratio and missing its other fiscal anchor, which is the commitment to keep the budget deficit below $40 billion. There is a big risk to the fiscal framework just sitting there in that budget if people decide not to transact, if for some reason they think a future government might change its mind or if the government has made the wrong assumptions on how many people will transact.

Let us talk about extra money for the Canada Revenue Agency, with $336 million over two years and another $180 million to write cheques to small businesses for the carbon credit rebate. I have a lot of faith and confidence in the people at CRA, who work hard, but there is something wrong over there or in the system of government.

Let us take the bare trust fiasco. On the very last day, it reversed its decision after all these taxpayers hired accountants, did the paperwork and spent thousands of dollars. The people at CRA are doing a great job, but the agency, the CRA itself, does not need more money; it needs to be visited by a proctologist.

We need to figure out why we continually have implementation problems. The government's idea is to give the CRA more to do. People are not waiting on hold long enough, so let us give it more programs to deliver. The government has a massive capacity problem. It does not need to find more things to try to do, it actually needs to be better at doing what it is supposed to do. We need to make government simpler, not bigger.

The hon. colleague before me talked about the rural top-up. It appears that some individuals in Simcoe North are not getting the rural top-up. We are investigating this, but it makes absolutely no sense. While we are on “what makes no sense”, there is not a single country in the world except Canada that has raised taxes on energy over this inflationary period. For some reason, the government wants to make energy more expensive when people are having a problem paying their bills. It absolutely boggles the mind. It leaves one bewildered.

On the capital gains tax, the government wants us to believe there is a pool of people, the one percenters, and they are the same one per cent and are the worst people ever, except guess what: That one per cent changes every year, because people end up in the top 1% or 10% for various reasons. They might sell a business, or something might happen; they might come into some extra money. They are not the same ugly people; the top 25% are not the same nasty, money hungry, greedy people. They change from year to year. We need to be careful about how far we try to squeeze people before they start leaving this country.

I look forward to the questions from my colleagues and from the NDP members, who might be able to enlighten us on how they can vote for a budget that is going to help wealthy individuals save more money for their RRSP for a home but not for the disabilities benefit.

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the most significant line item expenditures is the Canada disability benefit. It is a substantial—

[An hon. member]

One billion a year?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, $1 billion is a considerable amount of money, believe it or not, for the member across the way.

At the end of the day, I find it a little confusing. I am trying to understand the Conservatives' policy on the Canada disability benefit. That should not surprise anyone, because we do not know what their policy is on the pharmacare plan or the dental plan. We assume, based on their voting patterns, that they are against those initiatives.

Does the member support the allocations in the budget for programs such as the dental program, the pharmacare program and the disability program?

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe the government is applauding the disability program. It over-promised and under-delivered.

If we want to talk about line items in the budget, let us talk about debt servicing costs. Debt servicing costs are now the exact same amount that the GST is to require. I have a bunch of friends I like to see on Fridays at Frank's compound, Waxy and Frank. Those guys go for lunch once a week. Now, every time they get a bill that has GST on it, they are paying interest on the debt.

There might be some good things in the budget, but people do not buy a house because they like the curtains.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, page 74 of the budget says that the government is exploring new measures to expand access to alternative financing products for mortgages, including halal mortgages.

We know, or rather we do not know, the Conservatives' regard for the separation of church and state. We know that they love to pray for their King. That being said, I know that my colleague is very familiar with the banking system.

I would like to know whether the Conservative Party is in favour of changing banking laws, mortgage laws and our prudential and mortgage regulations to accommodate certain religious minorities and possibly add to the mortgage rules certain precepts that are found in sharia law.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Madam Speaker, I was surprised to see this in the budget as well, but I must admit that I am not an expert in how those kinds of mortgages work. All Canadians would like to believe that Canadians should have access to financial products. I am interested to see how the government is going to consult on this. I do not know what is being proposed. I think we should learn a bit more.

I would tell my wonderful colleague that the government is creating dual classes of mortgage borrowers with respect to those insured and uninsured on mortgage renewals. The government is allowing insured mortgage holders to shop around for a renewal but not allowing uninsured mortgage holders to shop for a better rate on renewal without doing the stress test, and that is unfair.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague's financial acumen is renowned in our party.

What does he think is missing from this budget that he would like to see?

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Madam Speaker, a year and a half ago, the government tabled a fall economic statement that showed a balanced budget in five years. Now the deficit is $20 billion. Since everyone started telling the government to slow down its spending, it has added $103 billion of new spending. That is net. The gross number is $156 billion. What I would like to have seen in this budget is some kind of plan.

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

Madam Speaker, when I reflect on the budget, what I see is a government that is committed to the issue of fairness, fairness for every generation. What I see is a consistency that has been clearly demonstrated since 2015. As a government, we have a responsibility to be there in a very real and tangible way, in many different ways, to support Canadians.

We saw that in the first budget we presented back in 2015-16, shortly after the 2015 fall election, where we made it very clear that fairer taxation was important. That is the reason why we put a special tax on Canada's wealthiest one per cent back then, which the Conservative Party voted against. We also reduced the tax on Canada's middle class, which the Conservative Party also voted against.

We have not been discouraged with respect to moving forward and have supported Canadians in many different ways. I can talk about the supports for the poorest seniors with the guaranteed income supplement, the GIS, which was greatly enhanced back in 2016 because of a budget measure. We can go through the years that followed, where we have consistently seen the government take actions to support Canadians in a very real and tangible way. That is the consistency we have demonstrated.

This budget is a reflection of what Canadians are telling the individual Liberal members of Parliament from coast to coast to coast. We are not saying that everything is perfect. We recognize that Canadians have very real needs. This budget, much like the fall economic statement, is there to support Canadians.

One of the other things that has been consistent is the Conservative Party of Canada's approach. Its members are not there to serve the needs of Canadians. They are more interested in filibustering and being a destructive force. One member just moments ago was talking about rural Canada and how he wanted to see a certain area get a larger percentage of the carbon rebate. There is irony in that. The fall economic statement includes a doubling up of the rural carbon rebate. Why has that not been implemented? It is because of the Conservatives. They are preventing the legislation from passing, which would enable more money going into the pockets of rural Canadians, yet they criticize the government for not providing supports. That is only one example of many I could share with the House.

Unlike the Conservative Party, when we talk about a sense of fairness, we mean it. One only needs to take a look at what happened during the pandemic as a great example. We created programs that saw literally millions of dollars put into the pockets and purses of Canadians so they would have disposable income to buy the groceries necessary, pay for their mortgage and so forth. We were there to support small businesses by providing things such as the wage loss subsidy, which also helped Canadians from coast to coast to coast. We can talk about how we were there for our seniors and people with disabilities with one-time payments.

We could talk about infrastructure and what we have built over the last number of years. If I were going to give a Homer Simpson award to the leader of the Conservative Party, it would probably be, at least in part, for his position on the Canada Infrastructure Bank. We invest billions of dollars and, as a direct result of that investment, it levers virtually $2 billion for every $1 billion we invest, and we have infrastructure projects happening across the country.

What do the Conservatives say about that? They want to get rid of the Canada infrastructure program. What kind of stupid idea is that? Do they not realize the positive impact it has on Canadians every day? That is just one program about which they have no idea what they are talking about.

Today, one of the needs we are facing is the issue of housing. During the nineties, no Conservatives, New Democrats or Liberals, and I am not sure about the Greens because they were not in the House at the time, but not one political party inside this chamber was advocating for the national government to play a role in non-profit housing. There was not one political party doing that.

If we fast-forward to 2016, under the current Prime Minister's leadership, we saw a government begin to take an active interest in housing. When the leader of the Conservative Party was responsible for housing, we know what he did. He was in the position to develop a housing strategy or build houses. We barely need more than one hand to count it. He built one, two, three, four, five, six houses. That was it. His total contribution was six houses.

It is literally a joke when the Conservatives stand to be critical of the government. No government in the last 50 years has done more proactively to deal with housing than this government has. We can look at the programs. There are supports for housing co-ops and organizations such as Habitat for Humanity. We are working with different levels of government to ensure the dream of owning a home is possible.

No government has demonstrated more leadership on the housing file than this government, which is the absolute opposite of what the current leader of the Conservative Party did when he was the minister responsible for housing. We understand the importance of the issue, and that is why we are seeing literally hundreds of millions of dollars being spent in every region of this country. We understand the best way to build more homes is by investing in it, unlike the Conservative Party.

Members can look at the contrast. Today, after the leader of the Conservative Party spoke, I asked him a question. I asked him about the fact that he only built six houses. What did he do? He stood up and attempted to mislead Canadians. He said he had built 90,000 homes. That is absolute garbage, but it is consistent with what we see coming from the Conservative Party.

It does not matter. The Conservatives will say things in here and they will use social media to mislead Canadians. When the leader was called out on it, I cannot say whether he stayed in the House, but he sure vacated his seat. He might have still been in the chamber, but he did not like being called out on the truth. The truth is, as a government, we recognize that there is a role for the national government, and the Leader of the Opposition does not recognize that. There is the contrast.

I believe if Canadians were to understand who the leader of the Conservative Party is, they would turn their backs. They want to see a national government that is prepared to work with municipalities, provincial governments, non-profits and social enterprises, or anyone who has ideas to assist in bringing in more houses. That is what it is going to take. It is not just the federal government. It is going to take a lot more co-operation, and the federal government is prepared to provide leadership. That is what we see in the budget.

One member stood up and spoke about how the government does not have anything regarding innovation and that we are not trying to encourage companies. I pointed out that we do have the accelerated investment tax credit, and the member just did not realize that. They did not hear what the Minister of Finance had said. He was being critical because he thought we did not have anything like that.

Again, here is the contrast. As a national government, we recognize that there is a role for the national government to play in encouraging innovation and encouraging investment, and we are not alone. Even Progressive Conservative Doug Ford in Ontario recognizes that, which is why we landed, for example, the Volkswagen electric battery plant. Members can imagine a plant the size of 200 football fields. It is likely going to be one of, if not the, largest manufacturing plants in North America. It will provide thousands of jobs, and this is not just in Ontario. This is the type of thing in which we believe. We think of the future green jobs, and there will be a lot more coming because we have a national government that has taken an interest in developing an economy that is going to be there to continue to build jobs into the future.

For those who are following the debate, I will give a clear indication of success. It took Stephen Harper almost nine years to generate just under a million jobs. Well, we are at just over eight years today, and we have actually generated over two million jobs, and that was while going through a pandemic. It is because we understand that the Government of Canada has a role to play in increasing opportunities into the future, which is why we will find that there is no government in the history of Canada that has actually signed off on more trade agreements than this government has. We have done that because Canada is a trading nation. Trade creates jobs.

I was so pleased to be with the minister of agriculture in the Philippines where we opened up a trade office for agriculture and agriproducts. Why did we do that? We can take a look at future opportunities in the Asia-Pacific. I am glad that it is located in metro Manila in the Philippines. This is going to create more jobs into the future. It highlights industries that are very important to us. This is a government that cares, whether it is the larger cities, the smaller municipalities, our rural farms and all regions of the country, which is why we will see there are investments to support Canadians in every way.

We can take a look at what a progressive government can do to make a difference. We can think of child care. There is a national child care program, the first ever, which enables more women to participate in the workforce and improves the quality of life for so many. We can think of the Canada pharmacare program, which would take steps towards complementing the Canada Health Act and the health care services that Canadians have grown to love and cherish. We can think of the national food program. For many years, as an MLA, I used to talk about kids going to school on an empty stomach. This is a national government that would address that issue. We are supporting children because we understand the need for it.

However, what kind of response do we get from the Conservative Party, from the members opposite? They say, “Well, the federal government should not play in roles like that. Maybe just hand over money, but do not care how that money is spent.” That is not good enough. Canadians' expectations are that the government will be there to support them.

Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

moved that Bill C-380, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (plastic manufactured items), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Madam Speaker, soggy, limp, wet and utterly useless: we are not talking about the Liberals. We are talking about paper straws. The only people who like to suck on these paper straws are Liberal and NDP MPs. New research shows them to be harmful to our health because they are coated in truly toxic, forever chemicals. The Liberal replacements are four times as expensive.

Just in case the Liberals in the chamber have not knocked on any doors lately or talked to Canadians, which we know is true, Canadians are suffering in the worst inflationary crisis in my lifetime. Two million Canadians are using a food bank. One in four Canadians are skipping meals because of the cost of living crisis caused by the Liberal government.

The Liberal government is hell-bent on making everything more expensive. Banning plastic is bad for people's health. It is bad for their pocketbooks, and it is bad, actually, for the environment. Take a look around. People are listening to this speech, maybe in the chamber, maybe at home on their laptops or cellphones, which are all made of plastic. Many of the items we see in the rooms we are sitting in have plastic components. What the Liberals are trying to do is replace those components with more expensive materials. If people think they cannot afford their bills now, wait until the Liberals fully enact their plastic ban. Start with six items, then 16 and then 60. After that, the cost of living quadruples again.

The plastic straw ban is a fantasy. It is not based on reality. The reality is that the science backs up my position. Later today, I will be attempting to table the documents that I am referencing here to help people understand the science behind this ridiculous ban that does not make sense.

First up is that eco-friendly paper straws may be worse. According to this peer-reviewed article, it was reported in 2023 that many of the paper straws on the market have toxic forever chemicals like PFAS, which are associated with health problems like low birth weight, cancer, low response to vaccines and more. That is the first report that I will be tabling later on.

Another one is a regulatory impact analysis statement that members of the government should know about very well because it is from the Department of Health. The government's own regulation analysis shows an increase in costs, GHG emissions and also tonnes of waste as a result of this ban. This means there will be increased emissions and increased costs for consumers. Their own report shows that.

The third report that I will be tabling later today is a comparative study of a life-cycle assessment of bio-plastic straws and paper straws. This is a peer-reviewed article demonstrating that plastic straws have a lower environmental impact than paper straws.

Paper straws are terrible. No one likes them. They suck. Now the science shows that they are actually bad for people's health, bad for the environment and bad for our pocketbooks.

We have a waste management issue, not a plastics issue, so we do have issues. The poster child of this is garbage in the ocean. We should never use our waterways as a dump. We should never transport waste through our waterways, but that is exactly what is causing the garbage in the ocean. There are 10 rivers in the world that cause 95% of the garbage that is found in oceans. Eight of those rivers are in Asia and two in Africa. Banning more and more plastics in Canada will not stop this problem.

Banning plastic straws will hurt the most vulnerable: the disability community. This ban is cruel and heartless for people who rely on safe plastic straws. If people cared and listened to Canadians, they would hear from nurses and care aids about how people with physical and mental health challenges are suffering with this ban. I have a friend who just got shoulder surgery done. He is in a sling and having difficulties drinking and carrying on. It would be nice to have one of those plastic straws that bend to be able to take sips of water as casually as can be. We are hearing from many medical professionals about how this ban has impacted their ability to care for seniors and people with disabilities. It is cruel that the Liberal government is banning one of the tools they use to make sure that people are hydrated.

It is not just the straws the Liberals are banning that makes things more expensive. It is also grocery bags. Grocery stores are making a killing selling reusable plastic bags. They come with massive margins that are supposedly good for the environment. If we look in the trunk of our cars or at home, everyone has bags stuffed with other bags and stuffed with other bags on top, because every time we go to a store and forget to bring them or whatnot, we buy another reusable bag. It is the margins on these bags that are very impressive for the grocery stores.

My NDP colleagues always want to bring up Galen Weston, and I am sure they receive a huge card of thanks for supporting the Liberals. Maybe the Liberals themselves will get a big card thanking them for banning plastic bags because now they get to sell reusable bags over and over again, which is maximizing profits for grocery stores. Long suffering Canadians pay the price for this ill-thought-out and illogical argument.

Depending on the bag, if one buys one of the reusable ones, one might need to use it over a thousand times before it equals the environmental footprint of a plastic bag. This is unrealistic and ultimately worse for the consumer and the environment. On these reusable bags, we often see organic cotton bags, which are popular with the woke crowd. Those organic cotton bags are worse for the environment than the regular cotton bags, because they need to be used weekly for years to match the environmental footprint.

The problem with organic farming is the yield is not as much off the acre of land and the inputs are different and cost more, so the organic material the stores are selling has a larger footprint than just regular cotton.

It is not that long ago and we remember what it was like before we had the Prime Minister, and it will not be like this when he is gone. We used to be able to receive complimentary bags for our groceries, and we could reuse them for multiple purposes. For example, for a pet, a garbage can in the house or to store anything. There was no cost to us and we had these bags. We could save our money to pay for other items. However, the Liberals, in the charade of belief that this is for environmental reasons, banned this and are making us buy replacement bags, which are usually plastic and have an even larger environmental footprint than the original plastic bag.

There is technology that can help. Governments should be working with provinces and companies, and the Calgary Co-op is a great example. After it heard of the silly idea to ban plastic bags, it tasked its supplier to come up with a biodegradable bag, which it did. It found a bag that performed much like the old plastic bags and in 10 years' time in a landfill it composts to nothing. It is a great idea. It is great for the environment. It is great Canadian technology and it is something the government, after review, said no to. It said that if they were to be sold, they needed to be sold in bulk and at a distance away from the till, making it inconvenient for consumers and ultimately inconvenient for the country.

This is not about science. It is about government controlling our lives. If the government really cared about Canadians and the planet, it would cancel next week's radical international plastics banning meeting. There is a delegation of people flying from all corners of the world to Ottawa to discuss what plastic item they will ban next. They will be burning all that jet fuel and driving those emissions into the atmosphere, and while they are here I am sure they will be hosted with galas, food and fine wine.

I propose we take the millions that are going to be blown next week on nothing and a whole bunch of hot air and invest them in waste management in the countries that have those 10 rivers that are causing 95% of the garbage in our oceans.

That would be a concrete, common-sense Conservative solution. Spike the meetings, take the money and invest in waste management in countries that need it. If we do that, we actually have an impact on the environment versus the virtue signalling these guys are so good at. However, the idea is too practical for the Liberals, who are not about solutions but feelings, emotions and tag lines.

On the plastics in the ocean, which is a problem that we need to address, when we faced environmental problems in the past, we used technology, not government's heavy hand, to fix it.

I have done some research: What is that plastic? Where is it coming from? The majority of plastics are from commercial fishermen. They call it “ghost gear”. When fishermen are done with the gear, which is made out of plastic, be it nets or fishing lines, the practice that takes place is that they throw it overboard. These nets float with the ocean currents, collecting debris and making a bigger problem.

What I am proposing here as a common-sense solution is that we have a deposit placed on the commercial equipment that usually gets tossed overboard. Instead of tossing it overboard, the fishermen would take it back to the supplier, get their money back from the refund and the net will never get into the ocean. That is a common-sense solution that I plead with some of the MPs here who might be at this elitist, fancy gathering next week to propose. Steal the idea. It costs nothing for consumers. It costs nothing for the taxpayer, but it is a concrete solution to go after the majority of plastic that we find in the oceans.

Common-sense Conservatives will fix what this Liberal government has broken. Canada should be a superpower in recycling plastics. If this government would just meet with the first ministers, it would learn the solution is plastic recycling, not the heavy hand of government. Like many issues we face in Canada, the federal Liberal government ignores the provinces. To improve plastic recycling in our country, it starts with meeting with the premiers. It is real Canadians, such as from the premiers, that this government needs to listen to. It is not cheap slogans and bans that will make a difference in our environment.

Why the Prime Minister needs to meet with the ministers was proven in court. The federal Liberals broke the law. They went around the Constitution and meddled in provincial business. If the Prime Minister would just meet with the premiers, whom he brags about not having met with since 2016, he may find out about some of the great work they are doing on recycling.

With this recycling of plastic molecules, we can do it over and over again, which can become the building blocks for the next consumer good. It would drive down the cost of goods, which is a good thing in a cost of living crisis. Any consumer goods that we can lower the cost on is a good thing, and I encourage, once again, this government to pick up on that idea.

Canada should be that superpower in plastic recycling. If we had a competent government, we would be investing in technology, not bans, and this technology already exists. If there were a federal government willing to partner with provinces and private entities to increase and scale up that recycling, we could be that powerhouse and reuse that molecule over and over again.

However, the Prime Minister will not listen to the courts, will not listen to Canadians and will not listen to the experts that are in these studies. There is another study I will table after my speech about the Calgary Co-op shopping bag ban, which shows that it is scientific, it is biodegradable and it can work within our system.

However, for this government to admit its errors, backtrack and be transparent, I will not hold my breath. The Prime Minister will not listen to anybody, but soon enough, he will hear from voters.

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

Madam Speaker, I am wondering if the member could provide his thoughts on the fact that part of demonstrating leadership is to take action. It is not just words. If we go around the world and say, “Look, we think you should be doing X, Y and Z,” would he not think that one of the ways that we demonstrate leadership is to actually take action, which he is suggesting we not take?

The member opposite is saying that we should not be having any form of ban on plastics and that it is okay to have plastic grocery bags and so forth. I would think that a majority of Canadians might disagree with that principle. Does he believe that the banning of plastic grocery bags is a bad thing?

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is bad for one's health, one's environment and one's pocketbook. There are studies that I will be tabling that the member has access to. It is the government's studies that show that greenhouse gases increase with such a ban. The costs increase with such a ban.

If they want to take a leadership role, they should follow the science. The science shows that plastic is not toxic. What this Liberal government is doing is virtue signalling at the worst level.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Madam Speaker, with all due respect to my colleague, I have to say that he gave a rather odd speech to Parliament. He spoke for almost 10 minutes about paper straws. In any case, my understanding is that my colleague and the Conservative Party want to reverse the ban on plastics. I never thought I would hear such a thing in an institution like ours, in Parliament.

At the same time, he had a lot to say about the fact that there is so much plastic in our oceans. That strikes me as a paradox. Is my colleague simply trying to highlight the relevance of oil, since we know very well that plastics are primarily made from oil?

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Madam Speaker, the member talked about plastic straws and paper straws. Paper straws are shown to be worse for one's health and worse for the environment.

With this ideology that is hell-bent on opposing anything associated with the petrochemical industry, one might find people opposed to bringing back the plastic straw, but I would propose that the member go knock on a hundred doors and ask Canadians what they think. They will tell us that no one likes the paper straw. It sucks.

Let us get back to the plastic straw. It is functional. It works. It is better for the environment.

As for the ocean, he must have missed the first part of my speech, when I talked about how the majority of plastics is ghost gear, which is fishing gear, not plastics. Changing the straw in Canada will not make a lick of difference in the oceans, because we actually have a waste management system.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Madam Speaker, it was a very interesting speech, to say the least. I would love to sit down and talk with the member, as a person who represents coastal communities, about the amount of plastic we see in our oceans.

He compared a friend of his who had a short-term injury to a person living with a disability.

What I am trying to get clear about is this: My mother had a stroke close to seven years ago. She is physically disabled on one side of her body. She does not have the use of the right side of her body. She uses a straw to drink because of that limitation. She uses metal straws.

There are particular people who have disabilities, who may need to use a plastic straw. I am just wondering if he could be very specific about who they are, because it felt like he was saying that all people living with disabilities have the same need, and I do not think that is the case.